<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><ul> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">(An old friend who has gone through the cancer mill asked me about how I felt </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">immediately after surgery, and then later . . . ) </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style"></font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">. . . my earliest recollections after I went under were a series of ghastly </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">dream images, where I was involved (as a third-person character) in painful </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">and disgusting ways. But for some reason I think that those were only in the </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">first hours after surgery. When I slowly came out of it I was of course drugged </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">to the gills, but my memories are mostly pleasant, a succession of close friends </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">coming by. I could spell out responses (couldn't talk because of tracheotomy) </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">on a Speak 'n' Spell board. </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style"></font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">A measure of how out-of-it I was . . . when they prepped me for the ambulance </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">ride to my recovery hospital, they pulled out -- yanked! -- the tube than ran </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">down my nose to my stomach, and the catheter up my penis. I hadn't really been </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">aware of either! Good thing, I suppose. </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style"></font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">When I was recovering in the bed-rest place, I went through a kind of dreamy </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">fugue state. I was aware that I had come extremely close to dying several times, </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">but my feeling about that was eerily positive. "If I had died I wouldn't even </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">have known it," and so forth. That calm acceptance has evaporated, replaced </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">by my normal state of mild anxiety. </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style"></font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">I'm still experiencing a variety of post-op depression. Mostly a constant desire </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">to sleep, some of which is just physical recovery, but I recognize that part </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">of it is "if I'm asleep I don't have to deal with anything." I'll talk to the </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">doc about it tomorrow. I don't want to join the Prozac Nation, but I wonder </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">if there's a short-term, less powerful medication that could make me a little </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">more peppy and productive. I hate creeping around like a fucking invalid, and </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">don't like the application of that word to myself, with its double meaning. </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style"></font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">I'm still in constant low-level pain, which is manageable with naproxin but </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">never goes completely away. It's a distraction, but I can't blame it on my </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">low productivity. The current novel's in a rough patch anyhow, and I wish I </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">could bring 100% of my ability to it. Fortunately, everyone around me, very </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">much including my editor, is forgiving and understanding. So I inch along knowing </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">this, too, shall pass. </font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style"></font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Bookman Old Style">Love, Joe </font></li> </ul>
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