Currently Listening to: Entropy – End of Silence (feat. Alexa Ray)
I watched the sunrise for the first time in a few years this morning.
The darkest part of night before the dawn. The way the sky turns black-blue and deepens in color. The shadows that grow darker, stiller, and then start to fade as the sun peeks over the horizon. The sky is dyed with a pale purple this morning shot through with golden clouds. It’s a moment of silence before the crows in my neighborhood start their morning. As of the time I write this (5:52am Pacific Standard Time), the sun is also blessing me with a direct shot into my face/eyes as it rises between two trees.
Thank you, sunlight, I appreciate you.
One of these days, I swear I’ll get back to whining about writing and Writing Is Hard or sharing some new tidbit about something I’m working on/share an excerpt from a new/old project for people to laugh at and take pictures of in case that one-in-a-million chance of me going viral happens and I suddenly have a fanbase.
On the plus side, I have a lot of new experiences I’ll be able to take inspiration from and write about. That’s a plus, right?
When I was younger, I would have a lot of very uncomfortable nights where I would be afraid to go to sleep. My dreams were something out of Silent Hill meets Saw and Hostel most of the time and those were just the dreams I remembered. Other than the occasional what-the-fuck that was the Pokemon-meets-Zombie-Apocalypse. Still haven’t forgiven my roommates at the time for talking about both things overtop of me while I snoozed on the couch.
When the worst nights would hit, I would fear falling asleep and refused to do so until the sunrise hit. I would watch the sky change and the light break through the darkness. For whatever reason, my young brain took that as a sign that nothing bad can happen to you in the daylight because the sun is up and the sun’s light illuminates all and drives away the bad.
It’s not true, of course, but my brain kept latching on to that little belief time and time again. It was an attempt at finding comfort and trying to placebo effect my own anxiety. I found myself in that place again tonight as I choose to stay up in order to not miss out on my doctor’s appointment this morning.
I forgot how much I love these early hours and seeing the sunrises.
The last 4 years total have been a trial of emotional fortitude and a test of endurance.
Said trials range from an emotionally and psychologically abusive romantic relationship that ended poorly and with little closure on my part to a particularly vicious nosedive in my mental health that nearly put me into the hospital to multiple deaths of loved ones family and friend alike to several serious health scares and complications involving The Big C-word we don’t like to mention.
So far, I’ve ruled it out and the issues that crop up are something else. We get those treated/fixed and then we’re fine for a little while. And then something else happens and the cycle begins anew. For the record, it’s usually the medical professionals who drop the C-word on me as a “concern”. Nothing like internally screaming and stressing myself out until tests/procedures give me the all-clear.
I’m having surgery on Monday afternoon, assuming my COVID-19 test comes back clean– and it better well should; I’ve masked up, washed my hands til they’re in dire need of lotioning up, and practiced my social distancing and bubbling very strictly– that is.
Logically, I understand that the surgery I am going to have is considered easy unless they find something they don’t expect. I’ve read up on it. I’ve gone looking for other peoples’ anecdotes to see what they experienced (always good, in my opinion, to be educated on professional as well as personal experiences for how things go and what to look out for, etc.) I understand the odds and chances of my having cancer are very low even with the concern my doctor-and-surgeon has with the way this fucking cyst has progressed and continues to act up. But the fear is still there. The anxiety has not gone away since last month’s ultrasound and the revelation that not only has the cyst not shrunk at all, but the damned thing decided to create a friend to hang out.
It hasn’t gone away because my doctor went from “let’s not be hasty” regarding organ removal to “you mentioned you were more than alright if we had to do some organ removal… has that opinion/feeling changed at all?”
It hasn’t gone away because I have symptoms that scare me a little; the fatigue, the lack of appetite and ability to forget whether or not I have actually eaten that day, the pressure and low-level cramping in my lower back and abdomen. The ever-lingering sense that there is something wrong in my body and there’s nothing I can personally do for it but wait until Monday and pray that this is going to go smoothly and I’m not going to receive any kind of bad news whatsoever regarding the cysts themselves and will have to make some extremely difficult decisions in the near future that will impact my entire life as I have struggled to build it.
Because if it is cancer, and depending on the stage it’s in, I’m going to need to make those decisions on behalf of not just me, but my housemates, friends, and family too. I’m going to have to take care of things as best I can and plan for the worst-case scenario so if things go to shit quickly… well, people won’t be lost trying to figure out wtf to do.
I’ve started a little of that ahead of time, because surgery honestly terrifies me on a control freak level, and have specific things written out so that at least something is orderly if something happens. I have a lot to take care of this weekend as well in regards to that– and just to not give Future K more to worry about when things inevitably go well for once.
I have a lot of worried people looking my way. A lot of people– an actual friggen list I have to write up so that my caretaker for the recovery process can make sure to let them know I’m okay/I’ve made it out no complications/I’m being taken home. This is going to be phone numbers and instructions for who to contact, how to contact them, when, etc. Probably what to tell them too and with the stern order not to take pictures of me, damn it Mother.
Said caretaker is my mother and she has continued the family tradition of cheerfully threatening to record me bugfuck levels of drugged out of my gourd for blackmail material. Or thinks it’ll be truth serum and she can pump me for information. On what, I have absolutely no idea. But I’ll warn her that AMAs are not a good idea and be careful what she asks if she doesn’t want an unfiltered response.
I very highly doubt I’ll be like my younger sister and glower at the doctor going, “You’re no McSteamy.” Alas, poor Mama, I’m not that funny. The last time I woke up from anesthesia, it was a groggy/bleary complaint of my cheeks feeling funny because I’m relaxed.
I’m hoping I’ll be lucid enough to at least pop into my Discord on the way home and talk to people/let them know I’m okay and headed home for recovery, that I’ll check in with them when I’m awake/in-between dozing sessions since my body’s method of healing when sick/injured is, “Go The Fuck To Sleep” read by Samuel L. Jackson.
I took two days off; day of surgery and the day after, but I may need to do two more days since apparently Day 3 of surgery is the literal fucking worst and I, being the trope of Pure of Heart, Dumb of Ass, in all of my infinite wisdom and two brain cells believed I’d be okay to go to “back” to work after 48 hrs.
We’ll see. Even my boss was going “x to doubt but we’ll see. Be careful please and keep me updated, I worry.” if I don’t end up in the fuckin’ hospital because complications happen? I’ll probably take my work laptop with me and my personal one so I can do some work while bored as hell and to keep my brain occupied. Because I am That Person who likes to entertain themselves and not be a pest to everyone around them.
I also figure I’ll be able to go back home vs staying at my folks’ place for recovery after the initial 24 hour observation period is done. We’ll see how that goes; I may end up there for a couple days. Which will suck, because I like having my stuff around me as well as will miss the ever-loving shit out of my two fur babies.
This has gotten long enough, so I’m going to go ahead and sign off for now. I’ll post again after surgery and hopefully with some great news. If bad shit goes down, well, you’ll have a guest post explaining things that happened as per my ‘please do this thing for me’ I have written down.
Please stay safe everyone, stay healthy, and take care of yourselves and each other.
– K.A. Crittenden
K.A. Crittenden | Fiction Author 