I’m not sure how deeply I should talk about myself when I blog. It’s a weird thing. I like blogs that some of my friends have that are simple sentences and fun, interesting pictures.
For me, I just end up thinking a lot.
I had surgery last Wednesday, and ended up missing graduation from college. It kind of sucked, since I seem to have a trend of having weird school experiences. Studying abroad, graduating with a class of people I knew virtually nothing about, things like that.
More than that, I remember being really sad in high school when we had our final show of our theater production during my senior year. Before the final show, the cast and crew all get together, and every senior would have a verse of a poem dedicated to them that would then be read aloud to everyone. Example:
This verse is for Jenny
Whom as you all know
Has a magic copper penny
What a crazy ass ‘ho
You get the idea. They were usually touching or funny or whatever. And it’s exciting because you don’t know what they’re going to say about you, so you keep waiting and waiting for your verse.
Except I never got a verse. I kept waiting and waiting and then in the end they said, “That’s it! Did we forget anyone?” Yep. They had forgotten mine. In my four years of high school theater this was the only time I remembered them forgetting to write a verse for a senior. It was so weird that that would happen, let alone happen to me.
I’d always been really active in theater. So it really hurt me. I think it was simply another reminder though that people are easily forgotten. I’d been gone for a year. When I suddenly came back into the picture after studying abroad, in this new class with these new people, it was an unexpectedly difficult adjustment to make.
Wait what the fuck is this wah-wah-ing about?
My whole point is that missing grad for college sort of just continued this tradition of weirdness in my education. (There are plenty of other useless instances I could go into but don’t really care to right now.)
The surgery was not planned, and was an emergency. Had a blood vessel that thrombosed, then ruptured. I couldn’t stop bleeding and they needed to operate. I had eaten lunch in the afternoon, so they waited for the mandatory 6 hours to pass before giving me anesthesia. (They don’t want to risk you vomiting from nausea, and then choking on your vomit and…you know…dying.)
I woke up from the surgery supremely nauseated (which has never happened before), and then barfed violently (hasn’t happened before because I’ve always been prepared for surgeries and been on empty stomaches). Spent the night in the hospital for them to monitor my pain.
Came back home the next morning. Whether I was going to be able to go to graduation was up in the air, but I had a feeling that everyone knew I wasn’t going to be able to go (it was in two days). And yeah, they were right. I was in no condition to travel eight hours by car to get back to town.
Excruciating pain. Still experiencing it today, almost a week after the surgery. My surgeon said it’s going to last for another few weeks. I walk really slowly and carry a cushion with me to my summer classes (which started today). The recovery is always slow and painful.
This is my fifth surgery, since lancing a pilonidal cyst is considered a “procedure” and not a surgery. The other four surgeries were on my right knee. This shouldn’t be feeling as routine as it does.
But wrapping it back up with college, that ended up being my grad experience. More than missing the chance to say goodbye to people though, I was bummed that I had to cancel reservations for restaurants that I had really been looking forward to taking my parents to (one of them I had reserved back in February). That makes me sound like a nomadic asshole, but since I find myself often uprooted, I don’t hold on to many people.
Also, not being able to get a refund on my stupidly expensive cap and gown. That sucked ass.
Seeing peoples’ grad pictures and happy facebook statuses kinda leaves that awkward pang in you though.
Hopefully when b-school graduation eventually comes, this tradition of weirdness will take a break.
Tags: graduation, high school, surgery, wah-wah
