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 Tuesday, April 29, 2003
flying by surprise
when i dare to become powerful, it becomes less and less important whether i am afraid or something like that, said audre lorde. perhaps my fear of flight ties into trouble feeling good or doing well or being powerful -- or maybe just being recognized as feeling/doing/being as said. this nervousness seems to tie in somewhere to the giddiness about breast surgery, as well as the fears and perhaps even guilt that i have felt. at any rate, i flew. but i flew by surprise. so i'm not sure whether to feel good or proud about it or not. but therein lies the grain of salt, the bother, perhaps the pearl itself. here's how it happened... as quoth from the fofc.com bbs: leanne wanted to do something special to celebrate my biopsy and its results, so she blocked last weekend, april 25-27, out on the calendar. i met her after work on friday and she led me to BART. just when we came up out of the tunnel on the oakland side, she broke the news that we had a 7:40 reservation on JetBlue to Long Beach. now... in my mind, i translated this - momentarily - to "we have a 7:40 reservation... for DINNER", and all was well - but when she then produced a valium from her bag and said we were visiting ted in venice beach, i knew something was seriously up. she thought of everything - the valium (though i thought of flying the trip back without it, watching those planes before takeoff just sent me a bit far), the rubber band (!), the aisle seat, up as far front as possible, the preboarding. the flight itself -- it's great! all great; i love the banking in the air, the view, and i love jetBlue! the (faux?) leather seats and the tv on every seatback... the wacky crew... the new A320's. a little hard on the first landing - but leanne says that's because computers control it -- nose down so hard? she even chose the least intimidating airports she could think of -- oakland is great, just take BART -- and long beach -- why, that's practically like a small train station, and you even walk across the tarmack to get on and off the plane.
in venice, we went to a dinner where ted introduced us to his good friends and they and everyone in town seemed to be in on my trip, looking at me and wanting to know how the flight was. at first, it felt a bit humiliating, but then i realized nobody was saying "it's so much safer than driving... the fear is silly... you shouldn't worry... etc" - people were curious and understanding - one even shared his deep fear of dogs. it was really nice that way... of course the problem is this is not really practicable for that wedding in august i said i can't go to, and i'm not running to purposefully fly anytime soon... but i did have a good time flying this last weekend... and would like to learn how to fly helicopters or something, since i seem to like it so much. some doubtless will not understand this particular fear and babble, perhaps even dismissively. but everyone's, for sure, got their own little spiders, dogs, and dark places -- this i am sure of ... as also of the freedom -- and okay, the power -- of overcoming them. posted by moya | permalink Tuesday, April 15, 2003
rock star, with knives
i went to see nima grissom about my little knot today; "you couldn't stay away, could you?" she taunted me as she walked into the office. my secret's out --- it's true. i feel like a bit of a rock star when i get to see dr grissom. or i feel like she's a bit of a rock star. perhaps it's all those breasts she handles. or her skillful hands. or because she's the one holding the knife... or something. sure enough, just as she had advised in her postoperative instructions, it only took a couple of minutes to deal with the incision. she got out some kind of tweezers and fished out what looked like the knotted end of a fishing wire, the kind my brother used to tie flies with. she said it seems like i'm the type that just gets irritated by and tends to reject internal suturing, and that for future operations, i should probably get a different kind of suture. funny that it was just one side of one of the incisions that kicked up such a fuss. i asked her if this meant it wouldn't heal properly and she said it should be no problem healing, and even if it was, she could re-suture it if necessary. she asked me to come back and see her in three months, so i have an appointment on july 15. midsummer. my goodness. midsummer. i did ask about two additional things that had been whittling at me - about how much tissue was taken out, and about what happens to it afterwards. now, it occurs to me that doctors probably aren't excited about the prospect of someone writing about them on the internet, probably in case some sort of slander occurs. so now i feel an odd sense of privacy about publishing my experiences with specific doctors, even though i find this sort of thing valuable when i do my own searching online. anyway. i have no problem saying anything positive about dr grissom. about my seven centimeters, she simply said that 'just the right amount' was taken out. when i mentioned the marbly, hard sort of ridges around my lateral incision, and asked if the tissue would grow back around it, she said that breast tissue is indeed very forgiving (does it have to do with being female?) and that things would grow back to normal in about a year or so. now leanne, on the other hand, seems to be a bit less forgiving at present about the state of my breast. it seems it freaks her out no small bit about the hard ridges in my current left breast. i hadn't realized that was startling to her. i suppose all things pass. the other little thing i asked about was "where does the tissue go?" they keep the tissue. they keep it, was all she said. i'm sitting up on a shelf in a jar somewhere. maybe in a cold dark room. this deepens my cloning theory. let's see what more i can get out of her in three months. and on her way out, she asked if i wanted to take the little knot with me and we laughed. it wouldn't make for a good picture on the internet - though i did think about it, i admit. dr grissom has a sly sense of humor and a funny sort of ducking smile. i wonder if i was awake during the surgery and could remember whether she wielded the same sense of humor with a knife. i decided everyone was covered up in masks anyway, and for all i know, i had cucumbers on my eyes and was getting a massage and facial. i know it's perhaps a stretch, but i don't get surgery all that often, and maybe haven't quite gotten over that versed halo. surely to the entire viewing public's dismay, i guess it's best to suspend the weekly pictoral wound updates until i heal a little bit more from our latest romp. i'm supposed to apply neosporin for a few days, and should scab up all over again over the little knot. how will i wear my easter bustier? oh and for the record, since we're talking about records, i also definitely recommend marty at hair play: http://www.sfstation.com/specialty/hairsalons/hairplay/. posted by moya | permalink Saturday, April 05, 2003
sickness and knots
by the time i got home thursday night, i had a fever of 101, sore throat, body aches, chills ... the whole drill. i've been in a hot bath or asleep since then, and leanne is once again making me nice foods. this is the longest i've been vertical since thursday. we didn't get to go to vegas for nate's birthday and i'm sad for that, but i wouldn't have been much fun. as it is, i feel a bit on the mend, though it's quite possible nate and a martini in his honor would have sped it along. i have noticed just today that my medial incision, previously un-scabbed, now quite possibly shows knots surfacing. i quote from dr. grissom:
Internal sutures are most commonly used to close the incision. They dissolve after 6 to 12 weeks. Occasionally the knot, which is tied to prevent the suture from unraveling, will come to the surface of the incision and cause drainage, redness, and irritation. This usually happens several weeks after surgery. If this occurs, please call the office and come in to have it removed. This is not painful and takes just a few seconds.
it is in fact six weeks since the surgery, so the timing is right for the dissolving (or the floating to the top?). i'll call on monday if it looks the same. the knots, the sickness, and the SARS are all presumed unrelated! going to lie down again... posted by moya | permalink Wednesday, April 02, 2003
money a stunning parade of bills for my biopsy has been arriving, and i'm not entirely sure when it will end. i'm lucky to have insurance. with over ten thousand dollars billed already to insurance, and most of it covered save for a few hundred dollars, i don't know what i would have done had i been one of the many many many poor without insurance. here's a sampling of my halfday of services:
682.00 -- radiologist, including localization surgery
and mammography
560.00 -- anesthetist
7,663.45 -- hospital, over a thousand of which is for
drugs alone
2,100.00 -- surgeon
734.00 -- pathologist
since it turns out my old car costs $500 for its old-car tuneup today (always worth it to visit the good folks at pat's garage), it's a lucky thing there is 10K less that i have to owe. posted by moya | permalink Tuesday, April 01, 2003
women yesterday, leanne and i went to the mayor's summit for women at the moscone center and heard an impressive lineup of women speak. very little said directly about breast cancer, though molly ivins herself is a survivor. health care and child care, confusion about hormones, being a leader and being a mother, and running for office were all emphasized. the war continues to disrupt the world, and most made passing but not pointed reference to it - except for maxine waters. i like leanne's post to noend about it so much that i'm just going to reproduce it here:
yesterday i went to moscone with my gf moya for the mayor's summit for women and felt overwhelmingly humanized.
posted by moya |
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