Haze and Laze

I can't open my refrigerator, but I can type! All is well, I'm uncomfortable, but not in any kind of excruciating pain. I am thrilled to death that my surgeon only took one lymph node, and hopefully, the pathology on it will be clear. Everything has gone really smoothly.

I'm grateful to the last minute advice from a friend of a friend who just had the same surgery, that I really should have someone at the hospital with me, because that turned out to be very true. Luckily my sister came down from Boston with little warning and that was a big help, considering the comedy of errors that is an overnight stay at this particular institution of higher healing.

There was an endless stream of nurses and CNAs telling me things they were going to do and then going off on their flighty ways doing none of them. The compression stockings to keep me from throwing a clot were brought in, but never put on, they languished on the window shelf. I wasn't at all pleased when they came in with a package of giant swabs and told me they had to swab my anus and my nostrils to test for certain bacteria that if present would cause me to be relocated. Luckily, those stayed on the window shelf too and I'll admit to conspiring with my sister to shove them out of view so as not to offer a visual cue. They told me about the nice warm towels they would bring to wash off the pre-surgical, brown anti-germ stuff, instead my friend Gini who took me home helped me wash it off there, no warm towels.

While I've had my blood pressure and temperature taken countless times in the last few weeks, they weren't all that interested once I was actually in the hospital, they stopped in for this only once or twice. After my sister left, they apparently didn't want me getting up alone to go to the bathroom, but they didn't tell me this, they just set an alarm on the bed, so when, in a dreamy, peaceful vicodan haze, I got up to go, the alarm started screaming and three nurses ran in and I was terrified, thought I was having a silent heart attack or some terrible thing that had set off an alarm, code blue.

Really though, a short and pleasant stay and I lucked out with a private room. I'm home with lots of vicodan and currently waiting for a ditzy sounding visiting nurse who's coming to empty my drains and change my bandages. She asked me what kind of bandages I needed and was disappointed that I didn't have a clue. Am I supposed to know what kind of bandages I need? I was sound asleep when they put them on, I have no idea what's under there.

According to my surgeon, my insurance company was fighting with them until the night before about covering the lymph node biopsy. This is the common and necessary procedure, so it's pretty shocking and crazy that they considered denying it and all the while there are folks protesting at the supreme court because they don't want health care reform, so maybe "crazy" is the word of the day. That and healing, I plan to heal fast, I'm a good healer, heal, heal, heal. One week of vicodan haze and laze, then the drains come out and one week of getting it together and then I want to enjoy the two weeks before chemo starts again. That's my plan, no complications, speedy healing, moving on.

cards

Please send cards and notes of encouragement to the following address:

27 Dexterdale Rd.
Providence, RI  02906

Kim is home now and resting and doing amazingly well. She will be back to posting soon.

Update

Kim is out of surgery and resting in recovery. The surgeon felt the procedure went well and if all goes according to plan Kim will go home tomorrow. I will post an update tomorrow after I see her and let you all know how she is doing.

Don't forget to send pretty get well cards!

Swamp Juice

My friend J is a true believer in eating raw, and drinking green smoothies, he says they changed his life {for the better}. Kale, spinach, avocado, ginger, lemon, fruit, whatever, all power-blended into a frothy green, very unappetizing looking cocktail. After my diagnosis J starting bringing me big jars of these dark green, intimidating drinks on Saturdays, while he was in the vicinity shopping the farmer's market.

At first I could barely get down a sip and then I learned to chug them, and then, lo and behold, I started to crave them. Not in the way you crave chocolate cake, because your senses are craving that -- the smell the taste, the texture, the comfort, it's my body, my cells, craving the healthy green power punch of the swamp smoothy. I think there's a vitamix blender in my future and I'm grateful to J for his persistence. I should also thank T who came at me from the other direction bearing her Green Goddess Juice. Really, my diet and exercise are the only things I can control, so it's best I start.

Today is J's actual birthday and he woke up in a good mood until he realized, and I realized, that I'd forgotten to bake the banana chocolate chip birthday muffins for his class, despite the ingredients sitting on the counter. I hang my head in scrambled shame. He's gone to his dad's now and it was very hard to see him go. The rest of my day has been a flurry of laundry, errands, and my amateur porn shoot to get the breasts documented for posterity. I will probably never look at the pictures, but I would have regretted not having them. Now I wish I had a picture of them from when I was twenty-five.

I could go through every part of my body and find something wrong with it, too big, too small, too this, not enough that, all except my breasts, they are spectacular. Gravity's gotten the better of them but they are still silky, smooth skin with tiny pink rosebud nipples. I've been in my share of locker rooms and they are the nicest breasts I've every seen. I am sad to see them go, but at the same time ready, if you can be ready for such a thing.

The dishwasher is running as is the dryer, the sink is empty, I'm about to put clean sheets on my bed and then shower with the special germ-killing soap I've been given {and again in the morning}, and that's all I can think of to do.

My friend G has my password and will be updating the blog after she hears from my surgeon tomorrow and I'll be home on Friday taking as many pain pills as they are willing to give me. x o k t c

Scramble-head

I'm compulsively doing laundry. I have it in my head that when I come home from the hospital everything must be clean. Clean sheets, clean towels, clean socks, each and every one, clean kitchen, clean bathrooms. I left too many things until the last minute. Tomorrow a friend is taking pictures of my breasts. I may never look at them, but I know I'll regret it if I don't do it... I've known this for ages, but waited until the last minute because I dread doing it.

I was trying to help J with his math homework an hour ago, converting feet into meters and meters into feet and my brain froze. It just goes blank and I freeze and don't know what to do, it's disconcerting. A few minutes later he says "that's o.k., you're just a little scrambled in the head from the chemo." Scrambled in the head, I laughed so hard, I think my nickname should be scramble-head, because it's true. I'm scrambled in the head and soon to be more so.

I hear the clock ticking, I feel like I'm getting ready to go to jail or be executed and I'm not sure what to do with my last days. It's one thing when you wake up in the hospital because you've been in an accident and another to calmly walk in there of your own volition so they can do unpleasant things to you. It seems surreal. I'll send Jonah out the door to the school bus, take a really quick shower using the special anti-germ soap I've been given and walk up to the hospital and check in. I'll go in feeling great and come out feeling terrible, on the surface that seems like a poor choice. I've so desperately enjoyed feeling better these past couple of weeks, I really hate to give that up, for any amount of time at all.

Blood Pressure

My goodness, I simply can't count how many times my blood pressure has been taken in the last few months. It's always the same... always normal, on the low side, which is apparently good. Blood pressure and pulse, blood pressure and pulse.

Found out today during my "pre-surgical evaluation" that I'll have to wear bandages and a "binder" holding everything in place for a week which means no showers. That's like telling a coffee drinker, no coffee or an alcoholic they can't have a drink. Grateful as all get out for being bald, I can stick my head in the kitchen sink and simulate full body immersion.

It's probably good that the bandages stay on all week, likely best to not get a look at things too quickly. I'm trying to get ready, get things in order, bills paid, house cleaned, but really, I'm just wandering in circles not knowing quite what to do.

Happy Birthday

Last night Jonah had the "perfect" birthday party. Three kids, chocolate cake, running around like mad in the yard, and then off to the Carriage House for Friday Night Live which is High School students and all the teachers of the company school doing improv. While I took G and his friends here for years and they loved the shows, they never had any interest in participating. When I took Jonah for the first time not long ago, afterwards he said in a very serious tone "let me get this straight... they just get up there and make stuff up? they don't have a script... they don't rehearse?" "Yeah, pretty scary huh?" "Noooooo, that's the coolest thing I've ever heard in my life, I can't believe they let them just make stuff up."

Jonah is taking his first class there now and I'm hoping it's his gateway drug to more and more theater and the Carriage House is quickly becoming a really special place for him, his teacher is a talented and spectacular presence with the kids. The boys laughed their heads off during the show and at the end the whole cast sang the jazziest, most joyful, rollicking, guitar accompanied, festive, happy birthday to Jonah you could imagine.

When we got home I had a purely happy, contented soul on my hands and before bed he came into my room and said "mom, when it's your birthday, you should go to Friday Night Live, because when they sing happy birthday just for you it makes you feel so special." He has repeated this several times since then and I think I will take his advice.

On my 48th birthday, I was several weeks into my diagnosis. If all goes well, on my 49th, I'll be just finishing treatment and hopefully, there will be celebrating, letting go of a rough year, and joyful abandon.