if i looks like a breast and feels like a breast, it must be

...underarm swelling. Since the doctor yanked out the kinked drainage tube on Thursday, fluid has been quietly, doggedly accumulating under my arm. "Can't have it both ways," says this excellent surgeon with hands of gold and a bedside manner of -- not to put too fine a point on it -- a boob. This is the person who left us in a puddle of splattered fluid and walked out, me naked and speckled in front of the opened door, Laura still trying to catch what she could of the reddish fountain. "We'll just drain you on Tuesday." And now there is enough gathered at the gate to be about the size of my original left breast, only moved 6 inches to the left. I cup it in my hand now and then for a virtual experience of what is gone.

Now that it's become clear that all efforts need to be toward the cause of pooping, I have stopped the prescribed meds. I had taken them sparingly from the beginning, much less than prescribed, and even so, I feel a pronounced drop in my resilience. Very tired today. I am supposedly napping in Yani's bed (at 9:30 a.m.) while Laura does errands and our sheets are in the washing machine.

I'm sure you will want an update on output. Laura came into the bathroom last night while I sat on the toilet (much of the evening) waiting for Godot. She had her forefinger covered in saran wrap. "I can do this, p," she assured me gallantly, with only the faintest drain of color from her face. She was like the gladiator who has stepped into the coliseum ready to die for his queen. "Your majesty," the brave soul bows, "I die in service of the throne."

Well, you'd have to get up pret-ty early in the morning to get a saran-wrapped-covered finger into my crowded behind. I don't care how good the cause is, how worthy the ailing queen. That's not happening. I dismissed Laura with a weary wave, sparing my noble servant for another day, and went back to my private vigil.

No full Main Street parade just yet, let's say, though they have let a fire truck or two go through. Much obliged for the support.