Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Pulp Fiction saved my sanity...

Saw my favorite surgeon today, to get scheduled to install that infusion port.  You know you have a tough row to hoe when your surgeon looks at you with sad eyes.  Gads. :)

After going over numerous things with him, and getting my hug, Jane and I set off to do my blood tests; both pre-op and pre-chemo tests.  After having to have several pokes just to get blood, I am MORE than happy to get that port on board.  Surgeon asked if I knew what it was, and I said that I figured it was like the expander from the breast reconstruction.  He smiled and said, "Exactly!"

I remember the first day I had to go get a 'fill' of saline put into my expander.  Having not had the procedure before, I was a little scared.  Dr. L, the reconstructive surgeon got me on the exam table, and pulled out a little square object, and waved it over my chest.  I asked him if that was his stud finder, and he smiled and said, "Close enough."

Finding the port, he put a dot on it with a soft marker, and went to fill the syringe.  Oh holy moses, it looked like he was filling a baby bottle, and the needle looked like it could go into my chest and out of my back.  Perhaps my fear was coloring the experience.

In any event, I'm guessing I was white as a sheet, because as he approached with that syringe, he paused, looked me straight in the eye and asked me, "So, did you ever see 'Pulp Fiction?'"

I laughed so hard, I never noticed the needle or the saline go in, exactly as he had planned.  That man is a saint.  If YOU haven't seen "Pulp Fiction," dear readers, a certain character goes into cardiac arrest, and a syringe of adrenaline is.. eventually...plunged into her chest.  It was a dark, yet comedic moment.  ...  You had to be there....

Now I am just waiting on the port, for without it, we can't start chemo and though I know it's not going to be much fun, I really want to get moving on this.  You know, being the realist that I am, I have already made and paid for my final 'arrangements.'  I'm going to be cremated and my ashes will go into the sundial in my back yard, where my mom's are now.  I didn't make these arrangements because of cancer, but rather because of my lung disease.  It seemed, after Mom's passing, just to be the right thing to do to take the burden off of my sisters.

I don't have anything on the agenda for tomorrow... so far.. so I can actually get some work done.  I need to let my manager know more about what's going on, but other than the occasional vacation day off, I don't think I'm GOING to have to do any sick leave, but ... time will tell.  At least my being holed up in my house should mitigate the possibility of infection, except of course from Chihuahua slobber, and I look at that as more medicinal than harmful. :)

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