So after weeks of working in the TB ward that is my office, I finally succumbed to the plague.
On Friday afternoon around 4pm.
That sucked.
So today’s post is naturally a bit late, because writing requires that I be able to sit up for a time, and also thinking that my brain-thing does.
Or something.
I got to wondering about funny stories about sickness, and decided that sickness isn’t terribly funny. So I’m going to explain why major surgery isn’t nearly as bad as a root canal.
Bear with me.
With a root canal, you first get a shot in the gums. (Ouch!) Then after a bit the dentist starts poking a pushing and scraping. All of which you’re awake for. You don’t feel the pain, not then, but you experience the whole thing otherwise and in all it’s temporal glory. You even get to enjoy the occasional commentary like, “Uh oh…” (Words that no patient should ever want to, or have to, hear.)
Afterward, your face feels like it’s melted off and you can’t eat or drink for fear of hurting (or embarrassing) yourself. And when the shot wears off you feel every jolt of pain the process exacted, over the course of the next day or so.
Contrast that to major surgery. You check into the hospital, which seems like checking into a nice hotel. You’re whisked away to an examination room, where you dress is a gown and a nurse takes your vitals. A doctor may or may not pop a head in to say hi. Eventually, someone else comes in and gives you a shot in your IV and says they’ll be right back.
You wake up shortly in recovery, with no recollection of anything transpiring. (And potentially a tenuous grasp of reality, but what’s the harm in that?) And remember all those mornings you roll out of bed still exhausted? Well, in the hospital you can just go back to sleep.
Until the nurse wakes you up to take your sleeping pill, that is.