Fort's Cancer Sux!!

Sorry, no gory pictures of the surgery....

And trust me, I asked. Like TWICE! Both of the nurses looked at me like, "um, yeah, we dont get paid for photography services"....one mentioned that the camera wouldnt be allowed in the sterile area. They must have seen our house after the beer pong tournament. That camera got around. The more I started to think about it, though, it probably wasnt a good idea. Any time Ive let my camera take off with someone without my supervision, it usually comes back with a fuzzy, but hairy mystery crotch shot. Not that that would happen in a hospital, but you never know. The last thing I want is to check my camera and see a picture of me on the operating table all passed out getting teabagged by the surgeon. Mom took this shot. This is of the scar from the first time Doc took it out. The scar has stretched a bit so he said he would tighten it up. Fine by me.
Here was my presurgery view. This was taken during one of the 27 second stretches when mom was not on the phone. Here she is, thinking about who to call next:
I think this was one of the anesthesiologists maybe. or a nurse. I dont know. There were three of them there and mom was all, "Hey! Lets get a picture for the blog!" Two of them immediately backed away and one jumped right in. Shoulda got her name.
This is me after surgery. I thought it was funny that he drew a circle with a dot so Joni could find it tomorrow...duh! Mom laughed and called it my third nipple. Fortscancersux has officially gone porn!
Here's a closeup of the scar....yeah. Not that big of a deal.
All Ive been yapping about all week was how excited I was to get "put under". I have a horrible time getting to sleep, so theres something euphoric about just getting dropped in a matter of seconds. I usually prefer that they tell me when they're going to push the sleepy juice, but all I remember is lying in this very cold, bright room with about five nurses scuttering about, all wearing face masks, and we started talking about college, and rugby, and how I met my husband, and we're laughing and....and...and.....I wake up in the recovery room.

Nobody told me! I think that might be one of the highlights of their day. I think I would enjoy getting someone totally engaged in a conversation and then secretly, without them knowing, press a magic button and watch them clunk out in mid speech. Im pretty sure thats what happened.

One thing Im proud of though, is the important interactions with my surgeons when i finally come back to life. When I got my first port in, I remember waking up before the surgery was over, seeing a blue tarp over my face, and calling for my surgeon, who was just finishing stitching me up.

"Liiiissssa. Liiisa."

"Im right here."

"Will you itch my nose?" (I meant scratch of course) Then a helper guy pulls the blue tarp off my face and rubs gauze pad on my nose, pretty much making it worse.

Today was no different. I wake up and look around. I see my surgeon busy writing on my chart about something. Ive got more important things to discuss though.

"Dr. Kirkpatrick?", I call. He quickly puts the pen and speedwalks to my bedside.

"Did you put the purple port in?" He walks away as he answers.

"No, it was a clear one."

Im only half lucid at this point but I still make an attempt to give a dissertation on how I found a picture of a purple port on the bard.com website and how I thought that might be the one they used....because I really know what the hell Im talking about.

By the time we left the snow was coming down at a pretty good clip and it took us an HOUR to get from finneytown to 75...should have NEVER Taken 275. Should have taken Regan to 75. Duh.

Finally got mom to watch "Under The Tuscan Sun" tonight. I LOVE LOVE LOVE that movie! Really packs a Hail Mary punch at the end, doesnt it?

I think tomorrow Im going to get some film footage of Joni sticking my port, so you can all be further educated on port protocol.

Thats it for today.