Is this real life?

Pain meds really fuck you up. The night I was admitted to the hospital for my leg injury, I was on at least four different forms. Muscle relaxant on the way to the hospital that sprang from a friend's bag and into my pain-laden, greedy hand. Percocet once I was wheeled into admittance. "Hospital strength" Ibuprofen. Something through an IV for the task to reset my leg before getting me upstairs to my deluxe room with a view. I was scared and dealing with my worst nightmare. Hoping for the best, but told I would have surgery. Nothing was explained- I was informed. I couldn't think rationally; there were questions and emotions pouring out of me, every which way. And I was still in pain.

It was under these circumstances that a friend "gave me what I wanted." Not what she claimed she wanted.

I wanted a hug and support. What I got was a sexual advance. Looking back, I know it isn't something that would have happened had I not been in the situation that I was in. It makes me feel dirty and ashamed. Out of surgery, I not only had to deal with what had happened to my body while I was completely unaware and on the operating table, but also what had happened to it the night prior.

To wake up and have had something so intimate, so encroaching happen and have no, or very little, memory of it is a sobering and overwhelming feeling. I envision the rod in there, nestled in my tibia, but wish I could see it on it's own. It runs down the entire length of my leg from my knee to my ankle. How big is it? How heavy? Titanium? How do you put a rod inside a bone? The plate is embedded with screws that are now uncomfortable as they press against my walking cast. I can feel them. I am so dissociated from my leg that I want to find a recording of an orthopedic procedure similar to mine. I can't stand blood and gore, especially when it's *real,* but the need to understand what happened to me outweighs my squeamish tendencies. I'm coming to peace with it as my leg is more and more recognizable and time passes. Outwardly, at least.

The youtube video of little David (linked at the top of the page) after dental surgery got my attention because his questions cut right to the heart of it: "Is this real life? Is this gonna be forever? Why is this happening to me?" I was already lost by a tragic circumstance. Drugs took me further from my experience, leaving me unable to actually deal with it. Things happened to me that I did not feel a part of. I am still coming to terms with that now.

There's nothing I can do about my broken leg or the fact that I needed surgery to correct that. There was an end to that means.

I'd like to instill an end into my other hospital experience. I reached out, and the meaning of that should have been respected, not overstepped. I was not, in fact, given what "I wanted." No one wants to be taken advantage of. I need to voice this so that I can move on- assimilate what happened TO me into experiences that are o.k. with me. David, your Dad was right; it doesn't last forever. Thank goodness for that.