Loo's Tonsils part 2 the yawn thief.

"It hurts so bad," Loo said between sobs. It was day four of her tonsillectomy post-op. I could do nothing for her to stop the pain.

I hate this feeling. This impotence. I could only watch her suffer. No. Had to watch her suffer. It was my duty to watch her in pain. I felt like if I looked away it would hurt her more, as though I was saying 'you are on your own,' which I could not do. So I looked into her submerged blue eyes rimmed in red. And she looked back, seeming to plead with me. 'Make it stop,' they said. 'I can't' mine said.

"Together," I said, " we can get through this." I poured the last teaspoon of liquid codeine that looked and smelled like cough medicine into a plastic measuring cylinder-spoon. A liquid medicine measuring device I hadn't seen or used since I was seven years old. She opened her mouth, eyes sealed tightly, anticipating the agony that would follow. I knew if I poured the medicine a certain way it would stick to her tongue and travel down her throat the right way. I knew that capillary action would keep the medicine on her tongue and travel down her tongue without touching the back of her throat and it would minimize the pain. I did not know that at first, but in trying to find ways to not hurt her I figured it out. The medicine slipped down her tongue, down her throat and she swallowed it. Her hand shot out and gripped my arm. Her nails dug into my bicep. It hurt. I wanted to pull my arm away. Instead I held her as she cried, wracked with pain. I watched her as her nails dug deeper into my arm. Sweat leapt to the surface of her fair and freckled face, her skin turned red, the strained veins swelled beneath her skin, a delta of emerald rivers pulsing underground.

"Fuck!" she would yell.
"I know" I would say. What else could I say?
"Fuck bear, that hurt so bad," she said opening her eyes. Bear is her nickname for me. Not because I am furry, because I am not. But because, well, it's a long story. Suffice it to say she renames a lot of things. The dog park is now referred to as the bark park. Song birds are tweeters, chipmunks are chippies and so on.

She described the pain in her throat as the most pain ever. She had to drink a gallon of water a day and take oral medication every four hours. Mealtime immediately followed medication. The medicine took the pain away enough that she could eat. Small bites, chewed thoroughly could sometimes be swallowed. Other times they could not and though she was hungry she couldn't eat another bite. I ate those.

I found myself very protective of her at this point. I couldn't do very much, but what was in my power to control I did. I took it upon myself to mitigate the pain every chance I could. Beverages and food were presented at the perfect temperature, conversations were cut short, topics of conversation I knew would turn into long arguments between her family and her were avoided, sometimes nimbly, elegantly, other times not so much. I didn't really care though, avoidance of pain was my focus. The niceties of everyday interactions and conversations were overlooked. People might have said I was terse, annoying, or something else. I could not care. I would not allow pain to get my Loo.

Sometimes we would communicate with text messages standing two feet apart. Sometimes pointing and gestures were easier. We used my dry erase board for a bit. A few days later she could start talking again, but certain words were difficult to say. Our roommates dog Cody was called Hohy because the c and d sounds hurt her throat. Cody came to this name anyway, the tone was the same, which I what dogs recognize. Than came the yawns.

Oh the yawns. The first yawn caught her off guard. Her hands went up suddenly and fluttered, flapping like a bird. She yawned. Than she screamed and cried. I held her, asked what happened.

"The yawn," she said, "wors.pain.evah."
"Oh," I said.
"Rememmer tha hime you yawn and I diggs you and you lose it?"
"The time you jabbed me in the side when a yawn was coming and it went away like you stole it?"
She nodded.
"What about it?"
"When I gib the signal I wan you to sdeal my yawn by smakin me."
"I don't want to smack you."
"Please," she said pleading.
"I dont want to hurt you," I said.
"I order you. No more yawns," she said. Tears filled her eyes and she whispered, "Neber again. Neber again."

I thought about it. I didn't want to strike her like she wanted me too, but I didn't want her to experience the worst.pain.ever. I was reading a book then, still am now. The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. In it he describes a lot of things that are counter intuitive that actually help, and we should focus on ameliorating pain rather than doing what feels right or good, because that can mislead us. We get caught up in feeling good about doing something, rather than doing something good that doesn't feel so good. An example he gives is when they first started doing the colonoscope procedure to detect cancer in its operable stages before anesthesia. It hurt quite a bit, as you might imagine, but they found that the procedure, while painful, was lifesaving. Also, if they yanked the colonoscope out after they were done it hurt the most, a painful cherry added to the already horrible pain-sundae. It was such a painful experience people would not come back. But, some doctor, I forget his name, decided to leave the colonoscope inside the body for some time after the procedure which produced a dull pain. In fact it added to the total amount of pain. But the person only remembered the dull pain, and forgot the excruciating pain prior to that. They returned for future colonoscope procedures decreasing death by cancer in the human population. Everybody wins. The Doctor accomplished it by increasing pain.

Six hours later she made a sharp pleading moan. I had learned her moans very well by this point. This one was the pre-yawn signal. I knew what I had to do. I swiped my hand at her and struck her in the shoulder and hand, a stinging sensation tingled my palm. And though she shook her hand afterward she thanked me profusely. We both felt good, her for dodging the yawn and me for not having to strike her in the face or body. The hand I could do. And would do. Sometimes it took multiple strikes. She would let me know when the yawn passed when her hand stopped flapping. So I would strike and slap and pinch and punch until her hand stopped flapping.

At first I felt bad, striking her. I made a promise to myself not to strike girls when I was seven. And on some gut level it felt wrong to me. Now that I am 27 I have to amend that promise to myself. I promise not to strike a woman unless she asks me to and only if it will help her.

After days of stealing her yawns, repressing my own and turning her away from the yawns of others it became second nature to smack her and steal her yawn. We went and saw the new X-Men movie, First Class (awesome movie, best x-men movie I think). As the credits rolled by and the lights came on I saw her hand flapping her hand toward me, the other on her throat. Instinctively I struck her all over until the yawn was gone. I hadn't given any thought to how this might look to others. What they might think, what they might do. I heard murmurs, whispers and hushed conversation and the guy behind me scowled. I prepared to duck a blow. and stood up quickly. What could I say? She made me do it? She told me to? It's her fault? I'm trying to steal her yawn? Nothing could be said, so I left with her quickly. Not that quickly, because she is still recovering form surgery, but quicklyish.