Getting My Ducts In A Row

So, I took almost two weeks off. A health siesta.

I did not make a single phone call to even one doctor and sat around eating mayonnaise from the jar with a spoon and drinking absinthe spiked with aspartame-laden Kool-Aid while I chain-smoked cigars. I am very glad I did.

What was supposed to be an hour-long "second look ultrasound" appointment last Friday turned into one of those four-hour-long ordeals where multiple doctors march in and out while I lay prone on a table shivering in a paper napkin and flipping through a stained 1987 copy of Time magazine. Never had one of those? Trust me, they are crazy fun.

Jeff hung around in the holding tank of the aggressively PINK waiting room because no men were allowed back past the double doors into the inner sanctum that is The Breast Center. When I finally emerged, he asked what it was like back there, with the hint of awe and wonder that most men feel when confronted with an image of A BREAST (or, even, the word). A continuously-looping DVD demonstrating how to do a proper self-exam played for hours while he waited and I think he was at sensory overload.

I told him it was just like Key West in April, but with fewer tan lines and more sagging and grey hair. He then asked what a mammogram felt like. I told him when we got home he could remove his pants and I would do my best to replicate the feeling using equivalently-tender gender-specific organs and my two heaviest books from law school. The questions stopped there.

The general agreement among the whispering breast guys (and they were all guys, this struck me as a bit ironic given the no-male sign on the double doors) is that there is "something" in a duct. Confetti? An underwear gnome? A lost sock from the dryer? Your guess is as good as mine.

I am scheduled bright and early tomorrow morning for a repulsive-sounding procedure that involves threading a catheter into a place catheters ought not to go (one hint: it rhymes with "whipple"). Yeah.

I did my own research on-line about how this procedure may feel. "Mild discomfort" is what I uncovered; which, I have learned by now is medical site jargon for, Jesus God and Mary!! HOLD ON TO YOUR F$#%*$G HAT!!

Will keep you posted. If nothing else, I expect this will be good blog material.

Random Nibbles

The Kid:

My husband took our son to school the other day. I woke up and there was a message for me on the table. It was scrawled in multi-colored crayon, handwritten in his best approximation of that little-known MS Word font, Ransom Note:

Can I geT a ponee ?

I will built it A fence.

I was amused. I mean, my husband was not an English major, but still …

Cleavage and Emergency Medical Treatment:

Still intact. I had lunch with my mom last week and was falling the F apart. I had stuff going on at work, stuff going on at home, and just could not cope, right now. Just could not. She told me maybe I should just take a week off. One week would not make much of a difference one way or another, right? Just give myself a week with no medical appointments, no lab tests, no phone calls to doctors. Just pretend everything is OK and then re-tackle it next week. I told her that was the best idea I have heard all year.

On day seven of my self-imposed health sabbatical, we had planned a family trip to the zoo and instead took a family trip to the ER. For Ethan this time! It was nice to mix it up a little. Ethan had surgery for an inguinal hernia about two years ago and was experiencing severe pain in the same spot where the surgical repair had been. And he could not walk.

Jeff woke me up to inform me that, "We should call the doctor because Ethan cannot walk."

"Define for me 'cannot walk'?"

And then I heard Ethan howling at the bottom of the steps because he was stuck.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME HE CANNOT WALK!?"

The fine staff of the ER determined the cause was an inflamed tendon in his groin (how that happened is anyones best guess) and would be better soon with rest and anti-inflammatory medication. He gimped around for about a day afterward, but is now back in full commission, illicit couch-jumping and all. No permanent damage done. Except for my eardrums, those may never recover, as a result of those dog-whistle noises he made when they drew blood.

Again, thank you Amazing Health Insurance Coverage, we owe you a giant fruit basket this holiday season.

My Dad Is Older Than Your Dad:

My dad turns sixty this week. My mom and I are throwing a party. By that I mean, my mom is dealing with catering, bar, and inviting all the guests and I am going to the party discount store for a giant 6-0 balloon and maybe, some sparkly table confetti. She is an excellent co-host.

I think the event is supposed to be a semi-surprise. I am not worried about giving anything away with my blog because my dad not only does not own a computer but has a cell phone that he refers to as his "car phone." If you call him on the "car phone", you may leave a message asking him to return the call. He will then call you three days later and tell you that he heard his phone ring on Tuesday, was it you who called? He is not the person to try and contact if you are bleeding in a ditch and care about being rescued within the next seventy-two hours.

My husband and I are continually entertained by our home phone voicemail. Dad is so uncomfortable with modern technology that it still confuses him when he has leave a message on our automated "machine." He will clear his throat for about ten minutes before mumbling something indistinct and hanging up. Did I mention the man was a national champion debater in college? Yes he was. Just don't ask him to argue with you over voicemail, his head will explode.

That is not to say he is not intelligent … he is very very smart. Two verys. He was a professor at Georgetown Dental for twenty-five years, as well as a practicing dentist. In fact, he was Patrick Ewing's dentist in the mid-80s! He has not stopped talking about it. I suppose irrigating a celebrity mouth is as close as many dentists will get to their fifteen minutes.

What does one buy a technophobic ex-NBA star's oral care technician for such a big birthday milestone? So far I have a set of golf balls (when I first typed this I typed g-o-l-D balls. Gag. I do not want to further explore any Freudian subtext in that finger misfire but thought it was funny enough to mention. Because I have the same sense of humor as most eleven-year boys.) Moving on ...

Perhaps a book about the Kennedy family? He loves that crazy crew! Every birthday/holiday I wrap up a giant tome of 1,000 (give-or-take) pages of Kennedy non-fiction and he acts genuinely excited to receive it. You would think after the 180th Kennedy book, he would have learned everything there is to know about them.

It makes me sad that my dad has to stress about his daughter's serious health issues. He will often call me (from the house or office, never the car) to discuss new curative ideas.

Suddenly he is a Registered Dietitian: "I just read an article about the benefits of an all-organic diet on cancer. Are you eating an all-organic diet? What?! Put down those Cheetos and Red Bull this second, young lady!"

And a Sleep Specialist: "Are you getting ten hours of sleep every night? You really cannot heal if you do not get proper REM. Well, just tell Ethan he needs to walk to school ... a fifteen-mile hike never killed anyone."

And a Radiation Expert: "I hope you are not standing in front of that microwave while you are cooking? Did I just hear a 'beep'?!"

I joke but it is actually sweet. He cares. This has been hard on my parents too.

One More Random Quote:

Do not throw that turtle in the living room!! (Me to Ethan, not my dad to me.)

On Being Dead:

I have a real confession. My latest obsession involves staying up late and reading brain tumor blogs. I will spare you the time and Google search: They all end up dead. You just KNOW some of them are in bad shape when you read their diagnoses and treatment plans. But some of them deceive you. There's one where the woman had written eighteen chapters over the course of seven years since her diagnosis, a veritable Internet book. At her last appointment her doctor told her that the scans were all stable and she "had decades."

I clicked on her eighteenth chapter and felt as though I had been kicked in the throat. It was a eulogy written by her husband one month later. There were no details, just dates and a short memorial paragraph. I wanted to know what happened. It was like having the last chapter ripped out of the suspense thriller you borrowed from the library, but morose and sad, because it is (was) a life.

At night, I go to bed and cannot turn my disturbing inner dialogue off:

IhaveabraintumorIhaveabraintumorIhaveabraintumor ...

I can practically feel it beating through the floorboards of my skull.

I am constantly on guard for strange things that may kill me. If my nose is running, I worry that it is not a cold, but dripping CSF. If I have a headache, is it a hemorrhage? If my vision is blurry, is it pressing on my optic nerve? It can be tiresome. I do not voice these concerns to anyone but my husband, who has become my when-to-alert-the-authorities barometer.

I was half-heartedly watching TV the other night, while reading a book at the same time. My husband had gone to bed half-an-hour before. I noticed after he left that the actors on the show were speaking out-of-sync. Their lips were about one second off from matching the words coming out of them. I watched for about ten more minutes thinking, "I wonder if I should call my doctor? Is this some sort of seizure?"

So I wake Jeff up and tell him, "This is going to sound weird, but …"

"Oh, I noticed it too. It is not you. It is the show."

And I was all, "WHAT? Why didn't you say something?! I was afraid to go to sleep because I was worried I would wake up with brain leaking all over the pillow. And you know these are our good sheets …"

On High School Revisited:

My fifteen-year high school reunion is at the end of this month. I think this should be causing some sort of angst, but so far, it is not (stay tuned: it will). My one concession to vanity is that I bought a new shirt which is likely as far as I will go. I should be dieting, but life is short, or something.

I have attempted to get my teeth bleached but my dentist is not returning my calls (see, "car phone.") I have large teeth, not EXTRA crazy large teeth, but large enough. They take up, maybe, 1/10th of the real estate that is my face.

In college, I used to hear that I looked like Jenny McCarthy ... I think it was my big teeth. Because she is known for those big teeth; it is common knowledge that showing them off made her famous. To be clear: I used to only hear that flattering(?) comparison from drunken guys in bars. I look nothing like Jenny McCarthy, except that we share similarly oversized mouths. In any event, I bet she does not have to argue with her dentist to get a little whitening action on those generous choppers.

My dad/dentist claims that bleaching ruins the enamel. My response is to tell him that I may consider a back-alley bleach job and might just pick up a $29.99 kit at the drugstore. He says he'll know, in some sort of omnipresent way that infers that if I do, not only will my teeth be irreparably scarred, but I will get caught and then grounded until my fortieth birthday.

Therefore, I am hoping my new shirt offsets my large and sort-of whitish teeth. It will probably be dark, right?

My Brother:

Where art thou. I have not been able to reach you via cell, girlfriend, or email. I am beginning to worry a shark ate you. Call me, you. I need to see if you want to go in on a Kennedy book.

Patriotism, Boiled Down

Alright, my little turnip. Listen up. You may wonder why I am now calling you my little turnip after calling you my little pumpkin for so long. Well it is because you recently proclaimed that you were "embarrassed" when I called you a pumpkin and requested that I not call you that anymore. So we are on to a different member of the squash family. You will not like it, that I know. But guess what: I am the Mommy and get to pick the nicknames! Deal.

This week was an historic one. But you knew that; you were as well-versed about this election as certain people of legal voting age. You knew that Sarah Palin was from Alaska and running for Vice - President. You knew that you have to be eighteen to vote. You knew that John McCain was "old … at least a hundred" (your words, not mine). You knew that Barack Obama was the first African-American ever to run for President. You knew that you enjoyed my response when you announced that you planned on "voting for McCain" … every eight seconds … since mid-October.

I told you that was OK! I was voting for Barack Obama and was proud to do so. But explained that when you were old enough to vote, you could vote for whomever you wanted. Even Ralph Nader! That is what is great about where we live. And if you want to join the Young Republic Club in high school, we will go together to pick out your boat shoes and crested ties. It is YOUR CHOICE and every person gets to make their own choice about their values, their beliefs, and their candidate. Democracy! Yay!

I took you with me to the voting booth to watch the process in action (also, because your dad was at work late and it is illegal to leave you alone in a parked car). You expressed disappointment that neither McCain nor Palin were there to greet us personally. You said you would have settled for an Obama sighting. You wondered what else they could be doing? Wasn't it Election Day? You perked up when the literature people outside the voting venue offered you a donut and a cup of juice. That was almost as good as shaking the hand of a real-live soon-to-be-President. You liked the sticker too. I let you wear mine.

You did not see me when the official announcement was made, later that night, that Obama was our next President. I cried – this would have shocked you. I do not cry at much - amend that, I do not cry at much in front of other people, especially you. It freaks you out. Tears over something like an election were uncharacteristic. But this election felt different, bigger, more important, and more personal … to millions who cast their ballots … and to me. I was moved to be a part of it and to watch history unfold.

I did not wake you up to see the election results but DVR'er the press coverage to watch with you the next day. Together we watched Obama's acceptance speech. I explained to you what an historic moment this was. How proud I was to be an American. How you should be proud to be an American too. How the right to vote is not something every person in every country has and we should be thankful. How the President-Elect had worked hard during his life and achieved something incredible. How I was going to try to talk Daddy into getting tickets to one of the D.C. Inaugural Balls so I could stimulate the economy and buy a new dress … maybe some shoes. I asked you what you thought of all of it.

Your excellent, insightful response showed me that the gravity of this moment in time had not gone over your head:

Does this mean we can have cupcakes for dinner to celebrate? With sprinkles!?