Sort of proof-read.
Also, this is a long post, and talks about surgery. You have been warned. ^^
I am cocooning right now. I don’t know if that’s a word, but I’m going to use it like it is.
There is so much to catch up on to understand where “here” is for me.
I don’t know where my last post was; when it was. So I’ll start from where I feel I should. January of last year.
I had left my previous job as an auto glass technician. I wasn’t being paid enough to survive. Each month Ox had to help me make ends meet. I couldn’t afford health insurance through the business because it was so expensive. I also couldn’t get the information I needed to get into a government program.
With a chronic condition, I realize just how much of a benefit health insurance is.
I went through an exploratory program that I saw on Indeed. That was in like… November of 2022. Went through the program. It seemed alright. Did the job shadow and interview. Waited to hear yay or nay, and was given a job offer. So that’s where January of 2023 starts. New job. New team. New orientation and training.
It went well. Survived training. Started doing production work. Kept breathing through the fear of getting fired due to my experience with Nelnet laying me off. I didn’t feel part of the team. I didn’t have loyalty to my new company aside from showing up to work, doing my best, and getting a paycheck to maybe recover from the financial strain of the rental I had been in.
Fast forward to September of 2023. I went for a yearly checkup for insurance purposes. While I was there I broke down because my depression was so bad. Like, my doctor almost didn’t let me leave her office. I was put back on Zoloft and given a referral for consoling. I was also given a referral to dermatology for a spot on my check. It might be nothing, but better to get it checked out.
I had my first therapy session in the parking garage at work on my phone. There was a last-minute opening and I took it, but didn’t have enough time to get home to have the remote session on my computer. After ensuring I wasn’t legit driving my car and in a space where I could talk freely, I began the entry evaluation with my maybe new therapist. I wasn’t sure if we would mesh and was aware that I might not see her past the first session.
We got along alright. I disconnected from the session with a second session already scheduled. Headed home like normal and got rearended while I was stopped by someone going 55 mph. My car was totaled.
About a week later I found out the spot on my cheek was skin cancer. Melanoma. I was being referred to a major hospital about an hour and a half away from me since it was on my face. I would have to have the lesion removed and then have reconstructive surgery which may require a skin graft.
I got the car thing figured out. The used car market is shit right now where I live. So I ended up getting a 2022 Nissan Kicks. Electric blue with auto start.
This wasn’t how I wanted to get autostart. I didn’t want a car payment. I didn’t want to have to figure this shit out. My old car wasn’t having issues. It had awesome gas mileage. It was small and comfortable and mine. It was paid off with cheap insurance.
But alas, keeping my car was not part of the equation.
For a week Ox dropped me off at work at 3 AM so he could make it to his own job on time. Eventually, I was able to get a rental set up. It was supposed to be some lame 4 door something something something, but when I got to the rental place, they had this awesome blue car in the lot. And it was available to rent. So that’s how I got to drive an electric blue Nissan Kicks around for a while.
When I got the settlement for my totaled car, I had 3 days to figure out a new car before I started being charged for the rental. Also, cancer surgeries were scheduled for the end of October. I didn’t have time to fuck around with car shit.
So I took a couple of days off work. Couldn’t find a used car on the first day. Only trucks and SUVs and of course, Mazda 2s are no longer made because why would they be…that night I went through the process of figuring out how much my bank would give me for a car loan. I wasn’t going to find a used car that I would like. If I had to drop money on a car I didn’t want to have had to replace in the first place, I wanted to at least like the new one.
The next day, armed with a number, I started searching for Nissan dealerships. I found one. They had an electric blue Nissan Kicks. The same thing I was currently driving, which I knew handled well and got fairly good gas mileage.
I called up the dealership. Asked if they still had it. They did. I put $500 down on it so they wouldn’t sell it. Waited for Ox to get off work. Returned the rental, and then drove roughly an hour to get my new car.
So that’s the story of the car. The day before I drove up to have the lesion on my face removed I paid the sales tax and was able to scratch off the last “car task” from my to-do list. Now I could focus on cancer… again…
I was awake for the lesion removal. I have nothing to compare it to. Having to willing sign a piece of paper saying “I agree to have this done” when the last thing you want is for a stranger to come at your face with a scalpel… To have to lay still while a part of your face is cut away…
Pre-op, my diastolic blood pressure didn’t get below 126. For anyone not medical reading this, that’s a super shitty, not ok number. The staff was all up in arms about me having an energy drink with me, which yeah, may have contributed to the issue, but I fully believe my blood pressure would have sucked regardless because there are not enough drugs in the world to make conscious face cutting ok.
I ended up signing the consent form and taking a Xanax. After about 15 minutes, I didn’t care. I should add that I was trying not to break down the entire hour we waited to get my blood pressure to come down naturally before I signed my consent. Like, I would be borderline sobbing, and the care team would leave the room to give me some space. Ox would comfort me. I would calm down. The team would come back in to take my blood pressure and it would all start over again. The feeling of being unable to breathe, wishing desperately that I could leave without a horrific death related to secondary cancers looming over me.
I did not want surgery. I also didn’t want to die. This whole time they “thought” it was only in the first layer of my skin, which would be awesome. It means surgery would have like a 99% chance of removing all the cancer and I would be fine without further intervention. But they wouldn’t know for sure it was only in the first layer until the lesion was examined under a microscope.
With each level of depth to melanoma the chances of survival drastically dimenision. For statistical reference, melanoma makes up about 15% of reported skin cancer cases. It makes up roughly 70-ish % of skin cancer deaths. So yeah, since we didn’t know what we were dealing with I had to stay overnight in the area in case we had to go back in for more surgery the next day.
Anywho… we couldn’t get my blood pressure into the OK zone for the surgery. Signed consent that I didn’t want to sign, took a Xanax, and then I just didn’t care about any of it. I wasn’t ok with it. I wasn’t magically happy or better. I was just so apathetic that I literally didn’t care.
Oh… You want to cut up my face? Fine. Fuck it. It’s not like it matters. What’s the point of anything anyway? We’re all going to die. I’ll just lay here and cry silent tears knowing that this nightmare is real and there’s nothing I can do about it and all of it fucking sucks.
Ox had to leave the room for the lesion removal. Once it was over my wound was packed with so much gaze and padding it was like I had a softball tapped to my face. And I was sent home like that to wait for test results. Ox and I stayed at a hotel. We went back to the hospital the next day. The nurse told us my results hadn’t returned yet. So we waited. And waited.
When the nurse came back it was to tell me that the margins came back negative. I was cancer-free. No more surgery was needed. While that was good news to hear, it meant I moved to the next stage of the cancer saga. Reconstructive surgery.
I came back home with Ox and lived my first of many weeks of not being able to shower. I couldn’t get the dressing on my face wet. I had to leave it in place until reconstruction. When your morning routine for over 20 years has been “wake up, eat, shower”… the not being able to shower part totally fucks shit up.
It was also the first of many weeks of not being able to eat much of anything. I couldn’t open my mouth wide enough to get more than a level spoonful of food into my mouth, and even then I couldn’t really chew anything. Soups were a big part of my life. If I could eat or drink something through a straw it had a high chance of being successfully consumed. I found out there is a shop in town that does protein smoothies. That became the small bright spots in my day.
It was horrible going there the first time. Taped up, looking fucked up, not able to talk much because I couldn’t move my jaw… The staff members were so kind. They made the shake more liquidy for me so I could drink it easier. They never once made me feel bad or like I shouldn’t be in their shop. They had sympathy, empathy, and compassion, but never pity. Their kindness meant so much to me, especially during that first week.
I had more therapy sessions between the car wreck and the surgery. We talked about my fear of having the mask put on my face for reconstruction because of my thyroid surgery experience. We talked about so many things, trying to… I don’t know, brace for the surgeries? Have less anxiety about them? Something… I think it helped. I also think nothing can ever truly prepare you for the aftermath of surgery.
Before I knew it, Ox was driving me back to the hospital so more of my face could be cut up.
I cried as I was being put under, but at least this time I didn’t have to be awake.
When I did wake up I was in recovery. Not long after I woke up it was discovered that I had uncontrolled bleeding. The surgeon was called in. I was given… morphine I think… something. I was awake while they unbandaged my face, removed the sutures, pulled back my skin, and found the blood vessel that was causing problems. Then my face was stitched back up.
I had blood everywhere. My neck, my ear, matted into my hair. I knew that I should care, but I didn’t. I was just laying there, feeling my blood run over my skin, feeling the sutures being pulled out, and feeling nothing within myself. Just emptiness and helplessness because even though I wanted none of this to be happening, it was happening, and it had to happen to stop the bleeding.
While the surgeon was working, she told me skin from my shoulder/neck area had to be taken to create a graft. So not only was my face full on Frankensteined with stitches and swelling, but I had a lift restriction and another wound to care for because of the sutures at the base of my neck.
Once the bleeding was stopped and I was stitched back together, I was allowed to go home.
Oh… and that whole time they were figuring out the uncontrolled bleeding thing… Ox was in the waiting area freaking the fuck out. He does not have fond memories of those three to four-ish, hours…
For him it went “We started surgery” Hours of silence. “Surgery is done, it went well.” A little later, “Oh… there’s a bleeding issue we’ll let you know what’s going on”… one hour of silence, two hours of silence, three hours of silence… Like… Am I dead, dying? Is it going ok? Something? Anything? Then, finally, someone came out and said, “Ok you can come see her”. While it sucked being in the situation I was in, I cannot even begin to imagine how hard those hours must have been for him.
Through all of this, work was amazingly supportive. With the whole car thing and my trip to the ER because I lost feeling in my arm a week after the wreck while I was at work, to getting the news about my diagnosis, to needing time off to figure out the car, and then more time off for the surgeries plus the recovery…
My team sent flowers to the house along with a card that everyone signed. They also sent money with a note saying they hoped it help provide food for me so I didn’t have to worry about cooking while I was trying to recover. Just… so much kindness and compassion. I cried when I read the card. I still have it.
Anywho… I had to wait like… another week before the stitches could come out. Another week of no showers. Ox helped me with my dressing changes. We took progression pictures to track how the wound was doing. Was it more swollen, more red? Was it showing signs of infection? Nope, it actually looks better compared to the last picture.
It was and still is hard to see those pictures. I will have these scars for forever and there’s nothing I can do to hide them. They will fade and be less prominent, but never fully gone.
That was and is hard.
When I got the sutures removed I was told how good the incisions were healing. It was still another week before I could shower. We didn’t want water to mess with the incisions and injure the blood vessels growing into the rearranged skin on my face.
Ox helped me wash my hair a couple of times. The first time I didn’t last very long. I had to lay across three of the kitchen chairs so I could hang my head over the bathtub while he used the shower head to try to rinse the blood from my hair.
I couldn’t hold that position for very long with the incision at the base of my neck. Supporting my head like that hurt and I could only handle the pain for so long, even while on pain meds.
The first hair rinse almost made me sick because all I could smell was the copper of my blood. The water was filthy with it, and still, I could feel blood on my scalp. So much had washed out and yet there was more. I went through so many q-tips trying to get the blood out of my ear…
The second hair rinse went better. The water wasn’t as dark. I could shampoo more and for longer.
We ended up going to Cost Cutters once my sutures were removed. My hair had grown down to my butt. Not the easiest thing to care for when you’re not able to shower or get your face wet.
Though I didn’t have open wounds on my face, I knew it was hard to look at the fresh incisions, and I knew some people wouldn’t be ok with providing service to me. The lady to met me at the counter was super professional, though. She said she didn’t have a problem at all. We discussed how much of my hair to cut off. We did a dry cut, getting a majority of the length off, then she had me sit at the washing station and washed my hair.
She washed my hair. MY HAIR WAS FINALLY WASHED! I felt so much more human. Holy fuck I can still remember how unbelievably fucking fantastic it felt to have my hair properly shampooed for the first time in over three weeks.
When she was done washing my hair, she took me over the her station so we could do a proper cut. She asked if I had any pain or tenderness with the incisions, and then just talked to me like… I was me. Like I was normal and didn’t have a fucked up face. Just two people, shootin’ the shit during a haircut.
She treated me with respect and kindness. She helped me when I wasn’t able to do something so simple, so basic, as wash my own hair. I gave her a $100 tip for a $10 wash. She asked if I had meant to put that large of a tip and I told her if I were able to give more I would because I appreciated what she did so much.
She may have “just been doing her job”, but for me, it was so much more than that. I didn’t feel human. My face was still extremely swollen and just the thought of going back to work gave me anxiety let alone actually going back, which was what was on my horizon the following week. I felt like I didn’t belong in public because there was no way to not make people uncomfortable, and here she is, telling me about her cats and gossiping and shit with me like I’m just another person. I cannot put into words how much that meant to me. You cannot put a price on priceless things. The best I could do was the extra $100 I had, since Ox and I ended up not having to stay two nights at the hotel for the lesion removal.
Going back to work was hard for me. Everyone was so kind, so supportive. Everyone, in their own time, came to my desk to talk to me. It helped ease the fear I felt; the non-belonging feelings started slowing easing, and work eventually started feeling “safe” because people still joked around with me. I was still invited to have lunch with the girls. My co-workers would still make eye contact with me, which helped me feel seen and like I mattered. I was still me.
So this was like… the second week of November. My return to work. With cancer taken care of for the most part, that let me focus on my shin because, during the car wreck, my left shin had smashed into the break peddle and formed a crazy massive bruise.
When I had gone to the ER for my arm, I mentioned my shin. A large black scab had formed which didn’t seem like a “normal” scab and there was a clear-ish yellow liquid leaking from under the scab.
They did x-rays and nothing was broken or fractured in my leg. I was told not to worry about the scab. So I didn’t. The scab ended up washing off in the shower one day. Since it was then an open wound, I put antibacterial cream on it, covered it, and went about my day. The car was still an issue and after that, I had cancer on my plate. If my leg wasn’t actively falling off then it could wait its turn.
Well… here we are, still have an open wound on my shin, and not much progress has been made in the healing department even though my face is healing well. So that turned into a couple of ER visits because it developed cellulitis and the antibiotics I was given weren’t helping. So the second visit I got an IV antibiotic and a referral to wound care.
That led to bi-weekly debridements of my wound, which sucked. On January 19th I was given a skin grafter for that, which finally allowed a scab to form. It is 100% officially healed now, in February… It took from September until February for this thing to heal completely…
The skin graft was over 5k. The only reason I know that is that the hospital misfiled it as workmen’s-comp, so it was rejected by my insurance.
Debridements are $500 if you were wondering because one of those got misfiled too… Thankful that has been adjusted because there was no way I was going to pay for something that I was told would be covered by the other insurance. Like… I just had two surgeries on my face, I can’t afford to own an additional $5000 because someone else destroyed my car with me in it.
So… things are settling down. I just had my one-year review at work. I have exceeded all goals that were set for me. I will be promoted in July to Drafting I. Therapy is going well. I have had a few EMDR sessions with my therapist, and so that’s where I am currently.
Cocooning and figuring out how to incorporate all of the bullshit my life has been for the past six-ish months.
So what is cocooning?
For me, is when I withdraw and become introspective. I’ve been watching a lot of comedy stuff on Netflix recently. I don’t have the drive or will to play a video game. I don’t want to read or cross-stitch. My mind I shifting through my truths and figuring out who I am in the aftermath of all of these events.
I can’t do that around people or while I am engaging. It might seem like I’m laying in bed doing nothing, and on a physical level, that is accurate. Internally, I can feel that I am changing, morphing, growing, transforming.
It’s like when you physically blank burrito… only that’s what my brain is doing. Snuggling under the warmth and safety of isolating myself from extensive external stimuli so I can work through the backlog of experiences.
Writing is part of that process. I’ve given the bulk of the events an initial dump onto a screen because you have to start somewhere, right? Normally in the cleaning process, you have to make a mess before you can figure out what you want to keep or toss, and how you want to organize the things you keep.
So yeah… most likely still going to be cocooning for a while, but I’m getting back to the gym, I dyed my hair this weekend, I’m in therapy, and I’m working on figuring some things out. I’m figuring out who I want to be so I can be that person once the cocoon phase is over.
