Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

The most painful part of this recovery from my surgery is my mouth. The site where they took the skin for the graft is about 6 cm by 2 cm and it’s along the left side of my jaw. I’m happy that it’s only 6 cm long; the doctor told of patients that had 20 or more centimeters of skin harvested from the inside of their mouth. I can’t image what that pain must have been like. 

The site is healing quickly, I can feel changes in every couple of hours, but it just hurts while it is doing so. My urologist said that the hardest days would be days four and five of the recovery and that’s where I am right now.

I was given a prescription for “Radiation Rinse”. I had no idea what that was when they first gave it to me in the hospital; I asked a nurse if that meant I was going to glow and she said yes. She was giving me the rinse at one in the morning and she didn’t seem to have a huge sense of humor. It was the only time I saw this particular nurse, the rest of that evening I was covered by the nurse Melissa. Melissa and I had a very nice chat; she had been working in the One-Day Surgery ward for over a year after 20 years elsewhere in the hospital. She always wanted to work with the patients undergoing surgeries similar to mine because she knew my doctor to be top in his field and she wanted to make sure that his patients were off and running on a good start for recovery. She was the nurse that told me that patients from all over the country sought out my urologist for repairs in that delicate region. She was also the nurse that told me about all of the gender reassignment surgeries that he had performed in the past couple of years. She wanted to be there for those patients as well, to make sure that they were off to a good start.

It turns out that there’s nothing radioactive about my “Radiation Rinse”, it’s actually a mixture of Maalox, Benadryl and Lidocane. It’s called a “Radiation Rinse” because cancer patients that have burned mouths from their chemotherapy treatments use this same mixture to alleviate the sores in their mouths. My graft site in my mouth is of a similar nature so I get to use the same stuff.

As I make my way through this recovery I can’t help but think about how fortunate I am to be going through to fairly well. I find strength from the strength one of my best friends has exhibited through his cancer treatments. I think of the soldiers that come home with missing limbs and other “modifications” to their body from war. Comparatively the healing from my procedure is a walk in the park.

I’m a lucky man. I never lose sight of that.

So I’m in the third day of recovery from my recent surgery and things are coming along. My jaw is still a little swollen and numb from where the doctors took skin from the inside of my mouth to be used for the graft. It’s healing well, it’s just going to take some time.

After the first surgery on January 28th I was told that I could take sponge baths and an infrequent shower, but only if I wrapped myself in Saran Wrap and didn’t let water hit any of the surgical area. When I was discharged from the hospital on Saturday I was told that I could resume regular showers again after 48 hours, so tonight I took my first real shower in over a month. I even took time to shave my head again and that did wonders for starting to feel normal. With the jaw being a little tender still I decided to have some scruff on the face for a few more days. I’m sure there won’t be complaints.

The doctor’s office called to follow up on my progress and to schedule my follow-up appointment, which is for the last week of March. I can go three weeks with having a tube coming out of my parts if in the end things are going to work like it should so I’m not complaining. I’m still on a bunch of meds until then, so driving is a no-no and I’m definitely not in any shape to fly an airplane. I knew this would be the case and that’s why the timing is planned as it is. I’ll be ready to be airborne when the nice weather hits for the year (right now Mother Nature is a little erratic).

Earl is doing a bang-up job as my nurse. I think he’s enjoying cooking bland meals for me to eat (no salty or spicy food while the donor site in my mouth heals) and he’s keeping all these meds on the appropriate schedule. He also tells me to stop running my tongue over the healing area in my mouth on a routine basis. It’s amazing how quickly the skin in your mouth heals. Right now it’s basically like having a 6 cm x 2 cm canker sore in there. I have a little numbness in my lip but that has slowly been subsiding.

This is one of the many occasions where working from home is a wonderful thing. I spent most of the day writing code and I think most of it made sense. It’s rare that I can write a script that works on the first try without any bugs but I was surprised when something worked as planned on the first draft this afternoon. Perhaps I should work under the influence of prescription meds all the time.

The name of the game is relaxation and healing and that’s what I intend on doing. I’m still following the news and catching up on television, but I’ve found myself unplugging from the world and just enjoying quiet and contemplation from time to time. When I was in the hospital they offered me the television on several occasions but I never turned it on, just listening to the world happen around me was enough.

Sometimes it’s the simple things that lend themselves to the best medicine.

I have a fairly old Twitter account. I was tweeting before the days of smartphones, when you would send a text message to a number and your tweet would appear. I’ve always enjoyed the concept of Twitter, a chronological, live feed of whoever had the same interests as you. It was a great way to hear what was happening in other parts of the world. Early on I realized it was excellent for finding out about news instantaneously.

Then something changed. Twitter became political. Twitter became about branding. Twitter ramped up the self promotion. Everyone was jumping on Twitter to add their voice to the chorus, to the screaming. Ever since the run up to and especially since the 2016 U.S. Elections, Twitter has become a swamp. A moat of a swamp around the dumpster fire that has overtaken Washington, D.C. The President of the United States, bless his heart, belches out tweets with regular irregularity, trying to distract the populace from the real travesty (his administration). Folks attack one another. People call each other names.

But the better thing about Twitter is that people also unite. Protests get organized. Voices are heard. Electronic chants are shared. And despite all the screaming and the name calling and the raging dumpster fire, Twitter gives people a voice. 

And voices deserve to be heard.

I keep thinking I’m going to work in negating my social media presence but those thoughts are folly. I have a voice. I want to tweet. I want my voice to be heard.

Even if it’s on the edge of a raging dumpster fire.

I am making a commitment to write at least one blog entry every day during the month of March. This little challenge is to write a blog entry with a bit of substance. I need to say something instead of just posting a photo or a music video or something. I feel like I need to continue to contribute to the ever shrinking blogosphere. Perhaps this challenge will spark a return of the blog as a form of electronic expression. Written prose fueled by thought is better than burping out 140 characters on Twitter or dropping an intentional short-fused bomb on Facebook.

The key to maintaining this blogging habit is to remain committed to the task. With my final surgery scheduled for Friday and spring just around the corner, I’m feeling like I’m in a “reboot” mood. It’s time to grab a hold of what’s left of 2017, take it by storm and mold it to what I wish it to be. 

I suppose there’s been a lot of people feeling political depression since the latter half of January when our new president (and I use that term loosely) took office and started treating the White House like a second rate Walmart. If you take a step back and assess the entire picture, you can totally see the ilk of Kellyanne Conway in sweat pants and smeared mascara making her way through the “family planning” aisle after midnight at your local Walmart. Just close your eyes and imagine it. It’s really not that hard?

I’m sorry for that picture.

Earl and I are currently sitting in our local Panera, our iPads with keyboards back to back. I have my back to the wall, something I always tend to do in public, which gives me a birds eye view of what’s happening in this little chestnut of a pastry shop with casual service and casual food. A worker just used a stepladder to climb up on the counter where food is served. She walked across the counter swiping at something near the ceiling before stepping back down in a bit of a ruckus. The food on the counter was unfazed. No worries.

This is substance?