call me patient 8. that's what the FDA does, thanks to my allergy to that chemical used in surgery. patients 1-6 died. we're not sure what patient 7 is up to but according to the company that makes it...it has no known allergic reactions...well, except for those death and near death ones the FDA has now confirmed. i'd say that i was in the "top ten" but there aren't ten of us yet but you can bet that there's gonna be a patient record pulling bonanza soon for surgical patients who died soon after surgery where that chemical was used.

i was going to write a longer blog but that's all i have in me for now. next time i'll tell you about the stop payment check "joke," gauze-gate, and now today? Sterile q-tip gate.

ok. so the blood wasn't bad enough to see (thanks gravity!). no...my vanity decided to walk in the room at the same time and it was the first time i'd seen myself standing up without the bandages...oh my fucking god. so i did what i do best these days...cried.

i mean it's vanity. i know that. pure and simple. but, wow...i mean i'm doing my best to cope with all kinds of shit from all directions and what makes me finally break down is seeing the scars and the unhealed everything with every bandage off, blood pouring down because, well, i was vertical (nearly went horizontal when things got a little cloudy for a sec).

sure, maybe you'd say that it was a normal response to everything i've been through in the last...well, OVER a month now. i mean who wants to see a preview of what things are gonna look like when the bandages come off for good when the surgical incision closes and i stop bleeding (stigmata!)? maybe i'll keep the bandage covering on for a few years.

but that's not going to help with the rest of it...my head is spinning and i want to crawl into a hole...and i HATE email. just so you know.

social media is really out of control...seriously. i just want to write old school letters and forget that people want to snipe you every chance that they get. i mean i'm sick. i almost died. i did die for a minute. i'm asking for common courtesy and all i get back is why i am an evil person. really? am i really that bad?

no. it's not from everyone. it's really from people i don't even know and have never actually met. i mean i guess they can be sick but if i say i am...forget it. they go after me like vultures. and you know what they say if you think this is about you? most people reading my blog know that i'm probably not likely talking about them. i just don't have time to react to people who are spoiled brats...not personally anyway. it just goes into a special file in my brain that's titled "seriously?"

i'm really tired. and i really hurt. and thank GOD that there have been people reaching out to me to ask if i'm doing ok, can we help you...or i'd probably be very very sad right now...because i'd probably have lost my faith in a lot right about now. i am blessed, i am lucky that this is not the case at all. for the first time in my life i can reach out and old and new friends have been helping and i'm amazingly moved...because i don't know why they do it...yes, that's a reflection on my own dark past and not them...i'm just proud to know that the world isn't as cold as some others have been treating me...

no matter what i say...it's wrong. i'm not trying to hurt anyone...really i'm not. i just am having a hard time recovering...it's not just the recovering bit...it's just how slow and how much it hurts...and i have flashbacks to the hospital...and i cannot believe i was strong enough to not break down into an anxiety attack...as alison always says...you do what you need to do. she would know for sure after all her battles with the med treatments she's had to go through.

chris is my knight in shining armor. i just am amazed by him. i guess that's a statement on so many other things in my past. but it's not just that. he has so much to do and yet he slept in the hospital every night on a cot in my room because he knew i would be scared...for 15 days. he even did some down and back trips to champaign to get stuff but he always came right back that day. i don't need a ring or a document or anything to know what we have...i don't need that outward display of anything...i don't have the words to express how thankful i am that he is who he is. as the surgeon said...as everyone says...he's a keeper. i already knew that a long time ago...

i can't remember any white light or dark shadows or any other ideas about dying temporarily. then again, i was under a pretty damn powerful anesthetic...maybe big pharma has outdone any possibility of seeing any previews of the next place...or maybe...

i wish i could curl up into the fetal position but i can't. it hurts too much to be in any position but one. i don't know why or how but the pain is getting worse and it's only making me more frustrated, mad...something...the doc said that i really don't need to top myself each time i come in with what's happened since last month...but seriously it only gets crazier and crazier and now i'm just crying at the drop of a hat when i think about what happened...when i flash back to everything that happened at the hospital. did i really go through all that?

six months of intense pain entered in order to get away from the pain...i know it doesn't seem like a logical thing to do...but i couldn't live the way that i lived for so long any longer. but i'm not yet convinced that this choice was anything more than "other" pain...the devil you know versus the devil you don't. it's hard to stay strong...it's hard not to panic...it's hard to breathe...

if by 40...that number gets closer and closer...

i should start blogging again...i have too much to say for facebook, WAY too many characters to say it in stupid twitter...i just want to blog/journal whether or not i have readers or not.

so i hurt. the open part of the incision will probably hurt for 2-4 more weeks...more painkillers...i just want to be free of it all. i thought, earlier, that chris was in the office when the tears started streaming down my face but he was around the corner and saw me crying...it's every bit of movement, every breath, every sneeze, laugh, tear...it all brings in the pain and it makes me so frustrated with my body...so frail...rehab is in the near future to get my muscles moving better once i can leave bed rest...my weight is 10 pounds under where it was before the surgery (even with the sidebar of having gained 35 pounds of fluids during my two weeks in the hospital...lost it all plus ten more. not sure i needed that extra ten to go though...but i'm glad that i lost the 35 fluid pounds! how did i do it? laid around in bed reading and watching tv with my feet propped up on some pillows. i know...it was tough but i did it. lol.

i'll write more about this but i'm still trying to figure out how this whole "dead for under a minute" thing makes me feel...did i go anywhere? is there anything out there? and what does that make returning to this place, to this heaven and hell mean?