Healing Pain

Apparently, there’s a difference between hurting pain and healing pain. Thankfully, I am lying on the sofa experiencing the latter for the first time in weeks.

You may remember, from my last blog, that I thought I had hemorrhoids. Well, the suppositories didn’t help and the excruciating pain I’ve been in for the last three weeks had not subsided. I went to see a colo/rectal specialist, but that exam was so painful for me that he had trouble identifying exactly what was wrong. He said it could be hemorrhoids, a boil, or an abscess. With that decree, I made the appointment for surgery, ready for relief.

Naturally, I was a bit nervous about the anesthesia because of what transpired the last time I woke up, with my world ruptured, rocked, completely altered.

Buoyed by prayer, I went in this morning with my dad as my support. Jeff couldn’t make it, but kept close tabs via phone. I felt perfectly at ease before the surgery, but upon awakening, still groggy, I kept repeating, “I’m alive. I’m alive. Do I have all my parts?” Even after the nurse assured me I did, I went into some kind of delayed trauma mode. I began to cry and shake and kept repeating myself. Since my pulse rate was faster than it should be, and I couldn’t calm myself down, the nurse pulled my dad in. He stroked my forehead and assured me everything was fine. That had the calming effect I could not garner on my own. When I finally opened my eyes and my ears, dad was in the middle of telling the nurse all about dan doodle, some kind of spiced up pig guts that people in North Carolina eat. In all my life, that’s the first time I ever heard of it, and I’ll be happy if it’s never mentioned again in my presence.

Thankfully, I was too groggy to be totally grossed out, but I couldn’t miss the way the nurse was repulsed. Uh yeah. You think.

After stopping by Walgreens to pick up my prescriptions, we made it home. I tried to sleep, but the pain kept me awake. I slipped in and out of sleep, and I could (and still do) feel heavy soreness, akin to post baby delivery.

I didn’t have a boil, or an abscess, or hemorrhoids. I had a fissure, which is a tear, in the anal canal. I didn’t get a chance to ask my doctor what causes that, but I will when I have my follow up next week.

But, I have to admit, I like this pain and discomfort. I like it because it’s a healing pain and already I feel better than I have in weeks, and maybe it’s just mental, but hey, I’ll take it!