My heart felt like a slab of meat dropped on a butcher's floor when my sister recently looked at my old cat Michael and announced, "Wow, he's looking pretty rough." Sure, Mikey's 18 years old, he has a right to look rough and the veterinary past with major credentials to back it up. But those words were like putting the kybosh on old Mikey. The last time she said those very same words about Mattie he was dead 3 weeks later. I'm so superstitious you'd think I had Gypsy origins, and hearing that Mikey looks "rough" fills me with dread. She and I share Useless Psychic Events with each other all the time, but I don't want her UPE's suddenly materializing with frightful accuracy on my cats.
Last May I was about to leave for about 5 days for my birthday to visit Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah and Jen was over learning the drill on how to take care of my many cats. Where each one's dish is, who eats in what order, who gets what pill, and a reminder to say hello to Baby who will never venture down from upstairs. Mattie, my yellow dandelion of a cat, shuffled into the kitchen just in case food was involved. That's when Jen declared, "Wow, he's looking pretty rough." Well, he's old, I countered. Mattie had been limping for years, a sliding shuffle to his gait since toxoplasmosis had attacked his brain, front elbows stuck out from arthritis. He'd never been big on self-grooming since he had a hard time twisting his body around - perhaps from an injury before he adopted Bob & I. All this made him look older than his years, which I presumed to be 15. But could have been more since we would never know how old he was when he wandered into the yard.
Mattie was the appropriate name for him because his long yellow fur was so thick with mats Bob swore he had tumors until I shaved the lumps off. Over the years Mattie also had bouts of asthma that meant he had to live on daily prednisolone for his scarred lungs that worked at only half capacity. Sometimes he'd even had fluid build up in his lung cavity which doctors removed with a needle and tested ad nauseum for fear of lymphoma, heart disease, etc. None of which he had. At long last a heart specialist realized that Mattie's diaphragm was perforated, probably all his life, and some organ had pushed through it. All the more reason Mattie had more difficulty than most cats in breathing. But that precious sunflower of a cat dealt courageously with every physical challenge that came his way, and never took the easy way around, even when we made the house handi-cat accessible.
When Bob died I relied on Mattie's loving, consoling nature more than ever. Bob had nicknamed him Matt Matt the Comfort Cat, and he was exactly that. Mattie would stare at me with huge alien eyes and wait for me to get comfortable so that he could then get comfortable. Usually that was under my left armpit or directly on my chest where he could continue to stare at me. Then that purr, that big rumbling, two-tiered purr, would start up. No mistaking his happiness. If by chance you did miss it, then the strings of drool would clue you in. Always had tissues nearby to mop up the drool. Since Mattie granted me one kiss per day I preferred them to be dry. Mattie lived 18 months after Bob died. He got out of the animal hospital the same night as Bob first went in to the people hospital. He'd had fluid removed again and in retrospect I guess it was miraculous that he lived another 18 months without the fluid recurring. When it did so, it was with a vengeance. One very hot morning about 2 weeks after my return from Utah Mattie kind of jumped toward me on the mattress, an odd move for him. He always moved methodically and slowly. When I turned toward him in surprise I saw that he was open-mouth breathing.
There's no time to wasted with a cat in that condition. I didn't even know cat mouth-to-mouth if he died. I threw him in a cat cage and raced down to the cat hospital in the Jeep, not giving a shit how late I'd be for work. We were sent on to the Emergency Hospital where Mattie stayed for work-ups and fluid removal. He came home, only to have it return again. Unable to sleep one night (sometimes I swear I could sense things) I noticed his sides heaving in and out with difficulty and off we rushed at 1 AM to the Emergency Hospital yet again. Despite the declaration 18 months earlier that Mattie did not have heart failure, the vets wanted to check again and so he was scheduled for an ultrasound. In and out of the hospital so many times, all I remember was a $1200 bill and the feeling that he was worth any amount of money, as long as he lived.
It began on a Thursday. By Wednesday evening the following week the vet somberly told me that they had accidentally pricked Matt's lung while aspirating fluid so now his lung cavity was refilling with both fluid and air. I brought Mattie Fancy Feast because no matter how sick he ever was, he always had an appetite. I brought my camera, feeling that this may be my last night with him (just as I brought my camera inexplicably that last night Bob was alive). Matt was confused. Why was he on a metal table? Why was I taking pictures of him? Why wasn't I taking him home? For such a sick cat he was restless. If I'd been allowed to bring him home he would have punished me when we got there by laying on the floor with his ass facing in my direction. That was his way of telling me I was on his shit list. The shit list never lasted long, though, and I was always back to being his favorite mattress before long. It broke my fucking heart every time I left him at the hospital. Doubly so because I'd only lost Bob, my human soul-mate, 18 months earlier. It was impossible to accept that I could now lose my feline soul-mate.
The morning of Mattie's ultrasound the vet called my cell phone at work and told me to come as fast as possible, Mattie was not going to last long. The same words I'd heard the morning Bob died. The air would not stop bubbling into Mattie's chest and they had him in an oxygen box so he could breathe. On my way I drove madly, running up over curbs, sobbing "Please don't die before I get there. Please wait for me, Matt". And he was alive in his glass oxygenated box when I arrived, but only because they'd saved his life one more time by aspiration before I got there. His big black eyes widened when he saw me, like he thought I was there to save him.
But they'd already saved him so I could be with him when he died.
I had no time to question the vet's decision. Although Matt looked fine (his lungs temporarily able to move freely), I didn't have much time before he'd struggle to breathe, then suffer. I didn't want him to even get as far as a struggle. If he had to die it should be peacefully, in my arms. I wrapped that beloved creature in his favorite pale yellow fleece blanket and held him in the crook of my arm. Cradled. He rested his head on my heart, just as he'd always liked to do. All his life he'd been like a baby, needing to feel my heartbeat. The staff gave us some time alone together and I cried and apologized.
I did everything I could to save you. I am so sorry.
I let the vet know when it was time. When his lungs started expanding more. Before either of us could panic. Before it could be any more traumatic than it already was. She knelt in front of us and Mattie was still, no longer restless like last night, just seemingly content to be in my arms, wrapped in his blanket. If the fluid didn't return, he'd be he same healthy, albeit old, Matt he was just last week. But we knew it was coming and nothing could stop it. So she inserted the needle and injected the concoction of soft, quiet death, then left us alone together again.
Neither of us had moved. I could pretend he was still alive. It was easy. I could pretend that he could still feel my heart beating and that it had simply lulled him to sleep. But I knew the truth and so I wept. I sat so still. He's asleep . . . don't break the spell. The vet padded back in after a while and I nodded. She could take him. I should have let the dream remain, that Mattie had just gone to sleep in my arms, that the pretend was real, he was just alive and asleep. I never should have looked. But I cursed myself with a look as she rose with my baby in her arms and I saw his head limply slide. That broke the spell. He was dead and there was no way I could pretend otherwise. Once I saw that limp head roll the way the living's never do, the spell was over.
My Mattie's spirit lives on in my heart. I like to think he slipped into my heart when he died against its beat. I believe he valiantly lived those 18 months after Bob died because he knew I desperately needed him. I think animals are greater, more mystical beings than we humans, and they can do things we cannot. Except live forever.
I knew he was getting old and decrepit. It's not like I was in denial. But when Jennifer said "he's looking pretty rough" I felt two things: defensive and a fear that she saw something I hadn't recognized. All I know is that within weeks he was dead and those words have haunted me since. If only I'd known, I never would have gone away for even a few days when Mattie only had weeks to live.
Mikey is old. He was here before Mattie and somehow he outlived both Mattie and Bob. He's still Top Cat in the household, but he's 6 pounds less cat than he used to be and had to go to the vet today for a strange new drag in one back leg. Perhaps injured in a fall from my too-tall bed. He blatted like a baby lamb all the way too and from the vet in the W. B. Mason cardboard box I had him in. I was afraid stuffing him in a standard carrier would hurt him more. When he got home and ate in ravenous relief, he then went upstairs to vomit all over my bedroom rug. His eyes are cloudy these days, i'm not sure he can hear much besides a can opening. He's got slow, chronic kidney failure and manageable hyperthroidism. Hell, the old guy isn't going to live forever but his quality of life is still very good even as the equivalent of a hundred year old man. Every night when he settles on my right shoulder I remind myself of this: treasure every moment, tell him I love him all the time, because he could go at any time.
After all, he's looking pretty rough. And I feel like the Grim Reaper follows those words.
i was prepared for what would come out as a result of drinking the Fleet bowel-cleansing solution, but i was not at all prepared for how it would go in. how could 1.5 ounces be so difficult to down? it took 3 gulps from the tiny bottle, and between each gulp i struggled not to heave it back up. 1.5 ounces at 4 PM, then 1.5 ounces at 7 PM. the 'regular' decidedly worse tasting than the 'lemon'. an hour after the first tiny plastic flask i felt the warning drop and gurgle in my gut. my ass then began to behave like a Super Soaker water gun. for hours. because the Fleet had been whisked off the shelves that day due to abuse as a means of weight loss, i thought i'd do a Before & After weigh-in. However, my digital scale hadn't survived being flung onto the back porch during one cleaning frenzy, then left out there in the cold. my decision, based on the taste (imagine gulping sea water - but worse - viscous as motor oil), was that anyone who would drink this stuff to lose weight was in need of serious psychological intervention.
i hyper-hydrated myself, knowing i would have nothing in my gut again for 24 hours, insuring that i wouldn't be thirsty in the morning when i was allowed nothing at all pre-op (surery was at 1 PM). mom, jo, and jen accompanied me to the hospital.
"like Steel Magnolias" jennifer said.
but didn't shelby die, i thought?
they had a scoreboard like you'd see at the racetrack in the waiting area. your person's name would change colors as they changed positions from pre-op, to op, to post-op. i found that kind of cool, not that anyone was sticking around to watch my name move around the scoreboard.
soon jennifer declared that she was "gonna roll" because she was too antsy to stay 20 more minutes. i lay there in my Oprah-sized hospital johnnie pulling rings off my Fleet-shrunken fingers and putting all 4 into a felt bag, pulling the neck tightly before handing it off to mom, keeper of the rings. i thought about just leaving them at home that morning as i removed my earrings and necklace, but mom wanted to be "keeper of the rings" so i could have them back after surgery, so i let her. the nurses covered me in oven-heated flannel blankets until i was a white mummy, rehydrated through an IV. there seemed to be a nurse for everything, then came the anesthesiologist and my doctor, suzy silverstein. suddenly there was a whole lot going on. the clock had apparently hit 1:00.
as they unclocked the wheels of the hospital bed i watched mom and jo begin to rise with their goodbyes. suddenly mom was screaming and sobbing, eyes squeezed tightly shut. she fell back into her chair gasping "my thumb, my thumb, i hurt my thumb". everyone medical seemed to momentarily forget about me in the unfolding drama. you see, mom had fallen several days earlier and jammed her thumb. apparently, while pushing herself out of her chair sans thumb brace, she proceeded to snap, perhaps break, something. i bellowed at her to take her rings off, for chrissakes, her hand was going to swell, and fast. nurses whizzed a wheelchair over and despite mom's inisistence that she'd be fine, they were having none of it. she was rolled off to the ER as i was rolled off to the OR. i watched the ceiling roll by and tried to apologize and explain the the hysteria before the hysterectomy. and then we were in the cold Operating Room. what was the big hurry? everything was happening so fast. all i remember is the anesthesiologist somehow mentioned the comedian joel mchale, The Soup on the E! channel, and his appearance at the Hukelau as we scuttled my butt onto the operating table. then i felt a burn in my wrist at the IV site and i raised my hand, staring at it as if it were an alien object. my last words were a joyful cry of "i love Spaghetti Cat!" (search youtube.com if you don't know what Spaghetti Cat is).
it's nice that you can't remember the length of time surgery takes or the position they had you in (i'm pretty sure i was in the charming legs-up stirrup position, though they weren't heading in that way), only that you're glad you shaved your legs and trimmed your bikini area. i'm too proud to go into surgery or a massage all hairy. i cannot tell you about the surgery because although i was there, i was not really there. only that there was a cool da Vinci robot machine involved.
my post-op moans seemed to please the nurses who mumbled something about morphine. then dr. silverstein's head bobbled and wavered in my sight-line, mumbling something about the surgery and an ovary. if they were unintelligible i can imagine how unintelligible i was. why do they even bother talking to you in Recovery? it's a complete waste of a conversation. please . . . talk to me when i am not stupefied. i didn't really feel any pain that i recall, maybe something in the middle of my body, and i have no idea how i got from Recovery to my room in Maternity.
yes, you read right. they put me in Maternity. i knew that was the plan beforehand so i wasn't surprised, but the irony continued to amuse me for my entire stay. i didn't have the huge swanky birthing room the mothers had (i later discovered) but a strange, sort of air-locked room with 2 doors to enter. enter the first, wash your hands thoroughly please, then enter the second. it was as if i was contagious, but i wasn't, and no one really had to wash. the room was dim when i came to and it was almost larger than the rooms on regular floors that bob had to share with 3 other men. sure, i was pleased with my good private room fortune, but the inequity wasn't lost on me. birthing gets a lot more room than dying.
jo came to see me with a pot of blossoming red tulips as she headed back to boston, telling me all the ER action and explaining how mom was too exhausted to return to the hospital, which was fine because i too was exhausted. we tested the buttons on the bed, raising it and turning on the TV which played the "Serenity Channel" (as bob called it during his hospital days) - scenes of orchids and snow covered mountains, deserts and sea, teamed with serene music. it was peaceful. on the other hand, my catheter was annoying the hell out of me. luckily, they have a pill for that. i could have had the nurse pull it out for the night but i decided i didn't want to risk fainting on one of what would no doubt be many trips to the bathroom. the catheter had the last laugh, however. during one 'vitals check' i felt something wet. tubes had somehow come apart during one of my slow rolls in sleep and the top of my white circulation tights was wet and yellow. i got a new johnnie, new pad under my butt, but she just towel dried the very un-chic thigh-high i had to wear as tubes of air massaged my legs to prevent clots. at the time (the middle of the night) that was acceptable. in the morning it wasn't.
the night was an endless parade of blood pressure monitors, O2 and heart rate stats, temperature taking. it seemed as if i'd barely fallen asleep when someone was there again. the nurses would write their names on the board as they changed shifts but i remembered none of them, only their personalities. night - tiny, dark and compassionate, her replacement big, blonde and very businesslike, next one very chipper but not terribly bright. another smelling of old lady perfume that hung in the air till i waved a Glamour magazine around to dispell it with something by Giorgio Armani or Calvin Klein instead. i remember convincing the compassionate little night nurse to bring me some toast even though i was supposed to only have clear liquids like Jell-O and soup. when she left the room i snuck a couple pieces of American cheese in saran wrap out of my pink bag of must-have items. as soon as the toast was on my tray i unwrapped the cheese and savored my first real food in almost 2 days. i felt quite brilliant having planned this sneaky treat and for dessert i sucked on a candy cane from my christmas tree. it was great. i even had a bendy straw in my water cup.
itching began that night and i complained of it repeatedly. my face felt as though it was crawling with bugs. i'd begin to doze off and my lip would itch. i'd scratch. almost asleep and the tip of my nose would itch and i'd scratch. my whole head would itch and i'd scratch madly, like a flea-ridden caveman. the nurse explained it away as something they'd used in the IV drugs and gave me a benadryl. but the benadryl offered no relief. every 4 hours i was allowed 2 percocets and i took one or both religiously for pain, never thinking twice. itch, itch, itch. in the morning my belly button began to itch too and the nurse said "oh good, that's a sign of healing!" but wasn't it too soon for that? i have a fast metabolism, fast digestive system, but could i actually heal that fast? (later i would google percocet and discover one possible side effect is itching, and my incisional itching was really the percolation of hives - a reaction against the bandages!)
from prior experience with laparoscopic surgery i knew to expect gas pain. no, not the kind in your bowels. this kind stems from being pumped with gas to create a coloseum inside my belly so the surgical tools had room to do their jobs. try as they might to suck it back out, some of the gas stays and wreaks more havoc on the body than the incisions ever do. it even works its way up as high as your shoulders. mostly you feel as if the tire of a monster truck just rolled over your abdomen. my gas bubble was a nasty one this time. it felt huge and i could hear it as i changed position in bed. it glugged and gurgled, changing positions with me. i was a human lava lamp.eventually it decided to take up residence for several days just under my diaphragm, making every breath a shallow one until i took in a big heaving painful breath every so often and let it out with a loud sigh. my cat mattie died last june of lung problems that made it hard for him to breathe. his every breath became strained and heavy and finally i knew what his last days must have felt like. and it made me cry. mine would eventually be relieved. his never was. i didn't like the oxygen tube in my nose either. not only was it pesky, slipping out of place, it reminded me too unpleasantly of bob's reliance in his last days on such an oxygen tube. finally the nurse let me breathe on my own as long as my O2 stats remained acceptable.
in the morning dr. silverstein came in with photos of my insides. the ovary that was normal looked like the sickly one to me. the one that looked like an egg turned out to be the sickly one, twice the size it was supposed to be, and the one they had to remove. the other one remains in there, suspended somehow. lonesome, but trucking on, keeping me hormonal. she showed me my uterus, which looked like any glistening organ, as you might expect. she explained that it was tipped over so badly it must have caused me back pains. days later she would tell me that one fibroid inside was the size of a golf ball and inside it was so riddled with adenomyosis that it "must have caused me a lot of pain". yes....that would be why i had it removed.
old scars from old surgeries. my liver. fascinating stuff. the only thing that made me vaguely weak in the knees were the black gristle burn marks of the cauterizing tool. "this is your cervix cauterized shut," she said, and i decided that was just about enough. organs OK, burned organs not so OK. i guess doctors get real happy when things go well, although i think if i were a doctor i'd find it a lot more exciting when things go wrong. she was quite cheery with her little photo album of my guts in hand. after looking at my 4 incision sites she decided i looked OK. standing up i had a very unsightly, saggy balloon swelling on the left and complained that i was lumpy. she assured me that the swelling would go away, after all that was the biggest incision, through which everything had been sucked out. it deserved to look a little traumatized. i decided this must be what it feels like to be stabbed in the gut. you can literally feel its path inside.
dr. silverstein was all set to let me go home until she heard i had no one to go home to. she knew bob had died 2 years ago but assumed i had someone who could stay with me. i did not. so she declared i'd have another night's stay in the hospital in my nice private room courtesy of health insurance (hey, if you get one for something coming out of your uterus, why not also get one for your uterus coming out altogether?) besides, i was not in any condition to go home if you asked me. insurance companies kick people out of the hospital too quickly these days to save themselves money. i was in pain, i was not terribly steady on my feet, there was no one to make sure i got to the bathroom without fainting - one more day wouldn't hurt. so i got to keep my super sterile isolation room and get served 3 squares a day. the menu seemed so glamorous. you mean i don't have to circle just one item? i can have as many things as i want? but i found the kitchen staff was quite literal. if you forgot to circle butter, you got no butter even if you'd ordered an english muffin and it would seem sensible that you'd also want butter.
mom came to visit the first morning looking angry at the world, waving her big thumb splint around and describing how swollen her hand was, how she had to remove her rings as i'd predicted. i lay quietly, holding my belly. "oh! give me my rings!" i said and she extracted the purple felt bag from her purse. i dumped the contents into my white linen lap. only 3 rings fell. i looked into the bag, shook it again. nothing else came out. where was bob's gold wedding band? "that's all you gave me," mom insisted. "i don't remember 4 rings." i tried not to panic. i especially didn't need her panicking. my voice, however, was strained and insistent - i had 4 rings, bob's was missing. she explained that she'd taken her own rings off in the Emergency Room and put them in the bag along with mine, dumped them all out on the bed at home later, then tossed her own rings into her jewelry box. "i don't remember seeing any gold band." i called Security to search Pre-Op, the OR and the ER, all the while knowing fat chance they'd find anything. if the ring had been in my lap when i went into the OR it was now in the bowels of the hospital laundry, lost to me forever. in this economy anyone who found it was unlikely to turn it in to Lost & Found. mom left in a worse mood than she'd arrived in, telling me "you have no idea how upset i will be if i lost bob's wedding ring!"
"how upset you'll be??"
after she left i let myself go. i let the panic and sobbing overtake me and took a klonopin, snuck in along with the American cheese. i waited for the phone to ring and the words "i found it!" 45 minutes, an hour, then 2 hours passed. nothing. i cried even harder. she couldn't find it and she was too afraid to tell me so. i was too afraid to call her and hear those words, already too overwhelmed with my own loss to deal with her hysteria, because it would not be pretty. eventually the phone rang and mom blithely said "hi, how are you?" what the fuck? i didn't want to hear hi how are you, i wanted to hear i found it or i didn't find it. "did you find my ring?" i asked and she answered "oh yes, i just knew you were drifting off to sleep when i left so i didn't want to call and wake you." call and wake me? i'd been unable to sleep for 2 hours, tormented by the idea of bob's wedding ring lost forever! but she had it, tossed in her jewelry box with her own gold jewelry, and would bring it over later.
when she returned with my rings she was a different person. who is this person and what did you do with my real mother? she was cheerful, the perfect hospital visitor, bearing a box of chocolates and magazines for me. insisting that i have all the extras i was entitled to, like the cranberry juice and pudding they had in the ward's kitchen. well OK. so we stocked up on loot in the form of food as i put each ring back on its proper unswollen finger. as far as i was concerned, the return of bob's ring was no less a miracle than the I Love You balloon christmas morning. earlier i tried to convince myself that it was just a material thing, a piece of metal, paling in importance to other things like love and memories. and i told myself he rarely wore it anyway because of the kind of work he did. wasn't it more important that i had the engagement and wedding bands he gave me? but no matter how buddhist i tried to be about it, i knew its loss would have devastated me and i surely never could have dealt with my mother's sobbing guilt on top of it.
in the evening i wandered alone through the corridors of Maternity. they had pretty wallpaper and elegant, dim, ambient hall lighting. it was spacious and many of the rooms were empty, their beds twice the size of mine. i imagined that dying patients on the 2nd floor might have liked one of those empty suites. i scarcely heard the squalling of any newborns. in a way it reminded me of the vast empty hotel in the movie 'The Shining' as i sat in the dark looking out the Solarium windows at the snow falling outside. i could practically see the strange little psychic boy pedaling his Big Wheel through the halls, the scary twins, the elevator doors opening and dumping blood. "redrum, redrum". bored, i posted my impressions in my Facebook status. they even had a computer up there.
a little old nurse (i later found out she was only 2 years older than me!) asked me at some point if i was farting yet. i stared at her, aghast. farting? is that official nurse-speak? i hardly wanted to admit to that. "farting's good!" she announced happily, "we like to know if you're having a little toot, let's us know your bowels are starting to work again, though nothing will probably come out for about 4 days." she was right. nothing did. i went from the Fleet blast to complete asshole withholding. i counted how many meals i put into my belly and worried . . . 6 meals and nothing coming out. just how much could i put in without this becoming a problem?
after dr. silverstein deemed me OK to go home, but required me to stay anyway, the nurses seemed almost to forget my presence. after all, i was the oddball 'extra', not a new mommy. i was in the Restricted air-locked room with 2 doors, i was easy to forget. i felt guilty pressing the Nurse button on my bed so i would pad out into the hall instead in my sticky-bottomed socks to ask "wasn't i supposed to get my percocet an hour ago?" i didn't want to seem like a drug addict, but this did hurt! the surgery may have been hip and state of the art, but it had left several holes in my belly and i was minus a uterus and one ovary. i spent some time wondering what happened now in there . . . were the other organs happy they could stretch out and take some of that empty space? would my bladder now be able to expand to impressive size and allow me more time between bathroom visits? i drink so much water, this would be a good thing. or is there just an empty space in there now? i sat reading the pamphlet on the "supracervical hysterectomy" i'd had - it had been, apparently, robotically performed using the da Vinci System. i began to word association. da Vinci System, da Vinci Code (being a snob, i never read it, having read Holy Blood, Holy Grail already). V - symbol for the sacred feminine. my initial was V and i had just gotten rid of my "sacred feminine". the pamphlet explained that the woman might feel a sadness, a feeling perhaps of being less of a woman. a sense of loss for her uterus.
i snorted and tossed the pamphet on my tray table. loss? i'm still the sacred feminine without that thing and can't imagine i will ever miss it.
i figure that if i have to guzzle an ounce and a half of powerful liquid laxative tomorrow at 4 PM then again at 7, i'm likely to spend the evening circling the bathroom and since i have to cook some food to freeze for easy warming while i am down for the count . . . i don't want to be mixing cooking with toilet visits, you know? so this evening i've been racing around like a madwoman trying to get things done. i am the furthest thing from a domestic goddess, so you have to understand that this is hard work for someone like me. for instance, i'm incapable of making Jello without reading the box instructions word for word. i just made some because after breakfast tomorrow my diet is strictly curtailed to Jello and clear liquids. then at 4 PM, well - you know what happens then.
first on the agenda after work was a visit to the grocery store. i loath the grocery store. it's like my version of hell on earth. i shop like a european usually, stopping for stuff at the nearby little family grocer where i no doubt pay twice as much. and the irony is - that means i end up shopping 5 times more than if i went once a week! but i just can't stand the Big Shopping. however, i had to do it tonight so my usually empty cupboards and fridge would be stocked for the duration. i got 3 bags of oranges for the price of one, so if anyone local wants oranges i have plenty to dole out. lots of toilet paper, naturally, because that's gonna be a must-have tomorrow night! 3 bags of cat litter (hey, i have 6 cats), so much deli ham and cheese i will never want to look another sandwich in the eye again after this, and lots of my favorite Pepsi 0. people wonder why i drink it - it has 0 calories, 0 sugar, and 0 caffeine. but it's a nice change from my usual gallons of water.
when i got home and unloaded all the stuff i set about trying to shovel the godawful slop mother nature dumped on us today. heavy slush is a bitch. only half the walk is shoveled and sanded (yes, just the part i need to get to the driveway and back). pedestrians will just have to take their chances from there. around here they tend to walk in the middle of the street with their dogs anyway, a joy for those of us trying to navigate snowy streets. it's a law to shovel your sidewalk and yet they don't use the damn thing! but, with my luck, one will, and that person will fall on their ass and yell whiplash and sue me. i'll take my chances. the back porch steps are a bitch and i am worried about being able to get out to feed my bunnies and the wild birds . . . but maybe the little kids across the street would like to earn a couple bucks. i decided not to change the litterboxes until the last minute tomorrow night so they are as clean as possible for the upcoming week or so.
now i am washing my button-butt longjohns, which i suspect i will spend the majority of my time in (i need to find the other pair!) after 4 holes in your belly, you really don't want to be in anything with a waistband and i am a big fan of the button-butt for winter visits to the john. all my blankies and robes are washing. since i suspect i'll be on the couch downstairs for the first night home at the very least, i covered the cushions with a snuggly wool blanket. but then i covered that with another blanket because i know my cats - and one of them is bound to vomit a hairball on my bedding. the little bastards will never hurl a hairball on the wood floor. no, it has to be in one of my shoes or on the rug or on the couch. so i am prepared! particularly since i just fed Mikey some shrimp tails, his favorites. he puts them down with gusto, but they seem to come back up with equal gusto later on. but with those cute pleading yellow eyes, how can i resist giving him his treat?
i'm making angel hair pasta, spinach, shrimp and feta (with olive oil) for my dinner and enough left over to freeze. this is a meal i can manage to make because it doesn't require much of my presence at the stove. yes, i hate the stove. if it takes longer than 15 minutes to cook, i'm not interested in cooking it. since bob died i think i've turned the oven on all of 3 times. the microwave, on the other hand, gets good use. i have 2 pots and 2 frying pans. i can also make spaghetti and meatballs. i am an expert at cooking hot dogs.
a friend of mine promised to deliver some tubular meat (the best kind) on sunday. goddammit, i hope he brings some crackers to go with that sausage!
i forgot to borrow some DVDs from the library for moments of boredom. daytime soaps might drive me to suicide and i don't think there's much else on. i have 5 books to read and hey, you ineternet people can entertain me. how long i am supposed to be laid up, i don't know. when i had regular laparoscopy i guess it was a couple days but this time there's 4 holes instead of 2 in the belly and organ removal so . . . i doubt i'll be tuning into the exercise channel to tone my abs. i wonder when i can drive again? i forgot to ask. i drive a stick (jeep wrangler) so it requires a little more of the abdominal cavity than a regular weenie kind of automatic car. but when there's a will there's a way. in due time.
the best "gift" i bought myself for this upcoming exile to the couch is an electric blanket. all the heat in this 150 yr old house goes upstairs even with the door closed at the bottom of the stairs. i can crank the heat to 75 on a 10 degree night and be lucky if it gets up to 61. with a $290 natural gas bill this month, i've definitely decided an electric blanket down here is the way to go! i literally go into a heat-induced coma beneath it and so does Biggie, my 20 lb cat who should, by all rights, be hot enough with all that fat, but never is. my biggest fear is Biggie deciding to pussyfoot across my tender belly, as cats are wont to do. mine are horrible. Spanky sits on my chest, Mikey swats me in the face when he wants me to get up. they all use me as a natural bridge to get from one side of the bed to the other. assholes. i feel sorry for Baby, who has never come downstairs of her own volition since she arrived here in September of 2007. apparently, she is queen of all upstairs. my bed is her bed, she has her dainty water goblet bedside, the spare room has her food and her Baby-Only litterbox. if i am down her for a while she will be lonely. well, perhaps not. she has 5 boycats to keep her company, all of whom are allowed on the bed only by virtue of her grace. that is, except Mikey, who is top cat to Baby's queen cat. he is 18 and nobody fucks with him.
today the hospital lady told me to bring as little as possible for my overnight stay (in the maternity ward - which i find somehow quite amusing). no jewelry, no nail polish, what? - no false eyelashes?! no lipstick (but what about that Lifetime show i saw advertised called 'Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy'?? i can't wear lipstick to my ute removal? that's just not fair. so i hesitantly asked, "is it OK if i bring my pink stuffed bunny? i can't sleep without him." the nurse laughed, but nicely, and said of course. just not into the operating room. that's OK, he's not sterile after all, and no amount of washing seems to get the little balls of Baby's black fur off him.
it's weird, i never felt the least bit anxious about any prior surgery. in fact the nurses laughed when they had to wake me up to insert the IV i was so relaxed (and no, it wasn't thanks to drugs). see, bob was there. i felt completely at ease in his presence and tend to just surrender myself over to the hospital staff (really, like there's a choice anyway?) i took for granted that if i died, not that i would have or will, he'd take care of things. but there is no more bob. the hospital has so many unpleasant memories for me, since this is where he died. bob won't be there. he won't sit with me beforehand, won't be there in Recovery, won't visit, won't take me home and take care of me. someone today told me "but he will be there" and i like that thought and could kiss her for saying so.
too many people seem to find the holidays a chore and i find that sad. to them, i guess, the spirit was lost. perhaps long ago. perhaps when they found out santa claus wasn't real. but he is. he may not be a jolly fat elf in red velvet, but he is a spirit that should live inside your heart. a symbol of the joy of giving. within your reach. why should it matter so much how much money you have, how much you spend? where has the simple joy in giving gone? a handmade gift matters as much as a store-bought X-Box. more if you ask me.
in 2006, as december progressed, i spent every evening in a bentwood rocker as bob lay on the couch, weak from cancer, chemo and radiation. the past summer he had grown birdhouse gourds in the garden and we dried them during the fall, then scooped out the seeds and guts through an inch wide hole to hollow them. i am no painter by schooling (any art i have has come to me naturally), but that winter i took up some brushes and mixed colors as i sat in the rocker. i was my own worst critic as the little gourd paintings took shape, but bob urged me on. and indeed they took shape. a Modigliani lady for jennifer, a buddha for joanne, a sunflower for mom, a little house and white picket fence for bob's sister irene. secretly, as bob slept, i painted his christmas gourd upstairs in my computer room where there was no risk of him waking and seeing my surprise. it was the simplest gourd. all it had was a big red heart surrounding the birdhouse hole and I Love You painted in black script. the hole was the o in love.
on christmas morning it was his best loved gift. he loved that silly and simple gourd more than i ever would have imagined and had to have it on the coffee table so it was in his line of sight at all times. after all, cancer had made the couch his home. he was too weak to celebrate christmas more than our morning together and i was loath to leave him even for a short while to visit with my family, though he insisted. he gave me 2 things, neither home-made, but both from the heart and so special to me. one was a cordless drill and matching kit of bits, something i have used countless times since his death and thanked him inwardly every time. it has literally been a tool of survival many times. a tool that offered me his help as i work alone now. the other present was a necklace, a wave of diamonds that delicately hang in the hollow of my throat. the TV had advertised the design as Forever and that, to me, is what he was saying his love was. i think of him going out to get it, gathering all his strength just to do so. he made sure his gifts to me were meaningful, lasting, and i treasure them. in contrast, i didn't know what to get my dying man. hopeful things like a workshirt, jeans, things he could wear when he returned to work. all the while i knew he never would. but some part of me thought that if i acted like there was a future, i could make it happen. yet they felt so lame as he opened them. until he unwrapped his I Love You gourd. i said "it isn't much....." and he said "are you kidding? i love it!" and it was clear by the shine in his eyes that he did.
when bob died just 3 weeks later i brought his ashes home in a simple plastic and surprisingly heavy black plastic box. i knew of no urn, no box he would choose for his ashes. but then i thought of the christmas gourd he loved so much. an odd final resting place, but then bob was no average guy, and there was no question in my mind that he would have said a hearty YES! when i chose it for his ashes. a simple black rubber stopper from the hardware store is glued in what would have been a bird's entry, the o in I Love You. in his last days bob almost never had it out of his sight and now it sits always in my line of sight as i sit where he once lay. his favorite red electric christmas candle flickers nearby. never unplugged since christmas 2006 and still flickering as if by magic for 2 years. i could not pull the plug and extinguish his light, and it feels as though he's kept it lit long beyond the natural life of any real bulb. i am silly, sentimental, superstitious.
last valentine's day i stood on the back steps where we used to lounge around and shoot the shit together and i released 2 helium balloons into the cold winter sky. both silver, heart-shaped, with a red heart and I Love You on them. ribbons knotted together so they'd stay together wherever they went. yet they only went as far as the giant oak tree in the front yard, caught perhaps 30, 40, 50 feet up. tangled together in branches to bounce off one another in the wind. from my computer room window i could look right out and see them, slowly fading to simple silver over time. they'll never break free, i thought. slowly they deflated but still tossed with the wind together and periodically i'd stand in the yard and look up. still together, still there.
until this christmas morning.
for christmas i gave myself a 'present from bob', a ring with a pink tourmaline in the shape of a heart, hugged by 2 diamonds. it hung in a little gold box in the christmas tree until i opened it christmas morning and slipped it on atop his gold wedding ring which i wear on my left middle finger. then i dressed, fed the cats, then set out into the cold snowy day to feed the bunnies and fill the bird feeder. there, caught in the curlicues of his grape vines, was one of the valentine's balloons. somehow it had broken loose from its mate, from the tangle of branches, and fell right into my path despite the wind that blew. i put the coffee can of seed down in the snow and trudged over to rescue it.
i was filled with wonder on christmas morning. i looked up, and there was the other heart still caught in the tree, but in my hands the other flattened heart balloon still clearly read
I Love You
my pink heart ring paled in comparison to that gift. coincidence, you might say. it just happened to blow out of the tree, happened to catch in the vines. but i am not the most observant person in the world, yet i saw it glinting there. the wind was blowing hard - why hadn't it taken it away? it could have gone anywhere and yet there it was, right where i could find it on christmas morning. whenever i used to doubt something bob used to say "oh ye of little faith." but this, bob, i believe.
my last gift to him on christmas was I Love You and on this new christmas the I Love You was returned. i could not feel sad in the face of such a gift and looked up at his other heart in the winter-bare tree, saying aloud "thank you, bob" with a smile and happy tears.
