Day Six: Ho, Hum

Hey, dumbass! Skipping your meds is another dumb idea, because no sleep was to be had! I get out of bed and go on what I project will be a 30-minute walk but what is actually a 90-minute walk, because everything I do, I do.very.slowly. I try and tell myself that I’m just being “mindful” and that it’s a sort of yogic practice. But it’s very trying. I feel depressed. I look online and see this is a very common side-effect of general anesthesia, and it will wear off. I do what I always try and do when I feel low, and I keep busy. But everything takes forever and the only result is that I feel overtired, more in pain, and anxious about everything—what’s happening at work, all that’s sliding at home, and all those plans, still sitting there, idling! And when oh when will my condo sell?  Beloved arrives home and tells me that the guy who won the Boston Marathon didn't really, they won't count it, because he had a tail wind. That's outrageous!, I say. Will the guy who has a headwind who comes in a few seconds slower get a few second added? Ridiculous. Then he says that not everyone who qualified for Boston got in because it was over-subscribed, and that (I'm simplifying here) now the qualifying times will actually be much harder to achieve. Curses! I knew I should have done the Richmond Marathon in November and qualified then! Damn this gallbladder (not the SOLE reason I couldn't do it, but one of the big reasons I didn't)!

I tell him about an article I read about restaurants in Las Vegas and he asks if I knew that there was an art gallery there and I said I don’t know, I might have and forgotten, but it sounds new to me,or maybe vaguely familiar, and maybe I even went there when I was there with my friend Tina? (this is about the caliber of my conversational skills, and I wish I were joking--that's what I mean when I say I'm very.slow. In everything!). And then he told me about the cool fountains at the Bellagio, and I told him about this other article I read about how difficult they were to build, all of which results in him Googling flights and rooms in Vegas and then we talk about adding on a trip to the Grand Canyon and it’s all lots of fun thinking about all the things we can do and places we can go when I’m all healed up. And after all that, do you think I take my pain meds so the pain abates just enough to get to sleep? No, I don’t, because I’m afraid of becoming dependent on them and because I think (wrongly) that the sooner I’m off meds, the sooner I’ll be myself again.