Decidedly Grim

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Hello again! I want to thank everyone for the well-wishes I received while I was recuperating from my hysterectomy. I had the surgery on June 16th and I’m now virtually recovered – except that I’m still not allowed to lift anything, to perform vigorous exercise (as if), or to return to work (such a pity). The surgery went (in my doctor’s words) “smashingly” – but, sadly, I wasn’t able to keep the uterus because, due to my pre-cancerous condition, it had to be sliced up like a loaf of bread for detailed analysis. The pathology report came back showing various benign conditions, but no cancer. Such a waste of an organ…

I spent two days in the hospital and had a reasonably pain-free recovery (thanks to the fentanyl pump I was hooked up to), but it was hardly a peaceful environment. A man next door to me had crushed his leg in a fall from scaffolding and I quickly named him “The Moaner”. The moaner would start in softly… “oh… oh… oh… oh…” and then after a few hours would be loudly expressing his pain, “Ooooooooooh!!!!!!!!! Oooooohhhhh!!!!! Oh My God!!!!!!! Ooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!!!” I walked past him the second morning I was there and saw that his entire leg was in a cast and his foot looked like it was encased in six inches of styrofoam on all sides. I felt really bad for the guy, because it was obvious that his pain was excrutiating. (Or he was a terrible wimp. Either way, I feel bad for him.) They finally gave him a shot of morphine which quieted him down. Thank goodness… because it’s hard to heal in an environment like that!

I wanted to share one delightful brush with morbidity I had at the hospital. It happened on the second morning, after they removed the catheter and I had to attempt to go to the bathroom myself. (Which isn’t as easy as it sounds! The nurse told me that sometimes it can take up to 6 hours before you can pee after having a catheter removed.) The nurse disconnected me from the IV stand so that I could go in the bathroom unimpeded. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), she forgot to block the IV tube coming out of my arm. As I sat on the toilet, I suddenly noticed that a puddle of blood was forming at my feet. I looked over at my arm and saw that blood was streaming out of my IV onto the floor. I immediately stemmed the flow with my finger and hit the emergency assistance button. Of course, it took the nurse awhile to finally respond as I stood there in my room holding my blood in. It’s a good thing that I’m not the type to faint at the sight of my own blood or I could have been completely drained by the time the nurse arrived!

So, that was fun… but, like I said, the rest of the recovery has been uneventful. I’m glad I got the surgery over with, but I kinda feel sad now because I have no surgeries to look forward to in the near future. That is, unless my aching shoulder acts up worse than it currently is. I start physical therapy next week for a rotator cuff injury in my right arm. I saw a specialist about it last week and he actually had the gall to tell me that my “posture is horrible” and that I need to have “posture training”! So, I start that on Tuesday. I guess it’s not surprising that I’m falling apart when you consider that I’ve exceeded my life expectancy for a non-modern Homo sapiens sapiens. If it were 1850, I’d be dead several times over by now.

Anyway, I will now set about getting back to updating the blog on a regular basis. Thank you for your patience.

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Well, I’m having my uterus ripped from my bloody body tomorrow morning, so I’m going to be out of touch for awhile. (Nothing new, since a rotator cuff injury has kept me out of touch for awhile anyway.) I will let you know if they let me keep the organ. My hopes are not high!

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This is a pretty cool animation:

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As you may recall, earlier this year I followed the decline and death of British reality star Jade Goody religiously, fascinated at her emotional exhibitionism at allowing the most vulnerable and painful time of her life to be captured by the cameras. When the cancer eventually extinguished her life, I was sad but also disappointed that I couldn’t take part in her journey any longer.

Enter Farrah Fawcett. I have never really held much opinion one way or the other for Farrah, except I thought she was a bit of a wack-job based on that Letterman interview from a few years back. However, when I heard that she had been having a friend film her battle with terminal cancer and that the documentary was set to be shown, I was immediately captivated. The documentary ran the other night and if you missed it, as I did, you can watch it online (link below). I can say that, having watched it, I now have a very high opinion of her and I also am genuinely saddened at her plight. The documentary shows her undergoing unanesthetized procedures that I only hope I never have to endure, and handling them with strength. She keeps fighting long after I would have tossed in the towel, and she seems incredibly well-grounded for a celebrity.

There is something so moving and fascinating about joining along in someone else’s journey from life to death, and wondering how you would cope if the same situation were to happen to you. Far from being exploitative, I think taking part in such journeys make us better people by reminding us of the short flicker of time that we have here on earth, and prodding us to make better use of it while we’re here. I am always grateful for people like Jade and Farrah for allowing us to join them on that very difficult journey. Since yesterday would have been my mother’s 80th birthday, had cancer that metastasized to her liver not claimed her life 5 1/2 years ago, there was a special sting in watching Farrah’s liver scans provide grim news about her survival prospects. Cancer is, indeed, a formidable foe.

If you haven’t watched the documentary, you can view it online here:
Farrah’s Story

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So I found out recently that I need to have my disease-ridden, malfunctioning uterus ripped out of my body. In one sense, I’m actually quite pleased to part ways with the unpleasant organ since I have absolutely no interest in procreation whatsoever (and we’ll say nothing about my advanced age). To be finished with it will be a relief.

However, in another way, I do NOT want to part with the organ at all! In fact, I would love to pickle it in a jar and display it with my other curios. And I’m distressed because I just know they won’t let me! They’ll say something about needing to do pathology tests on it to rule out cancer blah blah blah – as if they couldn’t take a look at it then give it back to me! And they will probably think I’m certifiable for even asking… which is true, but that’s beside the point. Shouldn’t I be able to keep my own organ if I want to? It just seems so unfair!

But I am grateful, at least, that I’m not having this particular surgery done (though it would be fun to make small children cry… oh, what am I saying? I do that already):

(Thanks to Katchaya for the link.)

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Due to unpopular demand, I have started a Twitter page. I am sure you are rapt with anticipation. Come join the misery!

Twittering Comtesse

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MoxieHart posted a follow-up to the April 28th Morbid Fact regarding the “Year Without A Summer” that I wanted to make sure nobody missed. Rasputina have a song entitled “1816: The Year Without A Summer” that has an awesome video created by Dr. Mangor and Dame Darcy. Excellent viewing, and educational too!

1816: The Year Without A Summer

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I am in the midst of a week-long visit with my family in Catatonia, and I’ve decided to do a photo project with the Holga to document my life here. I went to my old Elementary School yesterday to take some shots and it was a MOST disillusioning experience. About the only thing that remained from my youth were the fields, asphalt, and buildings. All of the things that mattered most to me – that I REALLY wanted to photograph – were gone. The rocketship shaped jungle jim? Gone. The Semi-Circle jungle jim? Gone. The swingset? Gone. The cement ditch that we used to jump over? Filled in. The huge oak tree that we used to play under? Gone. The playset where Debbie Dwight accidentally knocked the little girl down and broke her arm? Gone. The pillars that we used to sit on every lunch period in 6th grade? Gone. The tetherball court? Gone. Most of them, I’m sure, removed due to lawsuit fears. “That tree might fall down on a kid one day – we better chop it down… We can’t have jungle jims anymore, they are too dangerous, especially on asphalt… Some kid tripped and fell in that ditch – we better fill it in… Some kid might fall from those pillars – better remove them…” etc.

When I was a kid, we had high swingsets that were set in gravel. We used to be able to swing so high in the air that the chains jerked as we started to descend. Then, when we were at our highest point, we could launch ourselves and soar through the air, before landing in the gravel. Nowadays, the swingsets are much shorter, the maximum height much smaller, and the ground is soft rubber. Sure, kids these days won’t get as many skinned knees or broken arms, but I find it much more disturbing that they also won’t know what it’s like to fly, or triumph against the odds. We are breeding a generation of wusses thanks to the evil that is litigation… and something beautiful is being lost.

Walking through the school, I felt like I was viewing the wholesale destruction of my youth! I don’t have any photographs of that school to even commemorate what it once looked like, which is very distressing to me. Despite my disappointments, there was one nice moment when I strained to look through a dark window into the girls bathroom and saw that they still have the weird round sink in the middle of the room like in the good old days. At least one thing remained the same. Oh, and the floors in the school were still painted that strange gray color that I remembered. And there were still enough cedar trees in the front to give off that smell that to this day always takes me back to the school.

Maybe it’s true what they say – you can never go home again. When you’re away, the world moves on without you. I wonder what I’ll find at the Intermediate School and High School today?

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Chad VanGaalen is a Canadian singer/songwriter who animates his own videos. This is a particularly lovely example.

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