Monday, March 23, 2009

You guys are probably getting sick of my anniv posts, but whatever. Can't please everyone all of the time. One year ago tomorrow was my second chemo treat. I'm in the process of uploading all of my 20+ dvr tapes from the past year+, and I'd just done this tape yesterday. I simply can't even watch these tapes without breaking down; uploading these mothers is a huge task that is time consuming and tedious. After I upload them, the transcription process will be even more time consuming and I just can't be bothered, as I need actually to write and edit. So I've posted an ad for an intern/aspiring writer to help log. Me? Have an intern? Well, despite my fiduciary shortcomings in the career department, I do have a lot I could teach an aspiring writer. Like how not to get sued or end up on Page Six. (Actually, many writers prob want to end up on Page Six.)

Anyway, these fucking tapes are taking me forever. It takes my Mac 60 mins to upload a 60 min tape into iMovie and I just can't believe in this day and age there is not a FF button on importing. Any ideas?

So one year ago tomorrow, second chemo. Dad and Stark were in tow. Dad, valiant in his efforts to remain in one room during a six-hour chemo infusion despite his rampant ADHD, made it through with only one off-campus trip—to the deli. Dana and I did count his bathroom jaunts though, which I recall creeping into the double digits. (Hey, the man did have prostate ca.)

Fitting then, given my cancerversaries, that the 'rents are in Palm Beach for the week and I'm heading up tomorrow morning to join them, with Wally in tow. A drive up to PB is much better than sitting in the Ward. April 21st—no coincidence that it's the day after 4/20—will be my last Herceptin infusion. Meaning that I can get out the port/catheter later in April. Meaning, no more chemo ward!!!!! Finally! The port removal is officially my final surgery; the nips are being tatted up March 30.

The port removal is a biggie—I still get squeamish touching that area, feeling a foreign object the size of a quarter under the skin and occasionally, when I try to 'massage' the right tata down to be as low as the left one, I feel the whole fucking thing and start to black out. The port is a thing that has a catheter going directly to my heart. So that if I feel deep enough, I can feel the alien cord, and that's what freaks my shit.

If your insides look like this, wouldn't you freak too?

Eww. Ick. Why did they give this woman love handles though? Anyway, where the fuck was I going with this? Oh, right. I called Peggy in my breast surgeon, Thomas Mesko's office, to schedule the port surg.

"What kind of surgery is it?"

"Usually, it's an in-office procedure where he just numbs you up and yanks it out. Would you be comfortable with that?"

"Ooooh! Hell no!! I need to be knocked out for that shit! It's like pulling the drainage tubes out or a catheter where it feels like an alien tube is being pulled out of you? Shit, no, knock me out! Surgery!"

Frankly, being abducted and probed by little gray beings would excite me more than feeling that otherworldly slithering of tubes in my body. And lidocaine compared to anesthesia? Sign me up for the drugs, Dr.

So that's why I've elected to go under for my last surgery. May as well have one Vercet-Valium cocktail to celebrate! Anesthesia—is niiice.

On another note, I 'straightened' my hair using Ralf's Welleda formula. Remember those old-school pre-Asian straighteners? The ones that give you horse hair? Yep. Instead of a Jewfro, I now have coarse, unruly tufts of hair that make me look like the Joker when I wake up. Sigh. Guess I have a legit excuse to wear the wig for longtime. Will try to post from PB; though we'll be at the outlets for a day I'm guessing, so we'll see . . .