Bits ‘n Bobs, or Hospital Socks: The Lovecraftian Horror Edition

As you can probably tell, my blog is winding down. Now that I’m completely recovered and just waiting for my hair to go out long enough to match the rest of my hair (it’s taking forever), there isn’t so much to report. I may still post some writing I did right before or soon after my craniotomy, but even those are running low. I’m also trying to put together a questionnaire for a couple other former meningiomates I know so that readers can see the range of experiences. However, as I went through my remaining essays, stories, and anecdotes, I found some items that are too small to merit their own post. Hence, I give you my Bits ‘n Bobs:

·       There’s something strange going on with hospital socks. I first discovered this when I went in for my stealth MRI the day before surgery. I was given a bright blue pair of socks to wear that had those sticky bits on the bottom so that you don’t slip on those slick hospital floors. However, there were three odd things about these socks:

o   The sticky bits ran almost all the way up the sock from toe to top. Yes, I know the reason for this is to cover the possibility that someone may have huge feet. Absolutely GINORMOUS feet. Like Yao Ming-sized feet. Just in case.

o   The sticky bits are on both sides of the sock. My initial thought was that it was extra protection for those patients who prefer to crawl on all fours, ha ha, but of course, it is probably another safety issue for patients who can’t tell which side is the top and which the bottom. But still. Two-sided feet?

o   Related to the previous point, the dang things do not have articulated heels. No heels, just a tube of sock material in which to insert your tentacle.

I received another pair of these foot-ambiguous coverings when I was in the hospital, which I brought home, but when I emptied my hospital bag a few days later, this is what I found:

Why the hell are there three?! How many foot pods do I have now?

·       Possibly related to the whole creepy sock issue is the head drainage tube thing. When you have a craniotomy, you have a drainage tube in your head for at least a day. Don’t think about it too much, though, because it’s not running out of your mouth, nose, or ears – the already existing head holes. Nope, it runs directly through your skull. This is to drain off the excess brain fluid. (See a picture of my tube and brain fluid in this post. I swear to you it’s not as disgusting as it sounds. Just don’t think about it too much.) Fortunately, you’ll be dopey with anesthesia and pain killers (and if you’re like me, you may not need very many of those), so you won’t really care. I’ve come to think of the craniotomy recovery time as being in a daze without entirely realizing that you’re dazed. Consequently, you don’t always put two and two together and your reactions to things are a bit muted. (Disclaimer: Change the pronoun “you” in the previous sentences to I, as your results will vary.) 

• The day after surgery a nurse came in to remove the tube. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I felt a little twinge of trepidation because I remembered the last time someone removed a surgical drainage tube from my body. I was thirteen. It was a Pratt drain in my gut. The reason I remembered the name of that specific piece of medical equipment all these decades later is that it was a very singular point of pain, like someone was pulling an inflated balloon out through a tiny hole in my abdomen. However, there are fewer nerve endings in the crown and crown-adjacent region of the head. As the nurse maneuvered the tube, I could feel it slither around UNDER MY SKULL. Was she pulling a tentacle out of my head? Tentacles, again! My “vomit bean” was also a blue tube instead of a bin. I started wondering if I should get myself an Elder Sign.

·       If you’re going to have surgery, start thinking now about what to say to your loved ones as you are being wheeled off to the operating room. Obviously “I love you” is a classic, but in addition to that, you may want to say something to reassure them that you’ll be fine and that you are totally cool. Do not say, “I’ll see you on the other side,” because “the Other Side” can mean crossing through the veil of death and that you’ll see them in the afterlife. I bit those words off before they came out of my mouth, so instead I told my husband, “I’ll see you in a tick.” I don’t think I’ve ever used that expression with him, so he was momentarily confused. Do not be like me – plan your pre-op catch phrase!

·       Related to sounding totally cool and relaxed, you may consider what to say to the surgeon once you’re wheeled into the OR. One craniotomate blogger tried “Just a little off the top,” which I’m sure neurosurgeons never ever hear. I thought about saying the equally original, “Are you really just a zombie out to get my tasty, tasty brains?” However, the happy juice was kicking in, so I only had a few seconds before going under, and all I managed was “Hey, I know you!” when I saw the MRI tech who put the markers on my head the day before.

·       The photos of me in the week or so after surgery don’t look like me. Something’s not quite right with my face. As I mentioned in the blog about my first social outing, the top half of my face took some effort to mold into facial expressions, so perhaps that’s it. But with all the tentacle business going on, who knows what they did to me? (If I start making sacrifices to Shub-Niggurath, the Goat with a Thousand Young, you’ll know cultists have overtaken Abbott Northwestern.)

·       On a more serious note, I had survivor’s guilt on occasion. Friends of mine have fathers who died from brain tumors, one of them right around the time of my own surgery. I know of people who have other types of brain tumors that require multiple surgeries, medication, and/or chemo. Their lives are irrevocably changed by the tumor and the massive surgery they must undergo. It’s not that I feel bad for living through my experience or going through it so easily, it’s that I have felt bad at times for “making a big deal” about it through this blog. After all, my brain surgery was pretty routine, as far as craniotomies go. I had very little pain. (Okay, I had other cognitive and neurological side-effects, but they all completely disappeared by the five week mark.) But then I take a deep breath and remind myself why I created this blog in the first place: Other bloggers who wrote about their experiences having a benign brain tumor removed helped me immensely when I was preparing for surgery. Because of them, I knew that the weird effects I had, like when my right hand disappeared, would just be temporary, so I could sit back and think, “Well, isn’t this interesting?” Think about it: If you were about to have a routine brain surgery and the only information you could find about it were stories of death, chemo, and long-suffering, wouldn’t you be just a tad freaked out despite your surgeon’s assurances that it would all be fine? Yes, you would. So this blog is NOT about me declaring that I’m special because I’ve been through an ordeal (I wouldn’t describe it that way at all), but my way of paying it forward.