Remember?

From time to time a representative from Abbott Laboratories, the healthcare company that makes the DRG stimulator, checks in with me to see how I'm doing. Today in a text the representative asked if I'm ready to have the temporary leads taken out tomorrow. Wait, what? I thought that I was just going for a follow-up and to schedule the surgery for the removal of the temporary leads while also having the permanent stimulator put into me in a one shot deal. Nope. I apologized, because for some reason I'm programmed to say sorry even when I'm not wrong, and then the representative filled me in on the process. Apparently, the temporary leads need to be removed and I have to heal for a week or two before I can have surgery for the permanent stimulator device. How did I not know that? I don't think anyone shared that information with me. My wife doesn't remember receiving this information either.

Maybe they did tell me while I was still coming back from twilight alone by myself and they thought I could remember this important bit of information. A decade ago after I had my wisdom teeth removed and I was home from the surgery I was looking in the bathroom mirror at the area in my mouth where my teeth were removed and I saw something sticking out of from my gums. I remember thinking, what the hell is that? That doesn't look right. I grabbed hold of the foreign object with some tweezers and pulled out over a foot of bloody gauze. I kept thinking, why did they forget this in my mouth and that this is incredible, because it just kept coming out. Goddamn! I immediately called the oral surgeon who goes on to tell me that I shouldn't have removed the packing. "Remember? After you woke up I told you?" No, I don't. Would I be calling you if I had recalled that instruction?

Anyway, I go back to the old me tomorrow. I'm wondering how they will remove the leads because I don't have to prepare like previous surgeries and treatments. Are they going to just grab the wire with some pliers, like the gauze in my mouth, and just pull it right out? I want to watch, but will it hurt more if I see it happening? Or will it not hurt at all? I watched a nurse pull a PICC line from a vein in my arm that went to my heart and I didn't feel a thing, but it looked so unreal because it was so long. At least I'll be able to take a shower when this is over. A heads up for those thinking of this treatment should know you can't get the leads wet, so no showers. A week without showering is bad, but it's worth it if the stimulator works like it does for me.