Friday, October 4, 2013

What is hiding in the story?

The other day I was driving an eight-year old girl to our house for a play date with Azriel. As we were alone in the car, I made conversation with her. I asked her how school is going, and what is her favorite class, what is the hardest, etc. We're talking second grade here.

She told me that one of her hardest books is: ?מה מסתתר בסיפור (what is hiding in the story?). You know, answering questions after reading a simple story, piecing together your own story from sentences they give, making up your own stories, that sort of thing. She said it is a really hard book. 

The title of that book has been going around in my head for days now, since that day.
Don't exactly know why, but today I got to thinking about all the things that hide in stories.

I have a friend going in for surgery in a few weeks to deal with some (hopefully benign) possible tumors. She had a large tumor (benign) removed almost a year ago, and something is going on again. What is hiding in the story, we don't know. Let's just pray it is also benign.

Our bodies are stories. They hold our stories, and they even tell our stories to others when necessary. Sometimes they hold stories they never tell. Or can't tell. Those stories makes up who we are. What is hiding in the story? It tells how we got to be who we are.

It reminded me of the exploratory surgery that took place when I returned to the hospital, 4 days after my hernia surgery. I was in so much pain, and they didn't know why, so my surgeon told me that the only way to know is to go in and look. 

They then found out what was hiding in the story of my unknown pain. Necrotic (dead) tissue. Lots.

I often wish I was a fly on the wall to see how that went down, but some things we'll never know. I suppose it's written in some hospital notes somewhere, but I am not privy to that. It's *my story*, and my body, but I'm not privy to it. I want to know all the details, though, you know? I lost basically three days of my life (actually my memory lost more than those three days. Much of it is blocked out even when I was awake. Lost to too much pain going on). Lost, never to be returned. You all lived those days, and I was just gone. So weird. I have a friend who told me that it was weird for her when she woke up from a surgery and noticed that she lost two hours of her life. Other people are living and thinking and going about their business, and you are just removed. When I came out of the coma, I asked Robert what time it is. Yeah... you mean what *day* is it. What is hiding in the story of those lost days that I will never get back?

When I was in America last time (a little over a year ago), I explained to my mother how she got into the situation she is in. Nobody had explained it to her. She was very grateful for me filling in the blanks. She now knows what was hiding in her story.

Coma state is a strange thing, and I assume different for everyone. I have spoken to others about their comas, and we all have different experiences. What I do know about my coma state is that you can hear things, but cannot make any words out. I remember trying to make words out, but nothing made verbal sense. The whole time that I heard people talking, I totally remember thinking that it was the exploratory surgery. I assumed it was the surgeons/nurses, whoever, talking to each other at the surgery. Three days, and all my living brain knew is the last thing it saw- being put under for surgery. I also had some cool dreams, but more on that another time. Boy, there is stuff hiding in *those* stories!

I look at Gapey, and clearly there is nothing hiding there! It is right out there, strange and gory to look at (to anyone who isn't used to it), in all it's glory. It's my body, it's my story.


A few days ago I got back some test results that answered for me some questions about what is going on inside my body. Good answers!
Blood test- fine. Liver function good. (I am taking a medicine- the nerve pain med- that has a possible side effect of liver function trouble, so I get it tested every now & then to see if it is still OK for me).

I also got the results from the MRI from a few weeks ago... CLEAR. Yup. They compared it to my last one, and there is no change. No PVNS. I certainly *feel* sometimes that there is PVNS in my joint, but this MRI said there isn't. OK, we'll go with that. :) I know that I can have pain from so many things; I've had a lot of stuff happen to that poor joint. I am on the strong pain killers, though, so I would hope it would stave off all of the pain, but I guess that I can be grateful for what I may be "missing" by being on the medicine. I always wonder, though, what is the medicine really covering? Would there be a tremendous amount of pain without it? It has been such a long time that I've been on the Fentanyl patches, I cannot at all remember what was there in the first place. I do know I went to like 4 or 5 pain specialists to ask for help, though. Remember that saga?

Well, there is no saga these days, thank the Good Lord. No PVNS, no necessary surgeries, no inner organ problems that we know of. Does that mean we know what is hiding in the story? Let's live as if nothing is hiding. That's the best option.

Here are more things in my story that aren't hiding. Life is there for the taking.


this love is strong and open every minute of the day, thank Gd.
my girlie. A sweet, simple story.

My Mon & Dad here in Israel last year.
me, relaxing in a hammok. Isn't it easy to see the truth here?
(well, sometimes their loving friendship *does* hide... but we know the truth :)

Dov helping Ya'akov put on T'fillin for his first time ever. No love hiding there. (At least not that day. :)



Shabbat Shalom!

5 comments :

  1. Love this story. ;-)

    Sarah, you are so strong, and so brave. Keep fighting for all your days.

    Hugs!
    Jackie

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  2. Hi darling, and shavua tov.

    I have been gone for a few weeks not online and not reading anything much. I am glad to hear you again and to hear that there is no emergency as of today.

    It is interesting, this thing about what’s hiding in the story.

    As I read you I imagine that, to have yourself what you were for your mom—telling her how she got to where she did. If I was in your place- and of course I don’t know I just imagine—I’d like to go through some deep hypnosis to be able to recover, to hear with clarity what I was hearing and feel what I was perceiving while in that coma... but that is only me.

    much love and shavua tov!

    Shu

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    Replies
    1. Hi Shuli!
      Yes, it would be interesting to recover those days, those stories that I missed. What really *was* going on in my brain? It's a cool thing to imagine doing, but not an important thing for my growth, seems to me. But who knows? ?מה מסתתר בסיפור

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    2. Now that I think about it more, it might give me that "fly on the wall" view that I am looking for. That "what really went on in that operating room" and also what was going on while I was "out". Hmmmmm.... having those answers would be awesome. They are big questions for me. I have had a lot of surgeries, but that first one that kicked off the NF- that is the only one I feel a deep need to know what went down in that operating room.
      I see it as not necessarily important, but another tool. Am I right about that?

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  3. Beautiful. May only good things be hiding now.

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