“Don’t be a hero,” they said. “Take the pain meds.”

By they, I literally mean all of my doctors — and boy, they were right!

Last week I had bilateral sinus surgery with turbinate reduction (I’m a little fuzzy about that last part but I think that’s what they said was happening). In the first couple days after recovery, I felt relatively okay. There was fatigue which was unsurprising, and pain, but I said almost insistently that the pain was not intolerable, not unbearable. The sinus rinses have been disgusting but important for healing and preventing infection, and while not being able to breathe through my nose was very frustrating, I knew that would get better too. I was probably riding a naive high of residual anesthetic and optimism that this procedure was going to be very beneficial for me in the long run.

Then Days Three and Four hit, and that naïveté crashed and burned around me. The pain got more intense right around the same time that I thought I was doing really well and could try going without the prescribed pain medication the doctors urged me to take if I needed it. In a word: duh!

Here’s the thing about telling a trauma survivor who lives with chronic pain to take pain relief meds if they need it — inevitably, they will have a really hard time figuring out when they do need it. It’s not that we’re trying to be heroes; our barometers for pain are completely different from that of most people. The kind of pain I function with every day would incapacitate many others, and I don’t say that like some braggart with an ego problem. I believe this to be true because there are plenty of days where it threatens to incapacitate me, but I grit my teeth and get up anyway because I do not feel there are other options.

That’s the expectation I set for myself, and it is frequently accurate; however, my reality right now is that I am literally recovering from surgery. I’ve been medically instructed to do nothing but frequently rinse my sinuses and rest. I’m not allowed to drive, or do anything strenuous, or even bend over. I can’t even pick up the dog. If I drop something, someone else has to get it for me. (The way that rankles against my independent streak is indescribable. Depending on others is not something I do lightly. But, I’m extremely lucky to have a loving husband and a helpful four-year-old!)

It’s taken me five days post-procedure to accept the fact that I actually did take plenty of time off from work in order to literally rest. Not to make space and time for other things I want to get done; not to take the opportunity to catch up on housework or lesson planning; not even to pick up a paintbrush, although maybe in a few days if I feel up to it I’ll give that a try. This morning with breakfast I took the pain meds and then fell into a deep sleep, napping for at least two hours. I felt noticeably better afterward. Finally it is sinking in that this is what is meant by rest, recuperation, recovery. Again, in a word: duh!

The instruction by doctors to “not be a hero” makes me chuckle but it also gives me just a bit of pause. At its surface, the comment sounds like an appeal against bravado or machismo. That’s all well and good for most. The truth is that trauma survivors are not trying to be heroes for anyone, except for ourselves, because indeed we had to be our own heroes. We need to be told more explicitly, I think, that we need not try for toughness; toughness is an embedded personality trait. We don’t live in a world where toughness is not an essential skill. We don’t really know how to put it down.

A more effective instruction to me might have been to hang my cape up by the door when I got home from the hospital, and leave it there on the hook for a little while. Rest assured, it’s hanging up there now! I know that when the time is right, it will be there waiting for me to put back on and keep going.

(It’s also funny to tell me not to be a hero because I apparently share a name with Wonder Woman, and that tidbit frequently amuses me. It even encourages me sometimes, especially at more painful moments. But that’s neither here nor there!)