What a Pain

Yes, I know. It’s been nearly two months since my last entry. But I have a good excuse. The mother of all excuses. I had surgery in March, and I have literally been bed-ridden for most of the time since. Even now, I have to create this very post from bed via a laptop. Besides that, I have been on heavy painkillers. Despite what my cousin says I just don’t think blogging on narcotics is the best of ideas. Well, maybe for your entertainment, but not so much for my reputation. What is my reputation, by the way? Something to ponder…

Since I’m on the subject of painkillers, let me say now—Mama doesn’t do well on them. I was first on Percoset, which did nothing but make me absolutely nauseous. I could barely eat anything for a good two weeks (but hey, I lost 8 pounds!). My doctor eventually switched me to Darvoset, which is supposed to be of milder form. I did ok on that for a few days, but I apparently was not eating enough while taking it. One morning after taking two before I went to bed and then one more when I woke up, things started getting wicked crazy. I got extremely jittery, everything started spinning frantically, and I ultimately ended up upchucking twice until I dry-heaved. I'm trying to get away with Advil as much as I can and only switch to the heavy stuff when it gets to be too bad. I prefer to be in pain than feel so sick.

When I was four months pregnant with my first child, I developed kidney stones. The pain became so intense that I started to go into preterm labor. I had to be hospitalized until I passed the stone, which took four days. I remember that on the way to the hospital, I was literally trying to envision a way to throw myself from the car without hurting my unborn child just so I could knock myself out from the pain. To head off the pain and thus the contractions, the doctor put me on Demerol while in the hospital. I was very hesitant about taking anything while pregnant, but they assured me that it was safe and that it was much more dangerous for me to be in pain and labor at only four months pregnant.

Let me tell you, the minute that Demerol was released into my IV, I was in love. Up to that point, I had never taken a prescribed or over-the-counter drug stronger than penicillin (prescribed of course). I had never tried a recreational drug a day in my life. In fact, I had never even taken one puff of a cigarette (and still haven’t). So this was a very new and foreign experience to me. But it did the trick – the pain went away, the contractions nearly ceased completely, and I was in absolute la-la land. Being the smart lady that I am, however, I realized very quickly that I was enjoying the effects of the drug too much. That scared me. After just a day or two, I asked the nurse to switch me to Tylenol. Day Four, I gave birth to a beautiful stone that I affectionately named "Mick" (as in Jaggar, after all he was/is a Stone) and I was released from the hospital. The doctor said that if it had gone a day longer, he would’ve had to go in and get it with a stint.

The doctor said that the good news about my stones experience was the pain of the stone was about equivalent to that of childbirth, so in a way it had prepared me for the pain to come in another five months. LIAR. Being the unlucky recipient of both kidney stones and labor pains (both within a five-month span), I can tell you, labor is by far much, much, much more painful. And remember, the pain of the stones made me insane enough to want to throw myself from the car. (Imagine the joy that was me during labor!) That alone demonstrates how truly miraculous and rewarding having a child is. Because I had two. On purpose.