I thought the last post could have been the ending to this story.
If this whole thing were a Netflix series, we’d have wrapped it up neatly—soft music, hopeful resolution, me walking into the sunset feeling lighter than I had in months. Instead, it turns out I’d just stumbled into the literary equivalent of a false ending. I learned that term this week. Thanks, Google.
The physical recovery was the part I expected. Pain, logistics, healing tissue, awkward medical accessories I’ll explain later. What I didn’t anticipate was the mental hangover—the way fear sneaks back in after you’ve convinced yourself the danger has passed.
I’ve been sleeping on the couch since I got home. Not out of drama, but practicality. It’s easier to roll off, get upright, deal with the new realities of post-surgery life, and take Tugboat outside. Also, the TV is bigger. Let’s not pretend that didn’t factor in.
After three nights, I decided to graduate back to the bedroom. Tugboat disagreed. He was stretched across the bed horizontally, somehow occupying more space than physics allows. A thirty-inch corgi with king-size confidence. He relocated with protest.
I climbed in, settled down, and sneezed.
Then came the pop.
If you’ve ever been given a post-surgical briefing, you know there are words you don’t want to hear used casually. Leakage. Tearing. Those words immediately reintroduced themselves to my imagination. I spent the rest of the night conducting a silent internal investigation: pain levels, bleeding, differences, hypotheticals. My brain went full incident-response mode.
Logic held for a while. Fatigue eventually won. Sleep arrived—and brought its own brand of chaos. Dreams strip away reason. I woke up more than once convinced something was terribly wrong when it wasn’t.
The doctor has been called. My older brother—who has the calm, rational brain I borrow when mine goes rogue—talked me down. Healing tissue does strange things. The critical areas are reinforced. Low-grade fever is common. A sneeze is dramatic, not catastrophic.
And just like that, the hysteria loosened its grip.
No one really warns you that the last stretch is as mental as it is physical. Endurance sounds heroic until you’re alone, exhausted, and bargaining with God at 2 a.m. I’ve had those moments quietly, privately. God has absorbed more than His share of frustration. Thankfully, He’s sturdy like that.
What’s carried me through hasn’t been grit. It’s been people.
I don’t accept help easily. I hate inconvenience. But the steady drip of kindness—the texts, the dumb GIFs, the check-ins, the visits, the Slack jokes—has been the scaffolding holding my brain upright. It’s hard to spiral when you’re being held up from every direction.
So yes, yesterday rattled me. Today steadied me. And the trajectory still points forward.
Tonight I’ll sleep in the bed again. Tugboat will be displeased by the loss of his territorial rights. The couch has served its purpose, but it’s been officially demoted.
The credits haven’t rolled yet.
But the story is still moving the right way.