Days 29 - 35: Losing another sense or two.
Marriage. It's nice to share everything. Except nasty headcolds. And toothbrushes, I just can't do it.
The night of December 30th I started feeling a little congested. My sinuses hurt. I couldn't quite tell if it was a cold or if it was just the pressure and pain from my surgery, as that manifested in my sinus areas.
Approximately 3:00am. FULL BLOWN COLD.
I slept maybe 3 hours that night, if that. I woke up and couldn't stop blowing my nose. I wasn't able to breathe. Taste? That was elimated. Sense of smell? Gone with the wind.
Let's add this up:
- I can't see very well.
- I can't smell anything.
- I can't taste anything.
Well isn't this just dandy. By noon I took my temperature. 99.5 degrees. Fine. You want to do this body? You want to fight? Because at this point I have nothing left that makes me want to fight back. You've taken my vision, my sense of smell, my taste, my ability to breathe easily. What else do you want?
My sanity? Oh sure! May as well.
I had started to see this strange black spot in my right eye. Well, what I thought was my right eye. I had remembered what Charlie and Dr. Grodin asked about what I see, "is it persistent?" It wasn't. It seemed to be only when I'd blink. Very weird. At this point I had managed to get my worries under control to an extent. But after 3 days of seeing this prior to NYE, I was scared. So there I was, sick as a dog, and I was calling the doctor's office on New Year's Eve. They were open, but I couldn't be seen because the doctor was in an emergency surgery.
Charlie.
"Dr. Grodin can see you tomorrow at 10am. He will be seeing the post-op patient, too. If anything changes, or it becomes persistent, call the on-call number."
Charlie and Dr. Grodin to the rescue again.
I tried to enjoy the evening. Ryan made spiced wine and homemade Bang Bang Shrimp (like the ones from Bonefish Grille!). Too bad I couldn't taste any of it. He even put it on a bed of lettuce. The lettuce is my favorite part at the end.
The girl that cried wolf.
I saw Dr. Grodin on New Year's Day. No tear. I thought maybe something was happening in my right eye, like I had a tear and that's what the dark spot was. Nope. Nada.
Retinal Rivalry.
Are you picturing two eye balls in a sword fight? I was.
Basically he thinks maybe what I think I'm seeing in my right eye is actually coming from my left and the battle that is going on between my two retinas since my right is compensating more. And since I have "stuff" going on, the picture that my brain is seeing is getting disrupted. Well gee, I never thought I'd hear my retinas were fighting.
I kept my Thursday appointment as well. No change of course. He told me that next week would be the deciding factor. We'd have the surgery talk if my fluid level remained at its plateau.
The Breakdown: Shortened version. I had felt so much better, and was redirecting my anger about this whole situation into looking forward to spending a New Year's Eve having fun and pretending that what I had going on wasn't happening. It was ripped out from under me. I was too sick to go. Why can't I catch a break. Not only is the fluid level remaining the SAME, but now I can't even try to forget about it and enjoy something. Every ounce of positive thinking flew right out the window and I decided that I didn't even care. Why should I? Each time I try to care, something threw a brick wall up in from of me. Nothing was going my way. At least that what I wallowed in. My own MISERY.
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| What a fake smile. You can see the uneven-ness. It's all I could see. |
**I'm going to make a separate post about the fluctuation of my anger and fear over the course of this whole recovery. It'll be more extensive, and probably only read by patients and others dealing with the recovery. I'll try to keep it easy to read so that it's not boring!
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