surgery

I prefer to live in a “drama-free” zone. So does my husband. Even our dog hides when a voice is raised at our house.

Now, that doesn’t mean our life is 24/7 Kumbaya or completely void of passion. It’s just that, after the past two years, I can hardly imagine what could be more dramatic than a persistent pandemic actively seeking to infect us all the goddamn time. One that gleefully throws a curve-ball into, well, every plan, every chance it gets. Self-certified experts at rolling with punches, the two of us are officially all out of shits to give, making it nearly impossible to be, “emotionally surprised by events or circumstance— which is how Miriam Webster defines drama.

Enter 2022.

Last Monday night, as we engaged in some not at all sexy tandem teeth-brushing, my husband informed me that he might have to visit Urgent Care at 3am.

“Why don’t we go now and save ourselves some drama?” I asked, with a mouth full of paste.
“Because right now I’m fine. I want to observe.”

Let me just say, we observed the shit out of his condition——if observing is snoring with your eyes closed for seven hours.

The next morning, everything appeared under control. I even got my new dryer delivered six weeks late, a day early.
All was right with the world.

“Why don’t you pay urgent care a preemptive visit today?” I suggested, while loading perfectly clean clothes into the washer so I could give my new dryer a test spin.

“Good idea!” he replied.
So he did.
That’s when things went sideways.

“Urgent Care can’t fix the problem so they’re sending me to my doctor,” he said, from his car speaker-phone.
“Mmmmmkay,” I shouted over the loud kerplunk of jeans in the dryer, “lemme know how it goes.”

“I’m getting worried.” I texted two hours later. A short time after that, he called me. “I need emergency surgery,” he said. He sounded like shit.
“I’m coming!”
“You can’t. No outside visitors allowed. Covid.”
“Fuck.”
“I know.”

The surgery went well. I know that because the doctor told me so. My husband, on the other hand, texted me from recovery which was…well, if you ask me, I think they give them their phones too soon, you know, because they can’t have visitors and let’s just say—— I don’t recommend it.

Alone in bed that night, I petitioned god for a referendum on any further drama. We’d had an agreement and she’d broken it. “That’s it!” I declared. “You get one thing. And you blew it all in January so, that’s it for 2022. No more drama.”

Did you know you get to do that?

I learned this trick from my shaman after the California earthquake of 1994.

Terrified of aftershocks, I’d feel every damn one while he felt NONE OF THEM.
NADA.
Zip.
Zero.
It was beyond infuriating!
“I didn’t feel a thing,” he remarked after one particularly strong tremor that sent me diving under the dining room table. Apparently, the kitchen, a mere ten feet away, was not prone to aftershocks. “Remove yourself from the drama,” he advised, “you lived the initial trauma, you don’t have to keep re-living it. Ask to sleep through them.”

So I asked. And from that day forward, I was impervious to aftershocks. I slept, or drove, or simply ladeedah’d my way through them. Seriously.

At 9:30 Friday night, there was a fire across the street. Another one! Except this one was inside the house and it was enormous. Five fire trucks. The home fully engulfed, with flames shooting ten feet in the air. Thick, black smoke. I saw the pictures and I’d have to say it was the highest drama possible without anyone being hurt.

And we had no idea. None.

Our neighbors knocked for us, but when we didn’t answer, they assumed we were out of town.

Stranger yet, you know who hears and smells all of that? All the sirens, smoke, raised voices, and door knocking——Our dog.
Did she hear a thing that night? Nope.

The three of us were blissfully ignorant inside a drama-free bubble in the back of our house. Indulging in comfort food, watching The Prisoner of Azkaban. Spells are magic. Agreements are nonbreakable. God is a mensch.

Abracadabra, y’all,
xox J

I put my earrings back on today.

That is no small feat since I have four holes in each ear, a product of a self-piercing binge back in the seventies.
My father said I looked like a Christmas tree, meaning I suppose, that I was “over-decorated.” Loving everything Christmas, and never understanding the concept of less is more or that fact that something could ever be “over-decorated”, I took his remarks as a compliment and have worn depending on the decade, either safety pins, tiny gold hoops or eensy diamond studs in all of the four holes that wind their way up each ear.

I mention all of this because when you have surgery the hospital insists that you remove ALL of your jewelry.
I saved that ritual for an hour before we left the house. I told myself that I couldn’t get nervous “until the jewelry comes off.”

As I removed each earring, putting it into a small dish of cleaning solution, I played a little game.
It’s something I do when I have what I view as an obstacle looming over me and the game went like this:

I reassured myself by saying, “When I put these earrings back on—the surgery will be OVER.
This private Everest of mine will have been summited.
I will be in the clear—with a flat-ish stomach—and a bladder that doesn’t have an elephant sitting on it.”

I thought it would just be a couple of days.

Little did I know it would be more than a week later.

Every day, as I shuffled over to my bathroom sink, bent in half like a one thousand-year-old woman to brushed my teeth and look sideways at my filthy bed head in the mirror—I saw the little dish of earrings.

You know how when you don’t feel great even the most mundane task feels Herculean? The thought of struggling with eight tiny earring backs made me nauseous.

By Thursday the liquid was gone. The earrings, sitting in a heap of dried up ear yuck taunted me.

Sunday night they made me cry. But so did breathing, laying down and sitting up, so don’t blame the earrings.

I wondered if I’d ever have the stamina to struggle with them. I didn’t feel fancy enough for jewelry. Would I ever be over-decorated again?

At least I still had my nose ring.
The admitting nurse had gone mildly apoplectic when she saw it. “You have to take that out,” she said sternly at five thirty the morning of the surgery. I lied and said I didn’t know how. She came over, standing close to my face, eyeballed it suspiciously, tore off a piece of white tape she had in her pocket, and slapped it over the thin gold hoop on the side of my nose.

Anyhow, this morning, when I looked at the earrings…and they looked back at me…we all agreed that today was the day. I rinsed them off and one by one and on this lovely April morning, I over-decorated the Christmas tree.

Carry on,
xox

Before I type one more word I want to make it clear that despite all evidence to the contrary, this post will be brought to you by the word/feeling—appreciation.

I appreciate so much the fact that due to the marvels of modern medicine, I stand before you today uterus-free. That is true.

I appreciate general anesthesia and the effect it has on a person. One moment you’re lying there counting to fifty and the next thing you know your entire nether region has been dyed orange with antiseptic, a nurse is harassing you with questions like what is the capital of Nebraska? (Omaha), what is the level of your pain (what pain? We haven’t started yet—silly), and the fact that you can’t for the life of you figure out how much cotton it takes to dry up every ounce of moisture in an entire human being—and who the fuck do you have to pay around this joint to get some ice chips?

I appreciate downtime. That week or so that’s required to get back on your feet and up to speed with life.

Every word of that was bullshit.

Surgery made me lie.
There, I said it.
I can’t explain why or how it’s happened.

I did feel appreciation for like a minute and then I went directly to feeling appalled.

Appalled!

Recovery from surgery is appalling. But I guess everyone knew that but me!
And now here’s the truth:

HOW HAVE I BEEN LUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE NEVER BEEN CUT OPEN UNTIL NOW?

Sorry for yelling, but seriously? I’m fifty-nine and all I have to draw on surgery wise are just a couple of laparoscopies which are holes punched into you that can be closed with super glue. If you’re lucky they use your belly button. It’s just hanging around, all of its best days in the rearview mirror, so why not? It was made for hole punching. It’s kinda far away from your knee or your hip, so I wouldn’t suggest that they use it for those procedures–but as for my lady part removal— it was a no-brainer.

At least that was the plan. Plan A & B. It wasn’t written in stone, but still, cutting me open was…plan Q.

The bitch put up a fight. Instead of two hours, she fought for five.

Of course, my body parts would fight to remain inside. It’s cozy in there and they are most definitely well fed.

She was a big girl. Bigger than they had expected. And stubborn. Like a bull. She was the Bea Arthur of uteruses.
“We’re gonna need a bigger…hole”, someone said.
So they decided at the last-minute to cut me open, a three-inch c-section did the trick.

It looks spontaneous.
Like the last-ditch effort to remove something that doesn’t want to leave. Like those battering rams that punch giant holes in the doors of deadbeat, crack head squatters. It is not the clean edged, precision cut of a surgical scalpel, no, I look to have been cut open by a shard of glass from a broken bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

My incision has duck-lips. (See photo at the top), and it feels like a red-hot branding iron is searing my flesh every time I even think about moving.

I have questions. Lots. Okay, two.

1. How in the hell do women have an incision three times as large as mine and deal with a small infant? I would throw a crying baby out of the window right now. I kid you not. Ladies, you have my deepest respect. If I could bow to you without passing out—I would.

2. Who do I talk to about this because I’m appalled? This was supposed to be easy! Bea, (my uterus) and I sat down for weeks beforehand with tea and those expensive chocolate biscotti and had chit-chats about how this was going to go down. It was agreed that I had been more than accommodating, that eviction was imminent, and that she would go without so much as a whimper.

No one was expecting a bar fight. Least of all me.

So there you have it. My Sports Illustrated Swimsuit days are over, Bea obviously had her fingers crossed when she swore to me she’d leave without a fight, and mothers with c-sections are fucking superheroes.

Carry on,
xox

“My fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them.”

I could have died last Thursday. You laugh. But I could have.

It was a possibility seeing that I was going to be under general anesthesia and since the thought had entered my head via the delivery system of mountains of paperwork I had to sign. This pre-op ritual made it clear that I would hold absolutely no one responsible for my death—should I become dead while not paying attention.

Doctors make you do that just before they put you under.

Culpability. It’s a thing.
I could have choked on my pastrami sandwich at lunch today but the deli didn’t drown me in documents before I took my first bite.
Sheesh.

I get it. It’s their duty to remind you. That’s the thing about drugs that render you fake dead. And being cut open—they up your odds of becoming real dead.

Anyhow, it got me thinking about dying.

About my “exit strategy”, which is a term my deceased friend uses to refer to death. “Everyone has one, you have several opportunities actually” she reminds me all the time. Apparently, it presents itself in the form of an illness, car accident, egg salad at the beach or a cheese sandwhich from a vending machine.

Everyone keeps telling you that shit’ll kill ya.

So even though I didn’t have a reasonable reason to feel as if my days were numbered—I just did.

I lived as if I was going to die.

Imminently. Like Thursday.

I’m not gonna lie, my fake death made me a little fake sad. Mostly it made me crave bad food (because hey, why not)—and wish I’d had time to get my hair straightened (good looking corpse rule #2. Rule #1 – Mani-pedi.)

Oh, and it made me pay attention to life.

Everything felt like the last time so I savored it. Kissing my dog was delicious. Ice cream tasted better if you can imagine that. Lemons were more sour.

And it’s definitive: I can’t stand cheap aftershave on men in elevators or vanilla candles.

I noticed things I tend to overlook. The sound of the rain as it hits the pavers in our courtyard.
And have you ever noticed that lots of people hold hands? Have you? I never did. And not just parents and kids. Couples of all types. Young, old, fat, skinny, young and skinny, old and fat, didn’t matter. Hands were being held. I think that’s sweet.

Did you know that studies have found that holding hands is good for your heart? I looked it up.

I took my time. I dawdled. I went to the movies in the middle of the day and ate a hot dog—with extra mustard. I walked in my neighborhood and forgot to bring my earbuds. I noticed my feet and my legs and how they move me through life and instead of run/walking everywhere like I normally do, I strolled. I looked more closely at the street art. I splashed in puddles. I said hello to strangers.

I wondered if my fake death was making me lazy? Look, a fake problem.

You wanna know what I didn’t do?
Hold on tight to anything.
Worry (why waste my time?)
Diet.
Walk on eggshells.
Work hard at much.

Then I got the flu and it suddenly felt as if the rumors of my death would pan out to be true.

My surgery was canceled, and as suddenly as it had appeared, the energy of my “exit strategy” passed.
Just like that. It has left my consciousness so completely that I can’t even conjure the feeling of it if I try.

I know that when I do get this surgery the thought of dying won’t even occur to me.

I had my fake dry run and I took away something real.

My life.

Carry on,
xox