they actually send you home with fun bags

I am writing this from Hartford Hospital, and am hoping to get discharged in a couple of hours. Still a little loopy from the pain medication, but overall in good shape (here those who knew my mom should hear that expression in the cadence she'd say it in). Ellen, Laura, Ting, and Yani were here for most of yesterday, and we laughed and talked with equal depth.

The surgery went well, lymph nodes are clear, and all of that bodes very well. We need to wait a few days for the pathology report on the left breast and the margins of the right breast tumor, but I am less worried by far than pre-surgery. I now know the texture of this particular pain, anyway, and it is okay. It gives me confidence for whatever might be next.

I have peeked at my chest, which is covered by thick wrappings and a wide ace bandage. The scars are not so bad -- I may upload a picture if I get up the nerve later. Interesting to see that my chest is not flat -- it is concave. I'm not sure how that works -- I'll have to look more closely later. I'll also be checking out the chests of 7-year-old girls for a bit -- not to sound creepy -- just curious about this concave thing. I don't remember that look.

Hospital sleep sucked, of course, even on dilaudid, benadryl, and percoset. So I am still really tired. There are too many machines buzzing, too many IV drips making me have to make my blurry way to the toilet every couple of hours. Lots of people who throw on the lights at 3:00 a.m. and are interested in my temperature, my pee volume, my this, my that. For those who haven't gone through this surgery, by the way, one's pee is green for awhile, as the blue dye used to find the sentinel node works its way through the system. "Blue and yellow make green," I commented wisely to the nurse the first time I peed successfully. Looped, I tell you.

Had one nurse who made lots of malapropisms in her speech, which was fun, especially as they came through the post-op fog. Instead of "sentinel node," for example, the first lymph node in which the cancer might have traveled, she spoke repeatedly of my "centennial node," and it was all I could do to stop myself from breaking into Stars and Stripes Forever.

Want to record here for posterity that I was successful in getting in Gigi's turkey joke right before they gave me the anesthesia in the operating room. I said, "Please tell me before you knock me out." "We will, sweetie. First, I'm going to X and then I'm going to Y, and then I'm going to knock you out." So after X and Y, I said, "Wait a second!" All 5 heads in the operating room turned toward me. Then I said, "How do you keep a turkey in suspense?" They still stared, nonplussed. Then, the moment of sweet victory: "I'll tell you after I wake up." I heard laughter, and then was out.

Laura has had instruction in emptying the drain cups, an act of love that ought to get her a few millennia in heaven. Bleccch. Blood and fat, mostly. Blood is to be expected, dripping out of one, I suppose, but it is extra gross to have liquid fat dripping out of one's sides. Doesn't seem to bother Laura, though I have noticed that she leaves the room for a long moment after emptying the cups.

One last thing -- before they discharge you from Hartford Hospital, we've been told that someone delivers a "Fun Bag" from the Cancer Center -- apparently filled with cancer games (um) and other fun things. Doesn't that seem a little weird? I'm not quite sure how to respond. Didn't they just remove my fun bags? What's with that?