Recovery continues. Physically I’m doing ok, but emotionally I’m a fucking mess. I think my one remaining ovary has gone on strike, because I am having hot flashes that just about cook me in my own skin, and I’m crying over exercise infomercials. I wish my stupid body would just get back to work so I can just be normal again.
Oh, and as promised, here’s the somewhat gross link to the picture of Myrtle, immediately post-removal. My mother says it looks like a potroast. I think it looks like a Costco-sized ball of hamburger. All I know is that I’m glad it’s gone. I’m sure my intestines are overjoyed as well.
Last Tuesday I had the staples removed. My aunt told me it didn’t hurt at all when hers were removed. My neighbor said I’d feel a little tickle. They lied! My staple pulling didn’t go well at all. The first pull made me screech like a little girl. By the second I was in tears (see “emotional wreck” above). By the fifth, Beau Hunk was asking me to please remove my fingernails from his flesh. By the time all 22 were removed, nobody was happy, including the poor soul who was doing the pulling and constantly apologizing. I think I felt worse for her than I did for me, because bless her heart, she really was trying to be gentle.
Unfortunately the skin had already grown up over the edges of the staples, so with every pull there was tearing and pulling of fresh new skin around the fresh new incision. To make matters worse, I had felt so good when I woke up that morning I didn’t take my pain meds. In retrospect, that was a very very bad decision. But any way you slice it, I was a big girl’s blouse about the whole thing.
I’m glad it’s over though, because that was the last hurdle for my immediate recovery. I have likened this whole process to riding my bike up Mt. Diablo. It’s an eleven mile climb to the top, but then you get an eleven mile coast to the bottom. I have done all the climbing now, so I’m just cruising the downhill. All I have to do is not do anything stupid and before I know it I’ll be at the bottom and the whole mess will be nothing but a memory.
My self esteem also took a microscopic bolster at the staple removal. I had started referring to that part of my anatomy as the “Frankenbelly”. The incision runs from my belly button to my Netherlands (below the hairline). Since the skin was kind of bunched up for the staples, it was pretty gruesome looking.
Which reminds me of a story I must tell:
Woo had spent some time with his mom and came back to us last Sunday. On the way home Beau Hunk told Woo that I had a great big owie on my tummy. Woo called me on the phone and told me “We will get you goop and a great big bandaid for your owie”. (When Woo gets hurt he gets “goop and a bandaid” – goop being Neosporin.) I started laughing and thought I was going to die because my abs aren’t up to laughing yet. When they got home, we showed Woo my Frankenbelly. Then we made a big show of pretending to put on goop (we touched it with a wet Q-tip) and Woo put a tiny little two-inch bandaid across the middle of the big honkin wound. It was absolutely hilarious!
Now that the staples are gone I have a nice flat scar that is easier to look at. It might even turn out to be a better looking scar than the one from when I had my appendix removed in my teens. That one is unusually big because the appendix had ruptured so the wound had to be left open to drain. It’s about five inches long and runs from my hip to within 1.5 inches of the new scar, which is almost exactly perpendicular.
Between the appendix scar, the new scar and my belly button, my abdomen looks like a cross between a Picasso and an emoticon.
Beau Hunk has been doing his best to keep me in good spirits. The other day I was in another blue mood and on the edge of a crying jag when he said “Let’s sing a happy song!” Before I could quiz him as to whether he had been dipping into my pain meds, he burst out singing “Dead puppies ain’t no fun!” He then continued with a melange of other Dr. Demento favorites about small furry animals in various states of dismembership. I was laughing and begging him to stop, but grateful for his support. I think he’s figured out that the only way to fight irrational depression is with irrational humor.
Luckily, irrational (and sick) humor runs rampant at our house. Right now that counts for a lot.