Start from the beginning
"They're cutting off my finger"
was my response to everything. I didn't think it was all that odd myself seeing as how everyone kept asking me how I was doing or how I was feeling. Stupid questions. I do believe there is a point at which common politeness is just rude.
It was an extraordinarily long wait it was close to 3:30 before they got me in. A few ministers from the church came in, and I was terrified about what my finger was going to look like after surgery even though I had imagined it a hundred times.
Afterward, The Dr. was satisfied, but we would have to do the grafting in another surgery.
It was the first time in my life I found myself not wanting to leave the hospital. There was nothing good on the other side. I don't know what I was holding on too I just didn't want to move. It was the same thing that made me not want to go to sleep the night before, going home meant it was real and permanent. Funny though sometimes it is not what you are moving toward but what you are moving away from that gets you going...
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Monday, March 31, 2008
Permanence
Start at the beginning
I take comfort in anything I can make temporary, If it cannot be undone I am one of those people who is unlikely to do it. I buy things with the idea in the back of my head that they can be taken back. If it is something I cannot easily take back, I will agonize, spend weeks, months, years waiting for the sale or shopping for the tiniest feature. I really must have enough time to contemplate all options before a big decision is made or I end up still shopping after i have already made a purchase. Nothing is more annoying. So what does this have to do with a mutilated hand?
All of the options had been contemplated and this was the only option left. Tim talked of cutting off his pinkie so I could have it. "If they can transplant hearts and lungs, why not fingers?" In a conversation with Mom I learned that Daddy had gone as far as to call his sister-in-law, the nurse, about the same, matching his pinkie with Mom's index finger to see if it would be the right size. I don't need that little piece of fanger, that ain't nothin'. I can hear him say it.
The permanence was overwhelming. When I got Cancer My hair was going to come back or I was going to die, either way was not permanent. This was the first time I have found myself in a dark tunnel facing the light of an on coming train.
I couldn't sleep, I knew as soon as I let today end, tomorrow would come. I had looked at my finger over and over as we changed the bandages. It was black and shrived up and so definitely dead nothing was left but to cut it off. But my logic couldn't catch up to my emotions. Tomorrow they would cut off my finger, it would never come back, and there was nothing I could do about it.
More
I take comfort in anything I can make temporary, If it cannot be undone I am one of those people who is unlikely to do it. I buy things with the idea in the back of my head that they can be taken back. If it is something I cannot easily take back, I will agonize, spend weeks, months, years waiting for the sale or shopping for the tiniest feature. I really must have enough time to contemplate all options before a big decision is made or I end up still shopping after i have already made a purchase. Nothing is more annoying. So what does this have to do with a mutilated hand?
All of the options had been contemplated and this was the only option left. Tim talked of cutting off his pinkie so I could have it. "If they can transplant hearts and lungs, why not fingers?" In a conversation with Mom I learned that Daddy had gone as far as to call his sister-in-law, the nurse, about the same, matching his pinkie with Mom's index finger to see if it would be the right size. I don't need that little piece of fanger, that ain't nothin'. I can hear him say it.
The permanence was overwhelming. When I got Cancer My hair was going to come back or I was going to die, either way was not permanent. This was the first time I have found myself in a dark tunnel facing the light of an on coming train.
I couldn't sleep, I knew as soon as I let today end, tomorrow would come. I had looked at my finger over and over as we changed the bandages. It was black and shrived up and so definitely dead nothing was left but to cut it off. But my logic couldn't catch up to my emotions. Tomorrow they would cut off my finger, it would never come back, and there was nothing I could do about it.
More
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