Blue

Ish.

This is Blue, our daughter Cate’s five-year-old mixed breed who has been living with us for a couple of years now and will do for the foreseeable future. Blue’s a sweet boy who, unless Cate is around, shadows me throughout each day. I like that about him.

Also, that’s not shade over the left side of his face. One of Blue’s eyes is brown, the other a see-through-you sapphire.

I’m using Blue and his convenient name to illustrate this post, which is about being blue, a state I find myself in often enough to connect it to my surgery and recovery. Put it this way: there are days when a cloud comes over me, and I’m not interested in much of anything. I feel fragile and rudderless, and making decisions is next to impossible, as is accomplishing pretty much anything else.

I’ve written here about utter fatigue, what it feels like to be without energy, to drag your body around like it’s another being entirely. Who is this person, you keep asking yourself? It’s not anyone I recognize.

In my experience, the effects of fatigue impact how you think about virtually everything. Consider the negative impact of just one sleep-deprived night when you’re otherwise healthy. Worst of all, without energy, your mind is sapped of any natural optimism you might possess. Mine was. For weeks, fragility, fear, inertia, despair, and guilt (at requiring all this attention and at knowing better than to let low energy wreck me, but not being able to stop it) were my drivers. When I began losing weight, which was predicted by every single one of my doctors, I panicked, worried that it would never stop. (Of course, it did stop, and abruptly, after a couple of weeks.) I’d look into Blue’s intent heterochromatic eyes and cry because of his ill-placed trust that I could and would take care of him. I’d note Mitch making yet another dinner for me to pick at and cry because I didn’t have the wherewithal to clear the dishes. I’d experience a kindness from a well-intentioned friend—flowers, a note, a call, or a stocking up of soup—and I’d cry because I should be the caregiver, not the recipient of care.

Energy is everything. It improves mindset and mental bandwidth, as well as physical activity. When major surgery redirects that energy to healing and not to, say, deadlifting or setting the table, well, we shouldn’t be surprised when our mental health also suffers, when we are vulnerable to depression, mild or otherwise. I now know that post-surgical depression is pretty well documented by the experts who study such things, not to mention utterly predictable. It just wasn’t something any one of my doctors prepared me for the way they did the weight loss. It would have been nice.

I have been talking to someone about my trips to those dark places. Therapy’s been helpful with putting negative feelings into compartments. To acknowledge them as real, but to hope, even expect they will dissipate as my energy increases. To accept that decision-making may not be wise on days my executive functioning is compromised. To be okay with cocooning the way I did just after surgery because it’s comforting and maybe even restorative.

Apologies for burying the lede, but for the record, today isn’t a blue day. I slept well, my energy is good, plants and shrubs and trees are blooming outside, and I’m finally feeling the urge to work out—to hop on the rowing machine and/or lift some weights. (We’ll see if either one of those last things happens today, but just having the urge goes in the plus column.) Also, I’ve been out and about lately, including to an outstanding Cirque du Soleil performance on Randall’s Island and for dinner at my favorite Montclair restaurant with a friend. And I plan to attend my first rally since the abomination took office for the second time. (Google “April 5 Hands Off! National Day of Action” for a rally near you.)

A word comes to mind when I think about these good days. These days, these events, these urges—they feel normal. And normal feels really good.

Furthermore, blue days are significantly fewer and farther between. I’m not feeling useless now that I can make dinners again and take back some of the other household duties that Mitch absorbed these many weeks. I can read and talk (make that pull my hair out about) politics. I can wrestle with my husband (he’s a nudge that way). I can walk and feed and play with Blue. I’m running errands, doing the marketing, and so, yes, I’m even driving again (although with the sound system off as it interferes with my focus, but that’s another conversation.)

On lower-energy days, when they happen, I switch my to-do list into a backward, or done, list, adding to it only when I complete a task and tricking myself into seeing how many tasks I can add. (And, yes, absolutely “made the bed” and “brushed my teeth” can go on the list.) On those days, I try hard not to make big decisions. It’s just better to keep things simple and hope that tomorrow is better. It usually is.

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For those wondering, there are a couple, and only a couple, of lingering physical discomforts from the surgery, which was nine weeks ago today. For one, my right side is still numb, which I’m told may never go away, given the idiosyncrasies of nerve regeneration. That’s a bummer, though not a major one. My voice should but has not yet fully recovered. It’s reedy, and if I speak excitedly or for long periods, it weakens and squeaks. On the other hand, the fact that I’m having longer conversations is another signal my energy is coming back. There’s also a sensation near the top of my throat that I can only describe as a thickness. A doctor friend suggests it could be scar tissue or inflammation from the surgery. I’ll bring up at my next appointment.

As ever, thanks for being here. There are now 99 of you kind souls following along, and I appreciate you all. Even though surgery and much of recovery are behind me, there is still plenty to write about. My procedure was an intervention but not a cure for my swallowing disorder, and so I plan to keep “Gulp” going for the foreseeable future. Needless to say, I hope you’ll stay with me.

xo P