May something or June somethingelse

 

I tried to take this photo all looking off to the side so you could fully see the red half moon on my eyeball, but it didn't really work. I've been updating my face condition at my site on Flickr. I'm a mess. Surgically speaking, I'm a lot better. My uterus has mostly stopped complaining about being molested. My ovaries voiced their opinion for a few days after uterus piped down, but pretty much now everything is silent, and the only two overwhelming side effects I've got now are bleeding and extreme sleepiness. Seriously, if I went right now, after 4 cups of coffee, and lay in my bed, I'd be asleep in 5 minutes. Yesterday after I had some dinner, I went up to sleep to read for a while, and if you're me, read in bed=fall asleep, which I did. When I finally woke up, after some really weird ass dreams (I was at some kind of party with a bunch of other women, and Oprah was the guest of honor. She showed up and I asked if I could take two photos--one of her alone, and one of her with me, and she bellowed "YOU CAN ONLY TAKE ONE PHOTOGRAPH OF OPRAH!!" which sort of sounds like how she might really be in person) I had no idea whether it was day or night, how long I'd been asleep, what day of the week it was. I was profoundly confused.

 

I've been really worrying about my eye. As you can see the blackness has for the most part gone away, but that lump--the goose egg, the whatever you want to call it is stubbornly and steadfastly refusing to move. Sure, it's a little better, but now it's green. All day Sunday, I managed to convince myself that it was green not from a bruise, but because the flesh was necrotic and it was going to fall off my face, leaving me with a gaping hole where you could just peer into my brain. Then, I decided that the lump was actually BRAIN matter that had pushed its way through a crack in my forehead, all just kind of hanging out right under the surface. I poked at it to see if some other part of my body reacted (if it was BRAIN, surely poking at it would cause a flail or a twitch somewhere else). I joke about it now, but I was pretty much in tears for two solid days trying to convince myself that I wasn't going to die. Factor in the hormones the surgery stirred up, the end of the painkillers, and my general house arrest, and I was a fresh pile of girl mess.

Sometime Sunday, I decided that the only way I could get any rest over the lump matter was if I went to see a doctor and I had to wait through the endless Memorial Day monday to even call my doctor for an appointment. Tuesday morning came and I kept chickening out. "What if it's really bad and I need plastic surgery?" I reasoned. "Maybe it's better not to know!" Finally, I gathered up my balls and called. I had a day save, because they were too busy to see me on Tuesday, so I ended up going this morning. I sat there on the table (after the nurse came in and was like "STEP ON THE SCALE" I replied "WHY SHOULD I??" she let it drop) reading a magazine with my new best friend, a baseball cap, slung low until the doctor came in.

To her credit, she didn't shriek, or stagger backwards but she did look horrified. She asked how I did it (Note to readers: I never mentioned exactly how I did it. I was in my office, I was walking, the next thing you know, I fell face first into the plastic arm of a chair. You might say that I fought the chair and the chair cold won). I tell her. She pokes around at it a little bit and says the following things: 1.) "You are lucky you didn't blind yourself in that eye. A half inch over, you would be" 2.) "Well, since it happened almost 2 weeks ago, you're past the stage about worrying that you'll have a brain bleed" Me: "A WHAT!?" Her: "A brain bleed. Sometimes hematomas like these bleed, very slowly, into your brain, and that can kill you!" Me: "I SEE".

She basically told me that there was nothing she could do, nothing I could do, that it was a massive hematoma under my skin, and they can't be hurried along. That it would TRAVEL and that I should sleep on it, to help press it flat and that it would probably take ANOTHER MONTH to make any noticeable difference. Sweet.

Anyone want to go hat shopping with me? I can't meet Lionel Richie looking like this.

PS: Thank you to Fiona and the saucy Wendy for sending me books and care packages. Thanks also for all the email you've sent. Two of them bounced, though, so Elle and...oh, jesus, I'm blanking on the name, but I replied and they bounced.

 

the other day - home - email - soon