The Incredible Importance of Touch

Are you a touchy-feelie kind of person or more of a touch-me-not? I'm touchy-feelie. As a teacher, yes, I touch my students--non-sexually (don't even). I'll touch their hand, shoulder, or maybe even their head/hair. And I'm very forthcoming with hugs. 

When I took Gary Chapman's 5 Love Languages test, it was no surprise at all to find that TOUCH is my love language. 

Needless to say, touch is very important to me.

This past November and December, I got sick--again. This time, we determined that my gall bladder was the cause so I had my gall bladder removed in December. I was not at all worried or concerned. The same doctor who did my diverticulitis surgery seven years ago did my gall bladder surgery, so I was familiar enough with him to know that I was in good hands.

With that being said, though, I woke up in recovery crying. Sobbing, actually. I couldn't catch my breath. I'd done that before after both of my miscarriages and subsequent D&C's, but I was surprised to find myself so worked up after this pretty routine gall bladder removal surgery. When my nurse asked me if I was ok, I was able to breathe out that I needed her to hold my hand. When she didn't respond, I said it again, "I need someone to hold my hand," I sobbed.

I was told by my nurse that I was just fine, "I have two patients who need my attention, Polly. You'll be alright. Pull it together."

I want you to know that I am not trying to say anything negative about my post-op nurse. I'm sure she was doing her job and was maybe feeling pressure since the OR had gotten so far behind that morning. All of my nurses at Frye were fantastic and did everything in their power to make my day-surgery as painless and "easy" as possible.

What I am saying is that as a touchy-feelie person, it is no surprise that as soon as I came out of surgery, all I wanted was physical touch. I NEEDED someone to hold my hand or touch me in SOME way. I was almost desperate for it in the same way I was desperate for the pain medication. 

When I was asked who I wanted to see first, I asked to see my mom. (Even at 46-years old, when I'm sick, I still just want my Mommy. And I am NOT at all ashamed to say it.) When Mom arrived, she held my hand for a minute and then started doing the little things that needed to be done to help me get through my recovery so I could leave. But I kept grabbing her hand or reaching out just to touch her. She never pulled away or pushed me away, but she and dad were ready to get back home. So she needed me to do what the nurse told me so I could leave.

I will admit that it is difficult not to be offended when the person I am with is a touch-me-not or just a non-touchy-fellie person. I do tend to take it personally. I know that not everyone is like me and I can't expect everyone to want to touch as I do, but the plain and simple truth is that when I am confronted with a non-hugger, touch-me-not person, it cuts me to the quick and makes me feel as if the person is saying he/she doesn't want to touch ME.

It used to be something that would send me home in tears and/or sometimes cause me to fall into depression or to have an anxiety attack. In recent years, my God has given me the understanding that He created each and everyone of us to be different and in those differences, some people are just uncomfortable with non-sexual touch--touch outside of intimate, personal relationships. These people view any and all touch as invading personal space or possibly being too intimate. And that is simply who these people are.

Just as I am someone who is touchy-feelie.

I can't be offended because others are just being themselves, just as they can't (or shouldn't) get offended just because I am being myself. It boils down to respecting one another's boundaries. The greatest compliment I can and have received is when a non-touch person not only allows me to hug him/her, but he/she OFFERS me a hug willingly!!! I try not to force my touch on those who are uncomfortable, but as someone who feels touch is, quite possibly, the most important way of developing relationships, I hope those are on the receiving end understand that touch--for me--is just a part of who I am.

At 30, It all Goes Downhill Fast: Cyst

Within a month of our moving back to North Carolina, my husband was offered a pastorate in Taylorsville.  We gladly accepted and headed off to begin our new adventure. 

            Now that James was finished with school, I went off birth control with the plan to begin trying to have a baby within the year, but not to be in any big hurry since we were just starting out in a new place at a new church with new responsibilities.

            We had been in Taylorsville for right at a year when we moved from a rental house to a mobile home we bought.  I’d read that major changes in life were prime times for pregnancy to occur—for whatever physical or psychological reason, I don’t know, but apparently it’s true.

            I was so excited to find that I was pregnant with our first child! 

            To say that I was excited is a massive understatement.

            I had not acquired a full time job during our first year in Taylorsville, but right about the time that we found out we were going to have a baby, I was offered a full time job at a local Christian school, teaching high school English (ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade) as well as Spanish I and II.  Why the Spanish classes?  The school needed a foreign language teacher and of all the teachers on staff, I was the one who had taken the most foreign language classes in college.  

            So I started the 1998 school year with great expectations, high hopes, and excitement to such a degree that I didn’t know if my life could get any better.

           

            When I was approximately eleven weeks or so along in my pregnancy, I had my first ultrasound.  I hadn’t decided at that point whether or not I wanted to know the sex of my beloved baby, but I was ready to see him/her and to hear his/her heartbeat! 

            After the ultrasound (which was wonderful since I got to see my little peanut), I met with the doctor who informed me that I had a cyst on my left ovary and he wanted another ultrasound scheduled for four weeks later.  He didn’t think it would be anything we needed to be concerned about, but he wanted to be sure that he (the doctors’ group I was part of) kept an eye on it, just to be sure.

            I settled in to a routine and really began to enjoy teaching even more than I ever thought possible even though it is all I have ever wanted to do in life—besides be a wife and mother.  I knew that I was doing what God had ordained me to do with my life—I was fulfilling the gift He had given me by being a teacher.  I absolutely loved my job—and my students.

            Soon after Thanksgiving, I had my second ultrasound.  I went back to school when it was over because no one told me any different.

            I was teaching away when the office called and told me I had an important phone call that I needed to take immediately.  I went down to the office phone and heard the receptionist from the doctor’s office telling me that I needed to get back there as soon as I could.  I told her that I needed to finish out the school day and that I would be there as soon as I could after school.  She said that I really needed to go ahead and come on back to the office NOW.

            I can’t remember for sure, but I think I told the principal what I’d been told and I left immediately.

            I was informed by the doctor that my cyst had grown a centimeter a week between the time of my first ultrasound and the second.  Because it was growing and was at that time the size of a grapefruit, he wanted to do surgery as soon as possible to remove the ovary, and, as he said, possibly part of my fallopian tube, depending on how severe the cyst was.

            I told him that we started Christmas break within the next two weeks, so we could schedule the surgery for just after it started.

            He said that we couldn’t wait that long.  It had to be within the next day or so.

            Wow.  That sounded serious.

            Somewhere in there, he used the term “tumor,” but he mostly called it a cyst.  He gave me some pamphlets, but even to this day, I don’t fully understand what it all meant.  What I knew was that I was halfway through my pregnancy and the doctor wanted to do major surgery.

            I put my trust in him (but more importantly in my Lord and Savior) and scheduled the surgery for just a few short days later.

            Since I was pregnant—right at twenty-six weeks or very close to it, I was not allowed to be put completely under anesthesia.  I was only given an epidural.  There were two nurses on standby who were there specifically to listen to the baby’s heartbeat periodically throughout the surgery to be sure that all was well with the baby.

            I was awake for the whole procedure.

            I remember the doctor opening me up and saying to his assisting doctor, “There’s the baby.  He looks great!”

            I think I called out, “I want to see him!”

            I don’t remember if the doctor told me “not now” or if all of that is something I dreamed, but what I do remember is that I was not allowed to look.  I was not given a mirror or any way of looking.  I couldn’t have seen anything anyway; I didn’t have my glasses on.

            By the time I was put in recovery, I was sound asleep.  I’m told that I spoke with the doctor, but I don’t remember that at all.

            When I woke up, the doctor said that he had had to remove my left ovary as well as part of my fallopian tube and that it was “benign”—no cancer—and that I would still be able to get pregnant and have more children even though I only had one ovary remaining.

            I was in the hospital for a few days mostly so they could monitor the baby.  I was sent home to rest and recuperate and enjoy the Christmas holidays.  My first Christmas as a Mommy!  Just because my baby wasn’t born yet didn’t make it less true and I was excited.

           

            As a side note, a few fun things happened over the Christmas holidays during my recovery.  My sister came for a few days to be with me since I obviously couldn’t go anywhere.  She wanted to do something to help me, so she and her husband got out my Christmas decorations and put them up for me.  While Katie was standing at the window, putting up some lights, my husband came home.  I was sitting in the glider rocker across the room because sitting was all I was allowed to do.

            Katie bent over to pick up a new strand of lights and as my husband walked by, he grabbed her butt.  He said that he thought she was me from that angle.

            To this day, that’s one of the funniest moments ever.  It hurt so bad to laugh but we couldn’t stop!

           

            This is a little gross, but no one told me that after a surgery, you often have trouble using the bathroom.  I was completely unprepared for my first true bowel movement when I got home.  Because of the incision I had running the width of my belly (from one side to the other, just as if I had had a caesarean) and the growing baby inside me, I had no reach.  I couldn’t wipe.  I called out to Katie to come help me, but she couldn’t do it.  She told me she loved me more than anything, but she just could not wipe me.

            Katie did bring me a spatula in an attempt to help.

So what did I do since we were the only two at home?! 

            I wasn’t going to use a kitchen spatula for something like that and not be able to use it anymore, so somehow or another, I bent and twisted and twerked (no, not really) until I was able to take care of business.

            By the time school started back in January, I was ready to be back in the classroom.  I hadn’t been released to do much of anything, so I did an awful lot of teaching sitting down.  My students and boss understood, so we continued on with great excitement and anticipation for the second half of the school year and the joy of inviting a new baby into our home in just a few short months.