Sweet Baby, Sour Cancer

In the distance, I hear,

“Take a deep breath Jodi, keep breathing”.

My eyes flutter open, then instantly close due to the heaviness of my lids… It all goes dark until I hear again…

“open your eyes, Jodi,  deep breaths”.

UGH! Who is yelling at me? I am trying to sleep here nurse lady!….. Blackness.

“Breath Jodi, deep breathing”.

What the heck is going on here? I sense lots of buzzing around me but I’m too snowed to figure this out.  I think I heard the nurse saying she over medicated me but I was so sleepy it’s hard to say.

“Deep breaths Jodi, deep Breaths”

“Your really starting to piss me off Nurse Lady, I’m trying to enjoy this medicated induced sleep…. Heavy lids and asleep again.

“Where’s her husband? Call her husband in to watch her”

” Hi Baby” I instantly recognize Nate’s voice and his lips as they kiss me on my forehead.

“Ahhhh, Nate is here” I think to myself, ice chips usually follow once Nate shows up in the PACU.

“Open your eyes and you can get some ice chips” says a voice I instantly recognize and its waaay less irritating sounding than that Lady.   As the ice chip is enveloped by the sand- that is my mouth and throat, I choke and gag it down, welcoming it’s moisture to the desert of my gizzard.

As I slowly come out of anesthesia I’m becoming a little  more and more aware of my surroundings and that the surgery is over.

“I did it” I thought, ” I made it through. Wait, how do I feel?” I fall back asleep before I can answer myself.

“More ice chips please Nate”

“Ok, But you have to keep your eyes open so you don’t choke. The nurse said you got a bit too much pain medicine. You need to work on staying awake, taking deep breaths and sipping on some ice chips”

“I can do that”, I thought as I instantly fell back alseep.

After an eternity in the PACU, at some point, I am rolled up to my room around 8pm.

I am in a fair amount of pain. I swallowed two pills, sat back– propped up on a cloud of 1,000 pillows and closed my eyes. I felt for my breast. It was gone.