Halloween. Again.
I have resolved to stop fighting Colorado Springs on the issue of their trick-or-treating madness. That is, instead of kids going out while the sun is shining, kids wait until nightfall when it is a LOT colder than it had been just 3 hours earlier.
By "stop fighting," I mean that I made no attempt to make costumes for the kids. No attempt to mold an idea they may have had with my own ingenuity to create something both original and suitable for the temperature. I said, simply, "Kids, today we're going to the Good Will to find your costumes!"
And there we found them. Both warm. Both cute (enough). Both pleasing to Gemma and Joshua. When they put them on tonight, the fate of Ponce Halloween will be sealed: This holiday is not about the creativity after all. It's about the candy.
It looks to be a warm (enough) night, though. Probably in the low 50's. Our cul-de-sac will get together around our fire pit and hand out our candy from our lawn chairs there. As a new addition to our autumn celebration, we'll also serve hot apple cider to the parents passing by as well as ginger snaps, cheese ball with crackers and caramel apple slices. I'm actually looking forward to the whole thing!
This is all for now. Tomorrow is the other "that time of year." Time for a check-up (check-in?) with Dr. Markus. I left my blood at the lab early in the week.
(To their great puzzlement:
"Where is your port?"
"I had it removed in July. I called ahead of time to tell you this would be an arm draw. . ." Long pause. "Why would you get it removed?" Long pause on my part. . .
"Because I'm done with treatment...?..." Another long pause.
"So, putting it in is easier than keeping it in?"
Now, genuine confusion on my part. Why would I have kept it? Doesn't she know that you have to flush your port every 3 to 4 weeks if you're not actually using it?)
They will scan it, looking for certain markers that will indicate the presence of--or lack of--cancer in a body. This is the appointment where Dr. Science would say, "You are in remission."
I'll write before going to sleep on Monday with a full report. I'm sure you all miss hearing about him. I know I miss seeing him. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Chicago and My Ever After
I’ve gone there and back since I last wrote. The days before departure were hectic with preparations. The days after returning were muddled with playing catch-up. All the while, I thought, “I should have done my homework ahead of time and had posts scheduled to go up on Sundays.”
But almost everything that starts with “should” is something I don’t want to do. This is the problem with e-mail and blogs and, if I were ever to take the plunge, facebook: I like them when I want to use them. When I don’t, they hover on the horizon each day as something I “should” do.
Bah!
***
It is October again. No longer do we need the trees or pumpkins or vests applique’d with scarecrows to tip us off. Ditch the calendar. We have pink.
You all know my feelings on this. As I become farther removed from treatment, I’m getting more critical. And noticing how pink exercises a certain tyranny. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t had breast cancer is allowed to be critical of it. What kind of jerk would say, “I think we’re aware enough, don’t you? What are they spending those pink portions of profit on, anyway?”
But I think some people are with me on this. I was at the egg case in the commissary. I picked out a dozen and a half box, noted that a portion of the profit Egglands Best would make on that box with “go to fight breast cancer,” and then opened the lid to check them for cracks.
Staring back at me were 18 Susan G. Komen running ribbons. Every egg had been stamped.
I remarked to a guy standing next to me, “This ribbon is everywhere!”
He shrugged and rolled his eyes. A daring display on his part.
***
As I wrapped up that shopping trip, I asked myself what about the pink ribbons bothered me so much more than last year. I realized that seeing them infringed upon my sense of closure. Kind of like: Will I ever be done with this?
I wrote the story of breast cancer. I am still writing it in that I sense the memoir should not end with the last surgery, or the last treatment, or with Dr. Science telling me that the scan has come back clean. (A scan I will take in about 3 weeks.) Bryan and I are forever changed by our experience with this disease. I think a few pictures of that change belong in the story.
But when will it end? When will I stop thinking, “And now, ladies and gentlemen: the rest of my life!”
It seems cerebral as I write it here, but as I loaded Bryan’s yogurts into my cart (each of which had a pink ribbon. . .) I was nearly crying.
A couple paces down, I turned from the shredded cheese to see a tall man coming towards me with a Creighton shirt on. I caught his eye and said, “Go Bluejays!”
And then realized who he was: one of the ICU nurses at Evans who tended to me following that first surgery. I asked him if he was a nurse there, then reminded him who I was.
He said, “Oh that’s right. . . but you didn’t really need to be in the ICU.”
Right, I recalled. It was a precaution because my surgeon thought he might have dropped my lung. The nurse chuckled at this.
(I think medical professionals like to hear about mistakes surgeons make so long as they don’t hurt anyone. Surgeons are the confident-jocks-big-men-and-women-on-campus. There is a certain rejoicing among the others when they biff it. I don’t think I ever remarked on that last year when I observed it.)
I caught up quickly with this nurse—done with treatment, feeling good and so forth. His wife came up the aisle towards him, and instead of making him tread the HIPPA line, I said, “Thanks again,” and rolled on.
Seeing the nurse who had stripped my drainage tubes in the middle of the night while I’m grocery shopping? Geez. Either I’ll need to manufacture or decide on my own ending to this story, or it will never end.
***
Travel with the kids to Chicago was great. They each had their own airplane TV to watch. That kind of cartoon access was a Top 10 highlight for them.
***
We got to enjoy a lot of time with my family. I saw all of my sisters (except #1, who was travelling—but, bonus!—this meant my parents were already slated to housesit for them and take care of the cats. And that home happens to be in downtown Chicago. More later on city adventures).
I soaked up one of parenthood’s unexpected pleasures: seeing my kids play with their cousins. And what a terrific herd of children those cousins are together. No one sour in the bunch. All of them for each other. I just loved it.
***
Speaking of children, we spent a day with my friend, Sarah (a.k.a. SEL) and her two children. Another delight. We walked up to Visitation, our alma mader, where we met in 6th grade, to pick up her son, Luke, from kindergarten.
We arrived to find a line of cones in the parking lot with a crowd of mothers and strollers standing behind it, waiting for the classes to get out.
Sarah and I and the kids, however, were standing in front of the cones, in no particular order.
“Are we in the right place?” I kept asking Sarah. Yes, sure, she repeated.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling: at any moment, a nun is going to pop out and tell me that I am wrong. About something.
***
We rounded out our day together at a park. The kids played hard. Sarah and I remarked that here we were, 20+ years down the road: The Mommies at the Playground.
***
We spent 5 days downtown. Sister #1 has two cats, one of which didn’t want much to do with us, the other, Sammie, was very social.
Joshua was dazzled at how Sammie could jump up to the top of a thin wall divider, by how he stalked his little cat toy, by how he purred.
Gemma couldn’t have cared. Surprising, really, because she’s a nurturing kind of girl.
After 5 days with this cat, I wanted one myself, for one reason: Every time I looked at him, how he moved, how his fur was striped, how his little white chin jutted out, I found myself marveling at his Creator. Seriously. I looked at Sammie and then thought, “God is amazing. Creating a work like this would be a lifetime achievement for me. Yet, he’s just one of a billion miracles of God.”
By the time we got home, I had decided I don’t want to deal with cat hair.
***
Each day, we went on a little adventure with my mom, got home in mid-afternoon, rested a bit, then played at the park down the street before dinner and bedtime.
We went to Navy Pier on Monday. Saw many people wearing their Chicago Marathon Finisher shirts from the day before. They were all walking funny.
One guy, not as much. I remarked, “Looks like you’re walking OK!” He shook his head and said, “Downhill is murder.”
On Tuesday, the Art Institute. The key to enjoying a place like that with kids is going in with no expectations of them. They loved the Thorne miniature rooms. They liked seeing the Serraut in person. They were underwhelmed by the Rembrants. (“But, kids! Those are the actual paintings we have only before seen in books!”)
On Wednesday, we took the train out to Naperville to meet Sister #4 and her 3 kids and went to the DuPage County Children’s Museum. Very well-executed place. Plus, we rode on the upper deck of a double-decker commuter train, which G and J had not even known existed.
On Thursday, we strolled on Michigan avenue and did a bit of shopping, most notably at the Lego store. Who knew Legos could build so much?
On Friday: home. Another great trip. Colorado Springs smelled really good.
***
What’s that? The reason we went? Right. Friday Night Fun for Funding.
Sarah, who did all the organizing, and I didn’t say up front what we were hoping for. I guess at least 100 guests. At $20 a piece, I guess: $2000. I don’t know. . .
What happened? A crowd of about 100. Plus several on-line donations from people who couldn’t make it. All told: $6700. Wow. I mean—wow. What generosity! And, I think, goes to show how far and deep cancer touches.
Why a night like that? I guess. . .after our big ParTAY, our grand celebration of looking forward after a hard season, it just didn’t feel right to move along as though I had no obligation to people who came before me. God used a state of the art medicine to heal me, and that medicine would not have been developed if other people hadn’t paid a foundation to pay a scientist to do the work.
In a most basic sense, I wanted to both pay something back and, when I think of people I love being diagnosed at some point in the future, pay something forward.
And I’m so thankful to have a friend like Sarah who would help me discharge this responsibility, and a family and community that was so glad to jump in.
One more happy chapter in a story that goes on.
But almost everything that starts with “should” is something I don’t want to do. This is the problem with e-mail and blogs and, if I were ever to take the plunge, facebook: I like them when I want to use them. When I don’t, they hover on the horizon each day as something I “should” do.
Bah!
***
It is October again. No longer do we need the trees or pumpkins or vests applique’d with scarecrows to tip us off. Ditch the calendar. We have pink.
You all know my feelings on this. As I become farther removed from treatment, I’m getting more critical. And noticing how pink exercises a certain tyranny. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t had breast cancer is allowed to be critical of it. What kind of jerk would say, “I think we’re aware enough, don’t you? What are they spending those pink portions of profit on, anyway?”
But I think some people are with me on this. I was at the egg case in the commissary. I picked out a dozen and a half box, noted that a portion of the profit Egglands Best would make on that box with “go to fight breast cancer,” and then opened the lid to check them for cracks.
Staring back at me were 18 Susan G. Komen running ribbons. Every egg had been stamped.
I remarked to a guy standing next to me, “This ribbon is everywhere!”
He shrugged and rolled his eyes. A daring display on his part.
***
As I wrapped up that shopping trip, I asked myself what about the pink ribbons bothered me so much more than last year. I realized that seeing them infringed upon my sense of closure. Kind of like: Will I ever be done with this?
I wrote the story of breast cancer. I am still writing it in that I sense the memoir should not end with the last surgery, or the last treatment, or with Dr. Science telling me that the scan has come back clean. (A scan I will take in about 3 weeks.) Bryan and I are forever changed by our experience with this disease. I think a few pictures of that change belong in the story.
But when will it end? When will I stop thinking, “And now, ladies and gentlemen: the rest of my life!”
It seems cerebral as I write it here, but as I loaded Bryan’s yogurts into my cart (each of which had a pink ribbon. . .) I was nearly crying.
A couple paces down, I turned from the shredded cheese to see a tall man coming towards me with a Creighton shirt on. I caught his eye and said, “Go Bluejays!”
And then realized who he was: one of the ICU nurses at Evans who tended to me following that first surgery. I asked him if he was a nurse there, then reminded him who I was.
He said, “Oh that’s right. . . but you didn’t really need to be in the ICU.”
Right, I recalled. It was a precaution because my surgeon thought he might have dropped my lung. The nurse chuckled at this.
(I think medical professionals like to hear about mistakes surgeons make so long as they don’t hurt anyone. Surgeons are the confident-jocks-big-men-and-women-on-campus. There is a certain rejoicing among the others when they biff it. I don’t think I ever remarked on that last year when I observed it.)
I caught up quickly with this nurse—done with treatment, feeling good and so forth. His wife came up the aisle towards him, and instead of making him tread the HIPPA line, I said, “Thanks again,” and rolled on.
Seeing the nurse who had stripped my drainage tubes in the middle of the night while I’m grocery shopping? Geez. Either I’ll need to manufacture or decide on my own ending to this story, or it will never end.
***
Travel with the kids to Chicago was great. They each had their own airplane TV to watch. That kind of cartoon access was a Top 10 highlight for them.
***
We got to enjoy a lot of time with my family. I saw all of my sisters (except #1, who was travelling—but, bonus!—this meant my parents were already slated to housesit for them and take care of the cats. And that home happens to be in downtown Chicago. More later on city adventures).
I soaked up one of parenthood’s unexpected pleasures: seeing my kids play with their cousins. And what a terrific herd of children those cousins are together. No one sour in the bunch. All of them for each other. I just loved it.
***
Speaking of children, we spent a day with my friend, Sarah (a.k.a. SEL) and her two children. Another delight. We walked up to Visitation, our alma mader, where we met in 6th grade, to pick up her son, Luke, from kindergarten.
We arrived to find a line of cones in the parking lot with a crowd of mothers and strollers standing behind it, waiting for the classes to get out.
Sarah and I and the kids, however, were standing in front of the cones, in no particular order.
“Are we in the right place?” I kept asking Sarah. Yes, sure, she repeated.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling: at any moment, a nun is going to pop out and tell me that I am wrong. About something.
***
We rounded out our day together at a park. The kids played hard. Sarah and I remarked that here we were, 20+ years down the road: The Mommies at the Playground.
***
We spent 5 days downtown. Sister #1 has two cats, one of which didn’t want much to do with us, the other, Sammie, was very social.
Joshua was dazzled at how Sammie could jump up to the top of a thin wall divider, by how he stalked his little cat toy, by how he purred.
Gemma couldn’t have cared. Surprising, really, because she’s a nurturing kind of girl.
After 5 days with this cat, I wanted one myself, for one reason: Every time I looked at him, how he moved, how his fur was striped, how his little white chin jutted out, I found myself marveling at his Creator. Seriously. I looked at Sammie and then thought, “God is amazing. Creating a work like this would be a lifetime achievement for me. Yet, he’s just one of a billion miracles of God.”
By the time we got home, I had decided I don’t want to deal with cat hair.
***
Each day, we went on a little adventure with my mom, got home in mid-afternoon, rested a bit, then played at the park down the street before dinner and bedtime.
We went to Navy Pier on Monday. Saw many people wearing their Chicago Marathon Finisher shirts from the day before. They were all walking funny.
One guy, not as much. I remarked, “Looks like you’re walking OK!” He shook his head and said, “Downhill is murder.”
On Tuesday, the Art Institute. The key to enjoying a place like that with kids is going in with no expectations of them. They loved the Thorne miniature rooms. They liked seeing the Serraut in person. They were underwhelmed by the Rembrants. (“But, kids! Those are the actual paintings we have only before seen in books!”)
On Wednesday, we took the train out to Naperville to meet Sister #4 and her 3 kids and went to the DuPage County Children’s Museum. Very well-executed place. Plus, we rode on the upper deck of a double-decker commuter train, which G and J had not even known existed.
On Thursday, we strolled on Michigan avenue and did a bit of shopping, most notably at the Lego store. Who knew Legos could build so much?
On Friday: home. Another great trip. Colorado Springs smelled really good.
***
What’s that? The reason we went? Right. Friday Night Fun for Funding.
Sarah, who did all the organizing, and I didn’t say up front what we were hoping for. I guess at least 100 guests. At $20 a piece, I guess: $2000. I don’t know. . .
What happened? A crowd of about 100. Plus several on-line donations from people who couldn’t make it. All told: $6700. Wow. I mean—wow. What generosity! And, I think, goes to show how far and deep cancer touches.
Why a night like that? I guess. . .after our big ParTAY, our grand celebration of looking forward after a hard season, it just didn’t feel right to move along as though I had no obligation to people who came before me. God used a state of the art medicine to heal me, and that medicine would not have been developed if other people hadn’t paid a foundation to pay a scientist to do the work.
In a most basic sense, I wanted to both pay something back and, when I think of people I love being diagnosed at some point in the future, pay something forward.
And I’m so thankful to have a friend like Sarah who would help me discharge this responsibility, and a family and community that was so glad to jump in.
One more happy chapter in a story that goes on.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Port Removal
I wonder now why I didn't write about my port removal procedure.
Yeah, it was a busy summer. Yeah, we were at Grand Lake the weekend after it came out, so there were other things to share. But I think now that I just felt so done with medical appointments that I figured anyone who has been reading along surely also felt done with them, too.
But some funny things happened. It'd be a shame to forget them. . .
We travel back to mid-July. I knew already that Mayfield would not be there to cross the finish line with us because the Army--in its persistent crusade to make its best people hate their employer--had moved up Mayfield's deployment date from September to late May. With less than a week's notice. (Which means he and his wife had to cancel their vacation to Germany, too!)
No one's asking for violins, here. I'm telling you that in order to tell you this: In the midst of last-minute preparations and the intense pressure couples endure before saying goodbye for un-natural lengths of time, Mayfield both faxed in paperwork to assure my continuity of care when our insurance switched from active duty to retired coverage AND he spoke with the surgeon at the hospital he recommended to remove my port.
So. One last round of applause for my awesome surgeon.
The guy he recommended got the nod for one single reason: I wanted to keep my port. Patients are not allowed, by regulation, to keep their ports. But Dr. Golden (that's a code name) has selected 06, and Colonels are kind of. . . not messed with in hospitals. Colonels have already passed 20 years, and so they are "working for half-pay" and generally could be earning much more outside the military.
They don't get fired for letting patients keep ports.
I went to my appointment with Dr. Golden on a Tuesday afternoon with the expectation that I could get on his schedule in 2 to 3 weeks. (That was the time when I felt a painful lump and was assured it was scar tissue and not returning cancer.)
Dr. Golden is a quiet, little man. Friendly enough. Not cold. Not super warm. Very clinical. As I sat there answering his standard questions, I thought, "Thank You, God, that I did not have to experience this past year with this surgeon."
Dr. Golden was quiet for several seconds, after the last answer. Then he said, "Are you free tomorrow?" At which the Golden-o-meter shot up about 17 points. Tell me what time to be here. . .
Bryan drove me down and stayed with the kids in the waiting room. On the way to the office, I ran into a woman in the corridor who was leaving pediatrics. I stopped and said, "I know you. . ." It was Su, a friend from Korea I had known 5 years earlier. Her husband is now stationed in the Springs.
Well. It had been 5 years. We hadn't been close--just knew each other from a Bible study on Post. How much do you say in a 2 minute conversation? On one hand, there was the question of "What are you doing in a hospital?" On the other hand, wasn't the fact that I had breast cancer now just another piece of my history? No longer 'What is going on with you?' and how often do we need to tell each other 'What was going on'?
Still. Good to see her. And what were the chances?. . .
Once I checked in, I was taken to a room across the hall from the offices and exam rooms I'd been sitting in all year and this procedure room didn't look too different. Better lighting, of course. More stuff. A crash cart. . .
The nurse assisting was a man. Some middle-aged guy. Very sociable. Told me a funny story about Mayfield.
[What's that? You want to hear it? Well. . . So Mayfield was doing some kind of stitching and he left the thread on the body. The nurse's words: "And I asked him the wrong way--because what I meant was, 'Which procedure are you going to use at this point because there's 2 different ways to do it?' But what I said was, 'Are you going to leave that there?' And he turned to me and said, totally stone-faced, 'I've done these before. . .'"
Heh heh. That is not a Mayfield story. That is a surgeon story. These people have to be like this. How else are they going to cut human bodies open and muck around with their insides?]
The nurse turned on a soft-pop music station and assured me that most patients found this palatable. I said, "Hey--whatever Dr. Golden wants to listen to!"
Which prompted the nurse to tell a Dr. Golden story.
[What's that? OK, OK. . .]
Following a 4 hour surgery, this nurse witnessed the surgical team exit the OR with eyes rolling and great exhaustion in their step. "That took forever," they complained.
4 hours? That's nothing!
"No, no, no," they explained. "Dr. Golden had one CD going the entire time: the Oklahoma! soundtrack. The entire time!"
I badly wanted to talk about Oklahoma! with Dr. Golden during the procedure because I payed the part of Aunt Eller at the pinnacle of my theater career. But I didn't want to get the nurse into trouble with the doctor, and how else would I know to bring it up if the nurse hadn't been gossipping?
Here's something interesting about that afternoon. I was unclothed, of course, from the waist up as I lay awake on the table. With two men in the room. And I didn't feel an ounce of self-consciousness.
The nurse sat to my right. The port was in my left. Dr. Golden flipped open the surgical fabrics to isolate the work area and then he settled them on me. He examined the scar from the the port installation and after some time, commented, "You have some abrasion here."
I popped my head up to look, the fabric was in the way, so I pressed it down to better see, whence he said, "Don't touch that."
Too late, of course.
He had to re-dress the area with a new set of sterile fabrics. I could not help but comment, after apologizing, "You know, when you opened the first set, I saw particles of dust puff off of them in the light. So, really, how sterile could this fabric be?"
He said, simply, "Those were sterile particles of dust."
I do not know if he was joking. . .
But none of this stopped me from chatting with him throughout. Why does he stay in the Army? Because he likes taking care of soldiers. And their families. Somehow we got to talking about pets and he does not have cats, but his wife does and he lives with them. And where he was from. And where we went to school. And on with all kinds of other chit chat.
Which was interrupted by his statement to the nurse, "I'm going to need a BOVIE." The nurse hopped up, got something out, told me it wouldn't hurt, but to be aware that it would be very cold, so don't sit up from the shock.
Then he slapped a very cold adhesive patch to my right chest wall and plugged me in. "You might see smoke," the nurse said, "Don't worry."
"Smoke?" I asked. Silence.
"Are you plugging that end in?" I asked.
"Just grounding you," he said.
Oh. OK. Right.
Wait. Grounding me????
Then I heard sizzlin' and poppin'. And I forced myself to stop thinking about it. I learned later what I suspected, and why the nurse had not done much to explain what a BOVIE is.
It's a cauterizing tool.
You can google that if you want to. I have easy-queasy sisters to think about here.
I could have done the whole thing as an out-patient, you know, with the use of a knock-me-out drug. But as much as I love a good ether story, I didn't want to have to go through a 2 hour check-in appointment on one day and then show up for an early report time for the actual procedure. I wanted convenience.
And I wanted to know what it's like to be awake while someone cuts your skin open and digs a hunk of titanium out of it.
Answer: Not as horrifying as you'd expect.
I couldn't see anything. I felt several pin pricks when he injected the local anesthesia and then had no way to know when or what he was slicing. The messing around he did in there sounded a little like. . . a dog chewing chicken. There was definitely the sound of sinew disturbed. And the BOVIE, well, that made sounds, too.
At one point, Dr. Golden remarked that it should be out, but wasn't coming out. Then I felt--and reported--a sharp pulling from the inside at the farthest right point of where I imagined the port sat.
Aha. Another stitch.
Moments later, it was out--which I didn't feel at all--and moments after that, I was stitched shut. Moments after that, it was thank you and good-bye, Dr. Golden. I haven't seen him since.
The nurse flushed the port out for me. It's purple. Kind of iridescent. Heavy. Shaped like a rounded triangle, almost like a heart. I keep it on my bathroom counter with the ambition of having a jeweler turn it into a key chain. For now, I like seeing it every morning, there, on the counter, unused.
I put it into a little bag and walked back into the waiting room. The kids had no idea what a big moment it was. For Bryan and me, it was the kind of moment you couldn't say anything about. He just hugged me.
Then Josh started crying over not being allowed to finish watching the cartoon on the waiting room screen and Gemma wanted to know what was in the bag. And the moment was over as the rest of our life beckoned us.
Yeah, it was a busy summer. Yeah, we were at Grand Lake the weekend after it came out, so there were other things to share. But I think now that I just felt so done with medical appointments that I figured anyone who has been reading along surely also felt done with them, too.
But some funny things happened. It'd be a shame to forget them. . .
We travel back to mid-July. I knew already that Mayfield would not be there to cross the finish line with us because the Army--in its persistent crusade to make its best people hate their employer--had moved up Mayfield's deployment date from September to late May. With less than a week's notice. (Which means he and his wife had to cancel their vacation to Germany, too!)
No one's asking for violins, here. I'm telling you that in order to tell you this: In the midst of last-minute preparations and the intense pressure couples endure before saying goodbye for un-natural lengths of time, Mayfield both faxed in paperwork to assure my continuity of care when our insurance switched from active duty to retired coverage AND he spoke with the surgeon at the hospital he recommended to remove my port.
So. One last round of applause for my awesome surgeon.
The guy he recommended got the nod for one single reason: I wanted to keep my port. Patients are not allowed, by regulation, to keep their ports. But Dr. Golden (that's a code name) has selected 06, and Colonels are kind of. . . not messed with in hospitals. Colonels have already passed 20 years, and so they are "working for half-pay" and generally could be earning much more outside the military.
They don't get fired for letting patients keep ports.
I went to my appointment with Dr. Golden on a Tuesday afternoon with the expectation that I could get on his schedule in 2 to 3 weeks. (That was the time when I felt a painful lump and was assured it was scar tissue and not returning cancer.)
Dr. Golden is a quiet, little man. Friendly enough. Not cold. Not super warm. Very clinical. As I sat there answering his standard questions, I thought, "Thank You, God, that I did not have to experience this past year with this surgeon."
Dr. Golden was quiet for several seconds, after the last answer. Then he said, "Are you free tomorrow?" At which the Golden-o-meter shot up about 17 points. Tell me what time to be here. . .
Bryan drove me down and stayed with the kids in the waiting room. On the way to the office, I ran into a woman in the corridor who was leaving pediatrics. I stopped and said, "I know you. . ." It was Su, a friend from Korea I had known 5 years earlier. Her husband is now stationed in the Springs.
Well. It had been 5 years. We hadn't been close--just knew each other from a Bible study on Post. How much do you say in a 2 minute conversation? On one hand, there was the question of "What are you doing in a hospital?" On the other hand, wasn't the fact that I had breast cancer now just another piece of my history? No longer 'What is going on with you?' and how often do we need to tell each other 'What was going on'?
Still. Good to see her. And what were the chances?. . .
Once I checked in, I was taken to a room across the hall from the offices and exam rooms I'd been sitting in all year and this procedure room didn't look too different. Better lighting, of course. More stuff. A crash cart. . .
The nurse assisting was a man. Some middle-aged guy. Very sociable. Told me a funny story about Mayfield.
[What's that? You want to hear it? Well. . . So Mayfield was doing some kind of stitching and he left the thread on the body. The nurse's words: "And I asked him the wrong way--because what I meant was, 'Which procedure are you going to use at this point because there's 2 different ways to do it?' But what I said was, 'Are you going to leave that there?' And he turned to me and said, totally stone-faced, 'I've done these before. . .'"
Heh heh. That is not a Mayfield story. That is a surgeon story. These people have to be like this. How else are they going to cut human bodies open and muck around with their insides?]
The nurse turned on a soft-pop music station and assured me that most patients found this palatable. I said, "Hey--whatever Dr. Golden wants to listen to!"
Which prompted the nurse to tell a Dr. Golden story.
[What's that? OK, OK. . .]
Following a 4 hour surgery, this nurse witnessed the surgical team exit the OR with eyes rolling and great exhaustion in their step. "That took forever," they complained.
4 hours? That's nothing!
"No, no, no," they explained. "Dr. Golden had one CD going the entire time: the Oklahoma! soundtrack. The entire time!"
I badly wanted to talk about Oklahoma! with Dr. Golden during the procedure because I payed the part of Aunt Eller at the pinnacle of my theater career. But I didn't want to get the nurse into trouble with the doctor, and how else would I know to bring it up if the nurse hadn't been gossipping?
Here's something interesting about that afternoon. I was unclothed, of course, from the waist up as I lay awake on the table. With two men in the room. And I didn't feel an ounce of self-consciousness.
The nurse sat to my right. The port was in my left. Dr. Golden flipped open the surgical fabrics to isolate the work area and then he settled them on me. He examined the scar from the the port installation and after some time, commented, "You have some abrasion here."
I popped my head up to look, the fabric was in the way, so I pressed it down to better see, whence he said, "Don't touch that."
Too late, of course.
He had to re-dress the area with a new set of sterile fabrics. I could not help but comment, after apologizing, "You know, when you opened the first set, I saw particles of dust puff off of them in the light. So, really, how sterile could this fabric be?"
He said, simply, "Those were sterile particles of dust."
I do not know if he was joking. . .
But none of this stopped me from chatting with him throughout. Why does he stay in the Army? Because he likes taking care of soldiers. And their families. Somehow we got to talking about pets and he does not have cats, but his wife does and he lives with them. And where he was from. And where we went to school. And on with all kinds of other chit chat.
Which was interrupted by his statement to the nurse, "I'm going to need a BOVIE." The nurse hopped up, got something out, told me it wouldn't hurt, but to be aware that it would be very cold, so don't sit up from the shock.
Then he slapped a very cold adhesive patch to my right chest wall and plugged me in. "You might see smoke," the nurse said, "Don't worry."
"Smoke?" I asked. Silence.
"Are you plugging that end in?" I asked.
"Just grounding you," he said.
Oh. OK. Right.
Wait. Grounding me????
Then I heard sizzlin' and poppin'. And I forced myself to stop thinking about it. I learned later what I suspected, and why the nurse had not done much to explain what a BOVIE is.
It's a cauterizing tool.
You can google that if you want to. I have easy-queasy sisters to think about here.
I could have done the whole thing as an out-patient, you know, with the use of a knock-me-out drug. But as much as I love a good ether story, I didn't want to have to go through a 2 hour check-in appointment on one day and then show up for an early report time for the actual procedure. I wanted convenience.
And I wanted to know what it's like to be awake while someone cuts your skin open and digs a hunk of titanium out of it.
Answer: Not as horrifying as you'd expect.
I couldn't see anything. I felt several pin pricks when he injected the local anesthesia and then had no way to know when or what he was slicing. The messing around he did in there sounded a little like. . . a dog chewing chicken. There was definitely the sound of sinew disturbed. And the BOVIE, well, that made sounds, too.
At one point, Dr. Golden remarked that it should be out, but wasn't coming out. Then I felt--and reported--a sharp pulling from the inside at the farthest right point of where I imagined the port sat.
Aha. Another stitch.
Moments later, it was out--which I didn't feel at all--and moments after that, I was stitched shut. Moments after that, it was thank you and good-bye, Dr. Golden. I haven't seen him since.
The nurse flushed the port out for me. It's purple. Kind of iridescent. Heavy. Shaped like a rounded triangle, almost like a heart. I keep it on my bathroom counter with the ambition of having a jeweler turn it into a key chain. For now, I like seeing it every morning, there, on the counter, unused.
I put it into a little bag and walked back into the waiting room. The kids had no idea what a big moment it was. For Bryan and me, it was the kind of moment you couldn't say anything about. He just hugged me.
Then Josh started crying over not being allowed to finish watching the cartoon on the waiting room screen and Gemma wanted to know what was in the bag. And the moment was over as the rest of our life beckoned us.
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