Recovery is not linear.

It really occurred to me today that recovery is not linear. I felt so well yesterday that I thought I had passed the hump. It's not so simple a matter as walking the line from point A to point B. Today I not only feel incredibly run-down but there is more discomfort in my surgery area than yesterday.

When I run my fingertips over the implant area, it feels a bit like what I would imagine Frankenstein's head feels like. Lumpy and protruding in odd places. Not that I give a lot of thought to what Frankenstein feels like. Seriously. That would be really sick. Although now that my thoughts are going there ... when Frankenstein was being created, I wonder how large of a penis he got? If you have your pick of appendages, I would hope you wouldn't shortchange your creation. He might want to get a little nookie someday, you know? Forget all that "It's not how deep you fish, it's how you wiggle your worm," bullshit. Size matters!

I kid! I kid! So please, if you are a male who is not as well endowed as John Holmes, don't walk away from this blog feeling like a lesser man. Think of it as a little payback for the last time your eyes popped so hard at Scarlett Johanssen's cleavage that you got an elbow in the ribs from your significant other.

(And yes, I realize for you purists out there that Frankenstein was actually the doctor who created the monster and not the monster himself, but it just doesn't have the same pow and sizzle to say "it feels a bit like what I would imagine the head of the monster that Dr. Frankenstein created feels like," does it? Does it???)

The hair is starting to grow back from where my head was shaved for the implant and it's all fuzzy there which feels really cool to me. I always did love a buzz cut. My Grandpa Schmid had one and when I was a girl, I loved to run my hand over his head. I like to think that is why I later developed such a fondness for military hairstyles, and thus military men, that my mom dubbed me the "One Woman USO."

I almost made it through the day with no pain pills yesterday, but I ended up having to take one last night. I was just hyper aware of the discomfort and couldn't sleep. Maybe tonight I'll make it.

My tongue is still a huge, swollen mass that feels badly burned. It hurts to eat almost as badly as it hurts to brush my teeth. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop me from (over)eating, but I seriously think maybe I need to go on a liquid diet until it feels better because everything else hurts my mouth.

But yeah, back to my earlier thought. Recovery is not linear, no matter what. Whether it is alcoholism, bipolar disorder, or just life. It's never a straight path, is it? That is both the beauty and the arduousness of it all.

MTC.