Fun with Pain Meds and Bugs Bunny Eyes

I was truly surprised when my surgeon told me I might have to stay in the hospital more than one night. I’d predicted I’d be back at my friend, Jamie’s house by Friday at the latest. Apparently, I don’t need drugs to be delusional; I just was released this afternoon, after a 5-day stay… And even this was a day early. It was five days that occasionally felt like five weeks.

For as much time as I seem to be in hospitals, I don’t like them. I got to stay in a beautiful room with an incredible view after getting out of the ICU, but all I wanted was to be somewhere else. Time crawls, and I was feeling pretty crappy most of my stay, which is always the case for me in a hospital. Parts of my visit were outright bizarre this time.

I’m bad with both anesthesia and pain meds. Truly, I don’t see how people can get addicted to some of them, because after a couple of days, I cant even keep them down, Even when I’m also taking anti- nausea medication. And that’s how it began in the ICU. Percocet, Zofran, Phenergen, the docs and nurses were trying all kinds of combinations of drugs to take the edge off the pain from surgery and keep me from heaving my guts out. it seemed like days, but it was probably hours before they hit upon a combination that worked.

That’s around when I started hallucinating. This was something new for me. I’d be taking part in a conversation or doing some task with amazing clarity, then open my eyes and no one was in the room. Once, I heard someone ask me something, and I said I wasn’t going to answer, because he/she wasn’t even there (I was right.). And I think in real life, I asked my nurse if I could go out to dinner with my friends, then come back to the hospital. (She said, “No.) And so I told my friend, Stacy, who was on the phone, that the nurse said I would have to pass on dinner with her. She had no idea what I was talking about, even though I very clearly saw her standing right next to me when she asked me if I wanted to go. I didn’t get much rest those few hallucinogenic hours, but I got to have short conversations with a lot of people (who weren’t there).

Then, I noticed that I had (still have) Bugs Bunny Eyes. You know, where the pupil is so dilated you cant even see the brown part? Just like Bugs Bunny. Bugs Bunny eyes make me laugh. I look so spacy and weird; it just cracks me up. Dead giveaway that you’ve been spending some time with Mr. Narcotics. DEA agents should probably list Bugs Bunny Eyes as one of the telltale signs of someone who’s all hopped up on something.

My Bugs Bunny eyes and I got to check out of the hospital this afternoon, so I traded lying around watching football at the hospital for lying around watching football at Jamie and George’s. So much better, since I’m mostly feeling ok and am off pretty much all the drugs I had been taken. And extra bonus: I have Toonsis the cat as a sleeping partner.

Tomorrow, my full pathology report comes out and I’ll have a better idea of what the fall will look like for me as far as treatment. But tonight, Toonsis and I are going to hang out. She doesn’t think Bugs Bunny eyes are funny or weird. Probably because she has them, too.