Chronicles of Convalescing - Part IV

The gifts you give each other. (Warning... this may get mushy.)

I can't really say what, if any, gifts the Captain feels I give him. However, I can speak to the gifts I receive from him. Yes, there were get-well lilies in my hospital room... the first ones to arrive. And yes, there were a dozen long-stemmed red roses on our anniversary a couple of weeks ago. More than that, there were the intangibles like steadiness in the face of uncertainty while we waited for pathology results, and marathon-like patience to sit in my hospital room with me for hours on end for three days just because I was stuck in there with nowhere to go -- except round and round the nurses' station on my hourly walks.

Most of all, there was the insight one day while reading out loud to me to pass the time. He was reading the book "Return" written by his mission president, Elder Robert D. Hales. In it there is a section regarding faith. Now, unbeknownst to the Captain, I have been having my own personal conversations with God about my faith.. or rather my lack of satisfaction with the condition of it in my own life. Frankly, the whole subject has been troubling me because, try as I might, I couldn't seem to increase mine. I had somewhat decided the trial of my faith was going to be having none... or not enough.

So, there we sat in my hospital room. The Captain's voice quietly read. I quietly listened... more to the lilt of his voice than the words he was quoting. Then my ears perked up. He was talking about faith... or rather, an apostle was talking about faith. What it's for. How to pursue it. How to increase it. The answers to the dilemmas I had been sending ceilingward for the past few months in my personal moments.

Coincidence that the place in his reading when he chose to read out loud to keep me company was addressing exactly the subject of my private struggle lately? I think not. Coincidence that the message came through the Captain to me? I think not... again.

Gifts. Gifts that strengthen. That repair. That bind. That build.

Chronicles of Convalescing - Part III

Masses. Scary things. So the images taken at the ER six weeks ago showed a pelvic mass... about 13 centimeters. For one night and part of a morning, the Captain and I sat with our private thoughts about, "Wow, cancer. What will that do to my life?" But a visit with Dr. Glenn (my OB/Gyn) later in the morning diffused all those thoughts. It was an endometrial mass... consequence of my endometriosis. Been brewing around in there for years. Now it was taking up too much real estate that didn't belong to it. Time to take it all out. Boom! Spaying was the solution. Not emergent. Not life and death. Pick a date that is convenient and we'll take it all out. That's okay with me. This factory has been closed for 19 years now.

So, the Captain and I compared schedules. We crunched numbers (paycheck and budget numbers). We calculated PTO ("paid time off" not "Parent Teacher Organization" -- those days are over). And we settled on the date. Three weeks hence.

Tumors. Scarier things. The morning after surgery, with my mind still loopy and before the Captain gets there with his unloopy mind to act as interpreter, in comes Dr. Glenn for a visit. Turns out Mabel the Mass was a secondary player in all of this. Hidden behind her, undetected by the CT scan and ultra sound images, was an ovarian tumor. A large one. Dr. Glenn proceeds to give me a narrative of his thoughts when he found it mid-surgery. I'm trying to concentrate but my mind is stuck on the words "unexpected ovarian tumor." He called in Dr. Urie (pathologist) to look at it there in the operating room. He's concerned with the looks of it. Dr. Urie thinks it's "pre-cancerous" but ordered some of it sent to the lab to be sure.

Now we're in wait and see mode. It's Thursday. Long Fourth of July holiday weekend coming up. Lab results won't be back until Tuesday. Quick discussion on the chemo and/or radiation options should the results come back positive. Very cursory. We'll deal with all that later. I'm channeling my best "calm waters, 'let's not get ahead of ourselves', I can handle this." Sure am grateful for all that theater training when I was younger. Inside my head, it's a completely different story. I'm back to "wow, cancer. What will that do to my life?"

Chronicles of Convalescing - Part II

Hospitals are not meant as long-term housing options. Sure, meals and clean-up are provided for you, but trust me… the trade off is not worth it.

Originally, I was scheduled to stay in the hospital 4-5 days. Then, once the operation began and they found the hidden tumor in there, my doctor revised my “release date” to Monday, which would mean six days in-patient. NOT my idea of fun.
So, I dutifully walked around the surgical recovery area approximately every other hour, beginning the second day of my stay. I stayed one step ahead of the pain by staying on schedule with the pain meds. I concentrated on happy, healing thoughts…well, except on Saturday morning when Argentina lost 4-0 to Germany in the World Cup Quarterfinals and my hopes were dashed for yet another four years. Beautiful, and I do mean beautiful, flower arrangements delivered to me from the Captain, my extraordinary mother-in-law, my sister-in-law and her husband, my co-workers (whom I have left in the lurch with workload while I recover at home), and two of my dearest friends, helped to keep my blood pressure low and my spirits high. The live orchid my daughter brought when she came on Saturday morning helped to ease the aforementioned World Cup loss.

The best news of all came Saturday morning when Dr. Grover came in to check on me. After checking my incision and my vital signs, she decided to take the drain out (icky bloody thing) and pronounce me recovered enough to go home. Woo hoo!!! Two days early. So, stocked with four different prescriptions for pain management and red blood cell production, I got to take the triumphant wheelchair ride down to the revolving doors. We were quite the procession: the Captain and Katie carrying flowers, the patient care tech pushing the wheelchair and me doing my best Queen Elizabeth wave at the crowds lining the hallways.

Chronicles of Convalescing - Part 1

This is the part where I go to sleep on an operating table wearing only a hospital gown while counting back from 100 (I remember getting to 98), and wake up feeling warm blankets all over me... that I really would have enjoyed, except for the stabbing pain of a butcher knife sawing away in my gut. A distant voice says, "Karla... Karla... how do you feel?" over and over again. Ever the over-achiever anxious to please type, in my mind I try to come up with an accurate answer. Will "groggy" give them enough information? Or should I try "disoriented with a touch of panicked thrown in?" Or perhaps "my stomach is on fire and whoever is stabbing me with a knife better knock it off before I get a hold of their lower lip and pull it over their forehead." I think better of that one because my mother taught me manners and that's no way to speak to someone. In the end, I come up with a very faint, "I hurt."

Time doesn't exist. Whether my next memory was 10 minutes or 2 hours later, I can't be sure. The pain is gone and I'm on the sixth floor (Surgical Recovery Unit) in my own room. IV with an antibiotic drip? Check. Blood pressure cuff in place and heart rate clip on my finger? Check. Suction drain at the incision site filling up with red bloody yucky stuff? Check. Eyelids too heavy to keep open for any length of time? Check. TV mounted above the door so I can watch upcoming World Cup matches? Check. The next item will tell me if the last eight years were a dream or reality... The Captain standing by the side of my bed? Check.

I go back to sleep. It's going to be okay.

Attention, Attention..... This is the Captain speaking..

Greetings and well wishes from the redhead's lair. I, the Captain, have been assigned (go figure) to write this post to keep all y'all informed of the events of the past week. First bit of news; ding dong the witch is dead! Yep, Mabel the mass has gone the way of the dodo! As it turns out Mabel had company. None other than her wicked cousin Lucyifer. Lucy tried to spread her wrath in Karla's body but alas the mighty surgeon's knife was quicker than her spread of venom. The pathologist has offered the news that there will be none of Lucy in the body governed by the sister of "She who must be obeyed". By the way, who would have figured that "She who must be obeyed" would be a Librarian?

Who knew that nurses in the hospital would comment on the redhead's hair? "Oh you have such a full head of hair", and "My what a beautiful color of hair, and so much of it". Yep, I was very proud walking the redhead, or should I say walking with the redhead around the hallways of the sixth floor. Everything but whistles coming from the rooms as we walked by for the lady. Now I work at the hospital but because of my chameleon skills the folks don't recognize me in civvies. Anyway I feel that I have destroyed the redhead's blog well enough now. By the way, she is doing famously and is bound and determined to get home one or two days before the good doc says she will, possibly tomorrow. It has been a learning experience for the Mrs and me. Good things have come from the time spent together rehabing. I'm sure the redhead (she actually likes being called "the Ginger") will keep you posted on what those things have been. Before I cause any more damage I will sign off, never to write again I am sure. Cheerio!

A Day With Mae...

... is a walk in the park.

Getting Divorced

The Captain and I are packing up our home and moving on to new adventures. In the process, I decided not to lug around things that have been stored in boxes with previous moves but never accessed or needed at each stop along the way.

Enter my file cabinets. There, in the back, three hanging file folders, contributed by my ex-husband. Each folder bulged out about 4 inches thick, full of unfriendly emails and letters, receipts for expenses still unreimbursed, legal briefs and responses from the numerous court battles he embroiled me in and then dropped when it appeared things wouldn’t end up going his way with the judge. Twelve inches of paper and history purchased at a price of close to $30,000.00 in legal fees to compile, collect and occasionally display in court. All these years I kept all this negativity, all these weapons for battle and defense, moving from house to house. Just in case.

No need to defend myself anymore. The divorce decree that cost me a small fortune is no longer needed to enforce anything. None of my children are minors now. No child support to collect; no visitation to coordinate. No more worries about being hauled in front of a judge on a whim. No need to keep these behemoth file folders just in case I need them to refute the story being woven in court.

Keeping all this “documentation” for ten years now. To prove… what??? What??? After all these years, I finally and completely don’t care.

It was cathartic to throw it all away. At first I looked through a few pages. Then I decided, “why?” I don’t care to be reminded about what I have forgotten.

No grudge. Wishing him peace on the east coast while I live peacefully closer to the west coast.

So, to be divorced… completely divorced… I guess it took longer than I thought it would. It took 11 years.