Wednesday, April 6, 2011

The ABCs of Surgery

image from rehabstudents.com
With reluctance, I've become rather expert in being a surgical patient.  Although I consider myself the picture of health (hello, I'm a triathlete!), in the past 10 months I've "gone under the knife" on three occasions - and not a single operation was cosmetic.  Allow me to share some information I've gleaned from my experiences.

  • A is for Anaesthesia - I don't know how you feel or respond to pharmaceutical medicines, but they just don't agree with me.  I generally get incredibly nauseous, usually vomit and take hours to recover my faculties after being put under with general anaesthesia.  Each time I encounter a well intentioned anaesthesiologist, I indulge them as they describe their remarkable ability to "give me something for that" when I explain my body's aversion to narcotics.  During my surgical adventures in these past months, I've learned that advocating for myself using the words "local anaesthesia, please" works wonders, and I have dramatically decreased my discomfort level following a surgical procedure.  It may not work for everyone, but I am huge fan of less being more when it comes to (pharmaceutical) drugs.
  • B is for Benign - This is absolutely the news you want to hear when you receive the results of your biopsy.  While only (only? really?) 2 of my 3 surgeries this year involved having tissue removed from my body and being tested to determine cellular composition, I am very pleased to share that last week's neck dissection resulted, for the first time ever, with a benign finding.  I honestly believe that the third time was the charm and my "necklace" of scars is now complete.
  • C is for Cancer - Receiving a diagnosis of cancer is frightening.  Actually it is incredibly frightening - who am I kidding?  I have a dear friend who was unable to even use the word cancer when I was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer about 10 years ago, insisting instead on calling it the "C word."  Ok, we all know what the "C word" really is, and I always felt that whispering cancer  instead of speaking about it in a normal tone, gave far too much power to some renegade (potentially Palin-esque) cells.  No, thanks, I'd prefer a discussion to denial any day of the week.  C can also be for conversation.  The worst thing by far, in my experience, is the discomfort friends and acquaintances have demonstrated with regards to talking about my health challenges.  I understand that everyone is unique in the way they experience trials, but I much prefer dialogue to dismissal.  Which I suppose would be letter D, but since I'm officially (says me) done with cancer, let's just finish with the fact C is also for conclusion and cease and culmination and closure and completion and .....

5 comments:

  1. Hahaha I think it's a good attitude to have, and a creative way of describing it. "Palin-esque" made me laugh. :D

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  2. That's great news, Silvia! Let's hope your necklace of scars is complete, and that could be an interesting title for one of the books you have in you. xo

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  3. Thanks, Maya & Rachel!!
    I swear the clouds broke yesterday and I am so very excited about life and the opportunities ahead of me. Good call on the potential book title, Rach. Who knows what may lie ahead - these days I think anything is possible.

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  4. The clouds broke. The blue skies shone through. And the only 'negative' thing about you is your biopsy result. Yay to you. Bravo.

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  5. Thank you, Anonymous. Very sweet words.

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