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Please read Part One of my article, first. Thank you.
I don't remember the day after my surgery. I don't remember the following night. My sister told me I slid from pain killer to sleep, to fitful sleep, the kind of unrest you measure in numbers of sinister shapes behind your eyelids. I barely remember the following week, only know I farted painful gas left by the surgeon, laughed on the phone, told friends and family I felt great - awesome - wonderful, if a bit smelly.
"I'm totally on the mend," I promised a long-distance friend. "The pathology report came back. The cyst was benign. It's not cancer. I'm going to start calling my Avon customers and making plans to go door-to-door next week."
I spoke with the voice only moms stash in their arsenal - the warm rounded vowels that smother fatigue, blanket fear. I spoke from my bed, in the only almost-but-not-quite-comfortable position my body could stand - on my left side, sore legs pulled toward sore belly. I drifted to sleep once more.
Losing an ovary causes disruption of hormones. I blamed that at first, blamed progesterone and estrogen wildfire on my unrelenting fatigue. My right leg still smarted, too, still held the memory of cyst pressed against spine, a sciatic nerve echo that refused to fade. One week became two, then three.
"I can't take this any longer, Cathy. What am I going to do? I can't work, can't write, I can't even stand in the shower for more than a few seconds without feeling like I'm going to pass out."
My sister made soothing noises.
"Birdie, the nurse told you it would take a few weeks to feel better. You're trying to do too much. Just rest. I'll drive back up and stay with you again if you need me."
I didn't accept her offer of help. I didn't accept anyone's offers of help. I crawled from bed to kitchen, placed the same cast-iron skillet on the stove every evening, toasted ham and cheese sandwiches, cut stalks of crisp celery and carrots into even chunks, pretended my boys could stay healthy and strong eating the same dinner each night.
"Mom, you don't look so good."
My son, age 12, stood over the stove, metal spatula in one hand. He glanced at me out of the corner of his right eye. He pressed the utensil into his charring sandwich. The sizzle coaxed the family dog from her warm cedar-filled pillow. She rubbed her body against me like an enormous cat. I leaned against the fridge, one arm hanging onto the door handle for dear life, an expression of pain in my eyes.
"Nah, I'm okay. Just a little tired maybe. This is all normal."
"I think you should go back to the doctor. Your face is red, mom. All you do is stay in bed all day and tell everyone you're okay. You're not okay. You can't even walk without holding onto things. Your legs don't work right."
My face grew even redder in shame. 12 was right. The muscles down my leg cramped in constant spasm. My surgical incisions appeared slightly swollen, ruddy, distressed. I thought about my doctor, about her easy smile and bobbed gray hair, her high tech office near the hospital, about her bills I had yet to open. I worked hard, worked more hours than most people I know, but Avon Representatives don't find health insurance in their boxes of pink product. I made too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough - after paying the monthly premiums for my boys - to cover private health insurance for myself.
Me and everyone else in this poor town, I thought. We all wrestle with health, don't see specialists when we should, ignore pain as long as we can handle. Who cares for the working poor? Nobody. Yet we spend over a billion dollars a day in Iraq. It's gonna take me months and months of double-shift Avon to pay these medical bills. I don't know how I'll manage.
I limped from the kitchen to the hall, cursing political leaders who eat big steak dinners far from my rural Americana landscape, picked up the phone book, and thumbed through the "A" section. Acupuncture. Yup.
Pain Specialist - We help you feel better - Sliding Scale - Chinese Medicine
I dialed the number. A quiet man answered on the first ring. I explained my troubles, and he told me I could sneak in the next morning before his regularly scheduled clients. He told me not
