Eggless

Well I lived through my bilateral salpingal oophorectomy five days ago and I am here - eggless, puffed up, and pretty happy - to report on it.

First - a bit of synchronicity that even The Police could not have foreseen, not even HBO writers of shows like Orange is the New Black or House of Cards could've written any better: (disclaimer - some of you have already heard the story, but I thought I had to included in my blog for history because is just too perfect) I had saved up episodes two through 13 of Orange Is the New Black to watch after my surgery, and have been enjoying them very much this week. I had the surgery Monday at 8 AM. The doctor made three incisions into my abdomen, blew me up like a balloon and sucked out my ovaries. Felt like that.

On Tuesday I was getting  into my little nest of my bed, with my pain pills and my iPad, happily looking forward to binging on my favorite show. I had just squinched myself painfully into position and yelled "god DAMN IT!" when I inadvertently killed myself by using my abdominal muscles a bit, to which Siri replied "There is no need to use rude language!" because in my spasm of pain my fingers had gripped the iPad tightly and I had accidentally hit the Siri button. I was like "Siri! Really?!!!" but decided to carry on in pursuit if my goal. After flopping around like a drunken baby seal I finally straightened myself back up and got Orange Is the New Black season two episode eight restarted only to see the prison counselor say to the bald dying cancer patient in the opening scene this sentence: "The doctor recommends a bilateral salpingal oophorectomy, but it's not gonna happen." That's the surgery I had had 32 hours ago.

I'm pretty screwed up, here is a list of states of my post surgery state:

- very fat hilarious bloated round tummy full of gas (and who knows what else since all plumbing shut down)

- three bloody cuts sealed shut with shiny glue (top coat nail polish?)

- no baths or sex or swimming for two weeks 

- one of which (the ovarian exit stage left) hurts like a mofo so much that while I

- tried to drive yesterday for the first time I was ok for 20 min and then suddenly was like "oh hell's bells I'm gonna have to pull over on 183 - not a very cute highway - ROLL OUT of the car and rest for a few days in the gutter...hmmmm, that little patch over there overlooking Atomic Tattoo looks pretty good..." Not to alarm the kids I didn't say this, but instead made an unholy noise which freaked them out. I never knew how much you use your core muscles just to HOLD A STEERING WHEEL! Ladies who drive all the damn time - you're practically doing Pilates right there in your mini van! I pronounce you FIT!

- so here I am on day five sitting on the couch once again. I have given in, and I'm not going to try to recuperate any faster. I can barely move around, and I've had a lot of help from Mona who has been taking the kids to the grocery store for hours to get them out of my hair and making dinner for us. Thank you so much. What idiot would schedule surgery during the summer in a week when the kids have nothing going on for a week? Me.

The pain medicine I'm taking is called Vicodin, and it works sort of. Ever since I had chemo I have a different relationship with chemicals than I used to. However I've been having some amazing dreams this week, who knows why? Could it be because I have lost my ovaries and my hormones are completely out of whack? Could it be drugs baby? I don't know, here are a few of them:

A DREAM

I'm on top of a castle in the mideast somewhere overlooking a shining dark sea. The Red Sea? The sun is coming up, I've been up all night and I'm in a magical dreamy beautiful place. Arabic feeling. Sand.

Suddenly it turns into a world of boats, yachts with portholes and doorways and long hallways.You know how dreams are. And then I'm in a beautiful interior of a yacht with teakwood and sleek leather seats. Huge, rich, luxe, dark, manly. The sun shines mightily outside (feels Lewis Carroll-esque) we are cocooned inside a rich nest of a boat. I go down hallway after hallway after hallway, a man is following me. I know that I can't let him trap me in the back master super elegant luxurious room. It's all-white back there. Huge white bed covered with white sheets and white pillows and white quilts. White walls, white carpet, white ceiling, white portholes shut with white curtains. Soft. No exit. I go there, turn and face him - he's tan and elegant, Ralph Lauren-esque, I push past his sly smile, and run back out. 

Suddenly I am now worried not about him, but instead that his wife is going to find me and kill me. I go through a porthole and I move into a different world. I'm in a spaceship this time one that has gone back in time a billion years, it's moving quickly and I'm upside down but I don't feel any gravity. I know I want to escape this world because the wife is still chasing me. She is agile, tan from their yacht life (Greece?) with sleek shoulder length very dark hair. She is behind me. I go through another door and this time I'm on the deck of a sailboat. Or in a mariner's room full of beautiful clocks and art, sun beam. I pause in the silence. The sun is still shockingly hot and strong just outside. I continue the running fleeing feeling of her chasing me. I go through doors and trapdoors and portholes and windows, going into world after world after world, all boat themed somehow. It's like the scene in the movie Monsters Inc. where every time they go through a door they're in a new world. Or Lyra and Will in Phillip Pullman.

Finally I'm in the top inside of a tall glass tower looking out. On the outside of the glass right in front of me I see three people, standing on a ledge, holding onto hand rails. Three athletes dressed up in tight Lycra suits holding on to rails on either side of their bodies while standing and facing me. Outside. Way up high. We are hundreds and hundreds of feet up in the air, perhaps a thousand feet. There are spectators watching. These three are about to accomplish an athletic feat: they have to hold on and stay up on top of that tower without falling off while somebody far far below them throws a bottle of something heavy at them as hard as they can to knock them off. I grip onto my side of the glass and stare right into the eyes of the dark headed lady who I know is the wife that is been chasing me. Now I wish her luck silently. The bottles are flung up at them. Each is hit extremely hard, and one by one they all give me a look of horror as their fingers release. They cannot hold onto the grips. They crumple, scream in agony, vomit, and do backflips and then shoot down 1000 foot-long slides back down to the bottom in defeat. I wake up.

ANOTHER DREAM

Last night another dream: I'm at some kind of extremely fancy nightclub/red carpet opening/Dubai hotel/celebrity party. I've been getting ready with Kardashian type people, and I am completely outfitted in tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of clothing and jewelry and diamonds. I have been talking about some kind of fancy drug with a young man. 

I have slipped down the hallway and I'm looking for some nail polish to glue onto the bottom of a beautiful natural piece of crystal quartz from a cave so that I can glue it to the top of a mirror somewhere, 12 or 13 feet high so nobody will scratch themselves when they look into the mirror. 

All of a sudden I touch something wrong and alarms go off. Doors descend - shutting us in a hall. The entire place is shut down. It's my fault. We are shut inside a room with security guards who make me and five or six other people that are in the room with me lay down on the ground. They peel off my clothing and inspect my body. They're looking for blood. I make eye contact with the drug man. We can't talk about the tiny earring we agree mentally. I worry about all the people in the hotel who are now going to be mad at me. I've shut down an entire party full of thousands of people. 

The scene suddenly turns into another sort of contest. We have to figure out a way to kill someone, we put together an intricate plan full of ropes and pulleys and slides and weights to come out of nowhere to knock the target on the head. I keep trying to distract some people so my team can make the plan. It's very complicated and scientific, full of physics. Then I wake up.

NOT DREAM

I have had five surgeries in 10 months. I am very sore. I cannot sit up very well. I can roll to my right but not to my left. I'm on the couch if you need me. I'm trying to look forward. I can't wait to teach my classes in the fall. They tested all the junk they pulled out of me and it was all benign and happy and safe. Yes. This year will end.