The Pain Hotel<\/p>\n
On October 11th, 2023, I had shoulder replacement surgery, the reason I took a writing hiatus from my classes and my Substack and Facebook postings. It’s three and a half weeks later, the surgery went really well and I\u2019m healing. Our bodies were designed to do that. That\u2019s the good news. But my overnight stay at the hospital was far from good news. It was shockingly bad. \u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019m in the habit of keeping the\u00a0details of my private life, private. When I write a blog, I sometimes use events\u00a0from my life story to make my point in a spiritual or general sense, that\u2019s\u00a0usually as far as I go, but something very disturbing occurred during my hospital\u00a0stay that I feel moved to write about. I don’t really want to. As I sit here this\u00a0morning, I\u2019m trying to avoid it, to put the pain in the back of my mind and\u00a0wait for something else to surface that will be more palatable, but that isn\u2019t\u00a0happening. In fact, the longer I sit, the more clear it becomes that I have to excavate\u00a0this personal story to get to the larger story and find some healing, and\u00a0writing is my way of doing that. So here I go.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t expect to sleep well that\u00a0night after surgery in the Pain Hotel. Everyone knows that no one sleeps in the\u00a0hospital and if the exhaustion doesn’t get you, the terrible food will. But\u00a0nothing could have prepared me for what actually happened. The oxygen machine in\u00a0my room was beeping constantly because it was defective (something I had to\u00a0point out to them repeatedly before they believed me and changed it out), the\u00a0window shade was broken and apparently unfixable as the bright night lights streamed\u00a0in on my face, a doctor I had never seen tried to talk me into taking IV narcotics\u00a0which I didn’t need or ask for, the kitchen delivered me a slab of rubber\u00a0chicken which I couldn’t cut because I didn’t have the use of my right arm and I\u00a0had to wait until 11 PM for them to bring me my meds. As for the rest of the\u00a0nightmare, it\u2019s TMI, too personal to talk about. Just trust me that you\u00a0wouldn’t want any of it happening to you. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the morning, when the same\u00a0mystery doctor came into my room and told me he thought I should stay there\u00a0another night for absolutely no reason, I stared him straight in the eyes and told
him, \u201cThat isn’t going to happen.\u201d And then I had a strange and somewhat\u00a0disturbing reaction. Or maybe it was a welcome one. I felt a stirring in my\u00a0solar plexus as if something was trying to burst out of my body. It was like\u00a0the invisible version of the angry creature in the movie, \u201cThe Alien,\u201d that broke\u00a0through a man\u2019s rib cage and exploded in an aggressive rage. I seemed to be\u00a0watching from the background as I heard myself yelling and swearing at the\u00a0nurses and the attending doctor. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t yell or\u00a0swear at anyone, (at least not out loud). I respect the nurses and while it was\u00a0a shock to be yelling, it oddly felt like the right thing to do because no one\u00a0was listening to me. Someone had to stand up for me and I was the only one\u00a0there.<\/p>\n
Back in the eighties and nineties,\u00a0when I spent time in hospitals, caring for AIDS patients, I advocated for them.\u00a0If there was something they needed, I went to the nurse\u2019s station and made sure
they got it. If they were being treated less than compassionately, I took the\u00a0offending party to task. If they were uncomfortable and the food was terrible\u00a0which it usually was, I went to a nearby deli and brought them something to eat\u00a0that appealed to them.<\/p>\n
That was AIDS, at the time a\u00a0devastating and incurable disease, so when I was undergoing shoulder surgery\u00a0three weeks ago, something they called \u201ca routine procedure\u201d with a one night hospital
stay, I figured there wasn\u2019t enough time for something to go so amiss. I\u00a0figured wrongly, it turned out. And since I was alone and completely out of\u00a0control, I guess the raging creature in my body had to step up and become my\u00a0advocate if I didn’t want to drown. It proved effective as the recipients of my\u00a0anger backed off and started listening to me. All the while, I couldn’t help\u00a0but think about anyone else who might be more shy and timid than I was. What\u00a0did he or she do to take care of themselves? It was a sobering thought.<\/p>\n
In an effort to get discharged\u00a0legally, (I would have gone AMA, against medical advice, if it was necessary), I\u00a0lied about my bodily functions, I demanded different nurses and I threatened to\u00a0file a report if they didn’t clear me to leave. I remained on the edge of anger\u00a0until the powers that be finally called in the physical therapist to make sure\u00a0I could walk up and down the stairs so they could discharge me. When a friend and\u00a0a nurse wheeled me into the elevator and outside to the parking area, it felt\u00a0like I was getting out of jail. It shouldn\u2019t have been like that, but from what\u00a0other people have told me, it\u2019s unfortunate that my experience was not a\u00a0\u201cone-off.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
As I continue to review what\u00a0happened, I can keep on complaining and endlessly retelling my story about the\u00a0Pain Hotel. I wouldn’t blame myself if I did, because there was a lot to\u00a0complain about, but I\u2019m noticing that the more I retell the same story from the same point of view, the worse I feel. I\u2019m not suggesting that I should shove my
feelings into the background and expect them to go away. I don’t believe in doing\u00a0that. But I do believe in finding a balance between feeling my feelings and\u00a0doing what I can to stop the negative brain loop, the experience of repeating\u00a0the event in my brain over and over until I get lost in the darkness.<\/p>\n
My healing continues to be an\u00a0emotional rocky road. I wish I meant the ice cream, but I don’t. I imagined\u00a0that I\u2019d be bouncing around by now, driving and taking long walks. Once again,\u00a0I was wrong. I have to remind myself that I\u2019ve been through something difficult\u00a0and it will take as long as it takes to heal. One of the good doctors said to\u00a0me, \u201cHealing takes time. Your body has undergone a great insult.\u201d I can relate\u00a0to that. The important part is that the surgery was successful and I\u2019m getting\u00a0the range of motion back in my shoulder. I\u2019m healing physically and now I have\u00a0to heal emotionally. After all, we were born that way.<\/p>\n
By the way, when a friend comes by with lollipops and ice
cream bars, it works wonders!<\/p>\n
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The Pain Hotel On October 11th, 2023, I had shoulder replacement surgery, the reason I took a writing hiatus from my classes and my Substack and Facebook postings. It’s three and a half weeks later, the surgery went really well and I\u2019m healing. Our bodies were designed to do that. That\u2019s the good news. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2413,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412\/revisions\/2413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}