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Eve Drewelowe's journals, volumes II-III, 1950s
Page 147
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night- However - I would not have got through it without her help; her comforting presence; her watchfulness; her businesslike attitude. I was desperately afraid- frightened as I never have known fright before. I was fearful that I might go out - literally scared to death! Those first few post operative days and nights I remember sleeping but fitfully and in my sleep I made my thorough barrages of needles - small needles, large needles; needles the size of pitch-fork tines. I was the target for these needles that appeared from all sides. I walked down aisles of needles! Nevermore - I have thought - would I again be able to face another syringe or another hypodermic needle. When, in my sleep, I had made my way down one needle alley at the corner at right angles appeared several more parallel aisles and so I made my uncomfortable way, lost in a maze of needles. I slept fitfully moreover, because the reflexes stimulated by the sympathetic nerves permitted me no rest. Every time I drowsed off the reflexes all over my body jerked me awake with cries of pain. The reflexes jerked me to consciousness with moaning, with groaning, with cries of distress. The reflexes jumped in my arms, my legs, my abdomen - all over the body - rather painfully "You moan and groan all the time in your sleep." "No I have no nightmares," I made truthful answer, "It is only the reflexes jerking me awake with cries; the reflexes romping and playing so freely throughout my body that make me groan and cry out in my sleep." So it was a greatly perturbed body that could find no peace. So it was days of distress that had to be endured; surmounted. Day paced day of headaches - those immense pressures in the skull; those notable migraines that pound and drill and probe and push and above all damp down the poor head into a
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night- However - I would not have got through it without her help; her comforting presence; her watchfulness; her businesslike attitude. I was desperately afraid- frightened as I never have known fright before. I was fearful that I might go out - literally scared to death! Those first few post operative days and nights I remember sleeping but fitfully and in my sleep I made my thorough barrages of needles - small needles, large needles; needles the size of pitch-fork tines. I was the target for these needles that appeared from all sides. I walked down aisles of needles! Nevermore - I have thought - would I again be able to face another syringe or another hypodermic needle. When, in my sleep, I had made my way down one needle alley at the corner at right angles appeared several more parallel aisles and so I made my uncomfortable way, lost in a maze of needles. I slept fitfully moreover, because the reflexes stimulated by the sympathetic nerves permitted me no rest. Every time I drowsed off the reflexes all over my body jerked me awake with cries of pain. The reflexes jerked me to consciousness with moaning, with groaning, with cries of distress. The reflexes jumped in my arms, my legs, my abdomen - all over the body - rather painfully "You moan and groan all the time in your sleep." "No I have no nightmares," I made truthful answer, "It is only the reflexes jerking me awake with cries; the reflexes romping and playing so freely throughout my body that make me groan and cry out in my sleep." So it was a greatly perturbed body that could find no peace. So it was days of distress that had to be endured; surmounted. Day paced day of headaches - those immense pressures in the skull; those notable migraines that pound and drill and probe and push and above all damp down the poor head into a
Iowa Women’s Lives: Letters and Diaries
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