Sylvia's Journal

I could use some help from Said’s fighting and keyboard-pecking partridge. This is going to be a very slow entry this morning and the next entries to come. I have to slow down my thoughts. The style will be different.

Isabella Reiki-ed me in and out of surgery. She also brought along a CD of the Tallis Scholars, a quintet of singers of early church and Renaissance music. The intent of her presence was very appreciated by the staff of the surgical center. I knew this the moment they put me in paper johnnie with a vacuum hose attached through which warm air was blown in that enveloped my body. The nurse explained that patients who were kept warm in the ice cold OR had less chance of infections. Warmth, touch and music were brought together to counter the cutting and drilling.

This was a good thing as there was indeed much of that. The tear that dated back to the accident had left a ligament the consistency of tissue paper. The more recent tear from my fall on the ice was also big but easier to fix as there was still some elasticity in the ligament. Both were re-attached to the bone with anchors and wired back in place. The operation lasted 2 hours instead of the less-than-one predicted by the surgeon.

When I came too Isabella was there with her healing hands and music (playing all through the surgery, to my cells rather than my brain). My shoulder was wrapped in a supersize shoulder pad and my arm in a sling velcro-ed to a wide shelf to keep the arm from moving and thus the shoulder immobilized. The entire upper right side of my body had received a neural block so that neither sensory nor motor impulses could get through: no pain signals coming up, no willing of finger movement able to create action. It was as if I had a pair of lifelike but rubber Halloween fingers dangling out of the sling, hot to the touch, but alien. The block also affected my right lung and ribcage which made breathing heavy labor and rather cumbersome.

Joan and Morsi were our first and unexpected visitors. They were in the neighborhood. Their presence was healing in multiple ways as this surgery is still part of our collective recovery from the crash. We can now freely talk about it, something Morsi welcomed with an ‘Alhamdulillah.’

The new bedtime ritual was a trip down memory lane but with roles reversed: me with the wedge pillow to sleep upright, the Oxycodone and nurse axel in attendance – and once more the waking up every hour or following the clock in 10 minute increments.