| General Non-Fiction posted September 22, 2025 | Chapters: |
...28 29 -30- 31 
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When you are at a life-deficit
A chapter in the book A Fly on the Wall
On...Vulnerability
by Rachelle Allen
| Background Thoughts and musings of everyday life |
I am from good German stock - the kind that exudes stoicism, demands excellence of everyone 24/7 (myself, included) and espouses Tough Love. And before anyone gasps or finger-points at me for being "racist," let me share the immortal words of my mother, Lillian Saxman, who could bottom-line any given situation in a blink: "Oh, please; stereotypes come from SOMEWHERE!"
So, needless to say, vulnerability is not my strong suit. That's why I was especially unprepared for the Summer of 2025.
Two weeks after Recital Day, I had eye surgery to "sand down" - my ophthalmologist's words, I kid you not - the ridges and calluses on the surface of my left eye. I'd had the same procedure performed on my right eye in December, and it healed quickly and without incident.
Sadly, that lightning did not strike twice.
At my two-week check-up, my progress was so stalled, they implanted a medicated contact lens that looked to me, as it was heading toward my still raw eyeball, like the cap from a two-liter bottle of soda.
"This will probably be a bit uncomfortable for the first twenty-four hours," the surgeon advised. "But after that, it will lessen."
He and I obviously have very different ideas of what constitutes "uncomfortable." For me, it's when you have a pebble in your shoe, but you can't stop to expel it because then you won't make it to the porta potty in the nick of time.
His version of "uncomfortable" felt more like someone was slicing my eye vertically with a rusty razor every time I blinked. Seriously: Every. Time. I. Blinked.
He was right, though, about the "discomfort" lessening after "only" twenty-four hours. Starting Day Two, it felt as if someone were merely poking me in the eye with their finger 24/7. And here's the kicker: I was grateful! Amazing, isn't it, what qualifies as a life upgrade when pain is the common denominator? But still, it rendered me very, very vulnerable.
Three days of non-stop ocular "discomfort" later, Fate upped my vulnerability ante even more. The next excruciation screamed out from deep within the recesses of my back. So horrendous was it that even Tough German Me agreed to have my husband, Bobby, drive me to the Emergency Room.
"Kidney stone," I was informed after an MRI. "1.5 centimeters. Too big to pass."
I was given pills for pain and sent home with the promise that I could return to the Ambulatory Surgical Center in a week and have it removed.
A WEEK?
I honestly could not even stand up, the pain was so horrendous. As a result, Bobby had to do not only all his own daily tasks, but now mine, as well, thereby camel-backing guilt onto my already near-palpable state of vulnerability.
But oddly, that seemed to make the never-ending stabs of kidney stone pain and eye "discomfort" more bearable. (German Tough, yes, but also Jewish, so guilt is my drug of choice. See "Stereotypes come from somewhere" reference, paragraph one...)
The kidney stone removal was scheduled for 2 p.m. I was instructed to arrive at noon. (How the hell long does it take to get a person's vitals and hand them a peek-a-boo hospital gown?) Still, I wasn't exactly in a position to grouse, now was I?
At 1:30, I was advised that there were some "complications" with "overbooking" of the kidney stone-blasting laser machine. I'd get in "next." That ended up being after 4 p.m.
In the meantime, I was visited by my surgical team, the anesthesiologist of which was one of my piano dads. His two daughters have taken lessons with me for three years now, and his wife was one of my original twelve piano students way back in 1992. I see him weekly from my perch beside his family's piano bench as he arrives home from work.
In that tableau, we're both - not just him - vertical, well-dressed, and my mane of red curls is not sprawled like a sea anemone all over a pillow. We are Even-Steven - no vulnerability on either side.
"Hey! I know you!" he said, trying valiantly to be cordial though Intuitive Me registered panic and short-circuiting throughout every molecule of his brain.
"And I know YOU!" I smiled back, walking that tightrope between 'Yay! Someone important is in my corner!' and 'Omigawd! He's going to see my naked body parts while I'm unconscious.'
Still smiling - well, frozen-smiling, if I'm being honest here - he asked, "Do you want a different doctor?"
"What?!" I exclaimed, frozen-smiling back, as I envisioned him queasy at the sight of his family's piano teacher naked-and-vulnerable on his watch. "Of COURSE not!"
Fortunately, Fate intervened on behalf of both of us, because the operation didn't begin until nearly 5 p.m., and by then, my beloved piano dad's shift was over. Eternal vulnerability averted, because let's be serious, doctor or not, how could he ever look at me the same on Recital Day if we'd shared an operating room?
When I awoke in Recovery, though, vulnerability had returned with a vengeance.
The "down there" pain was second to nothing I had ever experienced. Imagine an elephant, with spikes all over its ass, sitting on your pelvic region. Now add in extreme nausea and multiply it by infinity.
My urologist was there and began my return-to-consciousness by rubbing my arm, looking at me apologetically and cooing, "I'm so sorry, but we couldn't get it."
Worst. Life-moment. EVER!
Apparently, the path to the stone was so infected and swollen and bloody that it obscured the laser's ability to proceed safely.
They put in a stent, he said, and would be sending me home with antibiotics to end the infection. We'd try this all over again in three weeks.
Say WHAT????
I began to vomit. And then I really needed a bathroom visit. It was directly across the hall from where my gurney was parked, but getting there required two nurses who draped me between their shoulders and set my woozy self onto the pristine porcelain seat.
They returned, as promised, when I croaked out, "Done!" But no sooner had they dragged me back to my gurney and left, then the urge to use the facilities returned. It was near, too! I could see it! It was beautifully clean and inviting, calling to me (well, sort of mocking me, actually...) Yet there I lay, totally unable to walk back to it alone.
One more stab of vulnerability. It was now my bedmate...and fast becoming my soulmate.
I took the moment of self-pity to vomit again then pressed the Mayday button. An angel in scrubs eventually appeared and, because I didn't want her to have to keep returning, I tossed my German-capable/Barbie-perfect ways to the curb and actually heard myself say these words: "Excuse me. Might I please have an adult diaper?"
The scrub angel, who, I'm not kidding here, seemed younger than some of my Middle School students, suddenly looked as if she were about to join my vom-fest.
"We don't have THOSE on this floor!" she said, disgusted. Then she immediately set to work jerry-rigging two huge BED LINERS together - I'm serious here - and securing them between my legs, turning me into German Sumo Wrestler Barbie. (What's the Japanese word for "Oy!!"?)
My blood pressure, which has never been an issue my entire life, ratcheted sky high, and I was advised that I would not be going home that day after all.
Let's review:
Unbearable pain in my private parts
Immobility
Conjoined bedliners-as-underpants
Not going home.
Oh, and let's not forget:
Medicine-soaked bottle-cap-sized implanted lens on my slow-healing eye.
I was the mayor of Vulnerabilityville, Population: me.
The three weeks that followed - at home, at least, thankfully - were absolutely excruciating. I lay in bed the entire time, sometimes with heated pads, other times, frozen ones, never one moment without agony, even during the few hours when I could sleep.
Friends texted and called and brought food and flowers and baked goods, but their eyes held pity and fear on my behalf, and that was excruciating, too. When someone hyper-capable is down for the count, it's unnerving. And when that person is you, the vulnerability of it is terrifying beyond comprehension because there is no trust that it won't continue this way forever.
Thankfully, by the second week in August, both my eye and kidney stone maladies were in my rearview mirror, and I didn't even care that my urologist said my diet should no longer contain any of the following: chocolate, nuts, strawberries, raspberries, sweet potatoes or beets, all foods I love. I simply filed it under "Trade-Offs," because there is no price too high for keeping vulnerability at bay forevermore.
So, needless to say, vulnerability is not my strong suit. That's why I was especially unprepared for the Summer of 2025.
Two weeks after Recital Day, I had eye surgery to "sand down" - my ophthalmologist's words, I kid you not - the ridges and calluses on the surface of my left eye. I'd had the same procedure performed on my right eye in December, and it healed quickly and without incident.
Sadly, that lightning did not strike twice.
At my two-week check-up, my progress was so stalled, they implanted a medicated contact lens that looked to me, as it was heading toward my still raw eyeball, like the cap from a two-liter bottle of soda.
"This will probably be a bit uncomfortable for the first twenty-four hours," the surgeon advised. "But after that, it will lessen."
He and I obviously have very different ideas of what constitutes "uncomfortable." For me, it's when you have a pebble in your shoe, but you can't stop to expel it because then you won't make it to the porta potty in the nick of time.
His version of "uncomfortable" felt more like someone was slicing my eye vertically with a rusty razor every time I blinked. Seriously: Every. Time. I. Blinked.
He was right, though, about the "discomfort" lessening after "only" twenty-four hours. Starting Day Two, it felt as if someone were merely poking me in the eye with their finger 24/7. And here's the kicker: I was grateful! Amazing, isn't it, what qualifies as a life upgrade when pain is the common denominator? But still, it rendered me very, very vulnerable.
Three days of non-stop ocular "discomfort" later, Fate upped my vulnerability ante even more. The next excruciation screamed out from deep within the recesses of my back. So horrendous was it that even Tough German Me agreed to have my husband, Bobby, drive me to the Emergency Room.
"Kidney stone," I was informed after an MRI. "1.5 centimeters. Too big to pass."
I was given pills for pain and sent home with the promise that I could return to the Ambulatory Surgical Center in a week and have it removed.
A WEEK?
I honestly could not even stand up, the pain was so horrendous. As a result, Bobby had to do not only all his own daily tasks, but now mine, as well, thereby camel-backing guilt onto my already near-palpable state of vulnerability.
But oddly, that seemed to make the never-ending stabs of kidney stone pain and eye "discomfort" more bearable. (German Tough, yes, but also Jewish, so guilt is my drug of choice. See "Stereotypes come from somewhere" reference, paragraph one...)
The kidney stone removal was scheduled for 2 p.m. I was instructed to arrive at noon. (How the hell long does it take to get a person's vitals and hand them a peek-a-boo hospital gown?) Still, I wasn't exactly in a position to grouse, now was I?
At 1:30, I was advised that there were some "complications" with "overbooking" of the kidney stone-blasting laser machine. I'd get in "next." That ended up being after 4 p.m.
In the meantime, I was visited by my surgical team, the anesthesiologist of which was one of my piano dads. His two daughters have taken lessons with me for three years now, and his wife was one of my original twelve piano students way back in 1992. I see him weekly from my perch beside his family's piano bench as he arrives home from work.
In that tableau, we're both - not just him - vertical, well-dressed, and my mane of red curls is not sprawled like a sea anemone all over a pillow. We are Even-Steven - no vulnerability on either side.
"Hey! I know you!" he said, trying valiantly to be cordial though Intuitive Me registered panic and short-circuiting throughout every molecule of his brain.
"And I know YOU!" I smiled back, walking that tightrope between 'Yay! Someone important is in my corner!' and 'Omigawd! He's going to see my naked body parts while I'm unconscious.'
Still smiling - well, frozen-smiling, if I'm being honest here - he asked, "Do you want a different doctor?"
"What?!" I exclaimed, frozen-smiling back, as I envisioned him queasy at the sight of his family's piano teacher naked-and-vulnerable on his watch. "Of COURSE not!"
Fortunately, Fate intervened on behalf of both of us, because the operation didn't begin until nearly 5 p.m., and by then, my beloved piano dad's shift was over. Eternal vulnerability averted, because let's be serious, doctor or not, how could he ever look at me the same on Recital Day if we'd shared an operating room?
When I awoke in Recovery, though, vulnerability had returned with a vengeance.
The "down there" pain was second to nothing I had ever experienced. Imagine an elephant, with spikes all over its ass, sitting on your pelvic region. Now add in extreme nausea and multiply it by infinity.
My urologist was there and began my return-to-consciousness by rubbing my arm, looking at me apologetically and cooing, "I'm so sorry, but we couldn't get it."
Worst. Life-moment. EVER!
Apparently, the path to the stone was so infected and swollen and bloody that it obscured the laser's ability to proceed safely.
They put in a stent, he said, and would be sending me home with antibiotics to end the infection. We'd try this all over again in three weeks.
Say WHAT????
I began to vomit. And then I really needed a bathroom visit. It was directly across the hall from where my gurney was parked, but getting there required two nurses who draped me between their shoulders and set my woozy self onto the pristine porcelain seat.
They returned, as promised, when I croaked out, "Done!" But no sooner had they dragged me back to my gurney and left, then the urge to use the facilities returned. It was near, too! I could see it! It was beautifully clean and inviting, calling to me (well, sort of mocking me, actually...) Yet there I lay, totally unable to walk back to it alone.
One more stab of vulnerability. It was now my bedmate...and fast becoming my soulmate.
I took the moment of self-pity to vomit again then pressed the Mayday button. An angel in scrubs eventually appeared and, because I didn't want her to have to keep returning, I tossed my German-capable/Barbie-perfect ways to the curb and actually heard myself say these words: "Excuse me. Might I please have an adult diaper?"
The scrub angel, who, I'm not kidding here, seemed younger than some of my Middle School students, suddenly looked as if she were about to join my vom-fest.
"We don't have THOSE on this floor!" she said, disgusted. Then she immediately set to work jerry-rigging two huge BED LINERS together - I'm serious here - and securing them between my legs, turning me into German Sumo Wrestler Barbie. (What's the Japanese word for "Oy!!"?)
My blood pressure, which has never been an issue my entire life, ratcheted sky high, and I was advised that I would not be going home that day after all.
Let's review:
Unbearable pain in my private parts
Immobility
Conjoined bedliners-as-underpants
Not going home.
Oh, and let's not forget:
Medicine-soaked bottle-cap-sized implanted lens on my slow-healing eye.
I was the mayor of Vulnerabilityville, Population: me.
The three weeks that followed - at home, at least, thankfully - were absolutely excruciating. I lay in bed the entire time, sometimes with heated pads, other times, frozen ones, never one moment without agony, even during the few hours when I could sleep.
Friends texted and called and brought food and flowers and baked goods, but their eyes held pity and fear on my behalf, and that was excruciating, too. When someone hyper-capable is down for the count, it's unnerving. And when that person is you, the vulnerability of it is terrifying beyond comprehension because there is no trust that it won't continue this way forever.
Thankfully, by the second week in August, both my eye and kidney stone maladies were in my rearview mirror, and I didn't even care that my urologist said my diet should no longer contain any of the following: chocolate, nuts, strawberries, raspberries, sweet potatoes or beets, all foods I love. I simply filed it under "Trade-Offs," because there is no price too high for keeping vulnerability at bay forevermore.
Book of the Month contest entry
 Recognized |
#3 September 2025 |
Special shout-out/thanks to my beloved Mrs. KT, who was getting frequent play-by-plays of all these woes, actually sent me a hefty check for not one but TWO malts because we both know that nothing assuages life's miseries with the same aplomb and panache as the decadence of that high an indulgence!!
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© Copyright 2025. Rachelle Allen All rights reserved.
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