Monday 20 June 2016

When Life Imitates Art ~ An author's tale (Part III)

More pain and even more painkillers...

A couple of weeks before the surgery, you finally tell your brothers and sisters about your diagnosis and pending operation. They're shocked. Scared. Worried. After lecturing you about how you should have told them a year ago, when you first learned of your condition, they promise to pray for you and be there for you.

Your surgery - foramen magnum decompression - is the first of the day. In the waiting room, you're practically quaking from fear and dread. There's another lady waiting to have a procedure so much more complex than yours. She and her sister have had a few brain surgeries in the last few years. One of them almost died on the operating table. The surgeon that saved her life, is your surgeon, so you put things into perspective and realise how lucky you are to not be suffering from what they are.

A porter and a wheelchair take you to the room where you'll be put to sleep. You don't expect to dream while you're unconscious, but you do. You dream about waking up and getting ready to arrive for your operation. You also dream of your deceased mum and sister-in-law; it's like they're there to keep you company until you awake.

And you awake with pain so sharp, so severe, that you feel breathless and begin to cry. You thought you knew pain, knew it well. You and pain have always had a love-hate relationship - you hate pain but pain loves you, never leaves your side.

But this is something else. This is like hell.

You beg for painkillers but you're already on morphine and they can't give you another dose for another four minutes. Once you're given morphine that you can administer yourself - at a very high dosage - the pain becomes bearable. It makes you drowsy though, your speech slurs and you doze off in the middle of talking to your visitors. You're sort of overdoing it with the morphine, but you can't help it. The biting pain is too much.

You're well tended to at the hospital and your family and friends really pull through for you. It overwhelms you. You've always been the one to look after the others, and now they're looking after you. It's nice.

Being in hospital however, is still the worst thing ever. It's lonely after visiting hours are over and you can't sleep, can't eat and you don't feel like doing anything to help pass the time. Your mother had spent a whole year in hospital and you cry over it in private. She must have felt so alone and helpless...

The physiotherapist comes to see you everyday - she's the same one your mum had - and it turns out that one side of your body is less sensitive to touch and temperature than the other following the operation. You don't care. You just want to go home.

Part IV

Thank you for reading this post. If you're interested in my debut novel, click the image below to learn more about it:
 


Like all my other books, it's also available on:
iBooks   |   B&N Nook   |   Kobo |   Smashwords 


Book Details

Length: 110,000 words
Genre: Contemporary Romance / Clean Romance / Diverse Romance / Interracial Romance / Romantic Drama / Women’s Fiction

Mood: Inspirational / Feel Good / Coming of Age / Dark
Content: Sexy but No explicit sex scenes / No erotica
Audience: New Adult & College / Adult / Female Readers

Recommended for: Readers that enjoy romance novels with serious issues and characters with depth. This is a story about life, love, friendship, family, music, art, destiny and soul mates.


And the first two books in my urban fantasy/paranormal romance series, the Poison Blood series, can be downloaded for free via:

Amazon USAmazon UK|   iBooks US & UK   |   B&N Nook Store   |   Smashwords



PB1 Book Details

Length: 29,000 words
Genre: Paranormal Romance / Vampire Romance / Paranormal Fantasy / Urban Fantasy / Science Fiction & Fantasy

Mood: Dark / Humorous / Coming of age
Content: No violence / No explicit sex scenes / No erotica
Audience: Teen / Young Adult / New Adult / Adult
Recommended for: Readers that love all things vampires, slayers and witches!