9/22/96:

Friends:

Well, early Monday morning I'll be starring in yet another commercial for ginsu knives.  This will be my 7th surgery in little more than a year, so you can imagine how thrilled I am.

It's been a longer wait than it should be because I've had severe drainage problems.  After four weeks, they finally took out the last drain, which was a profound relief.  I remember that day, it was beautiful, and it felt like it was especially for me.  Coming back along Ocean Highway, I played my music full blast, something I haven't done for a very long time.  Sound track of Big Easy, very up.  The fiddles gossiped a mile-a-minute over the backfence at my good fortune, the cungas hopped up and down in delight, the waves roared in to congratulate me, the crowds ran glittering kites into the sky to signal my happy progress, the sandpipers ran about all in a dither of delight.  For the first time, I hurt only when I moved, rather than unceasingly.

But apparently the drains were needed, because since then the fluid has continued to build up, and I've had to run back and forth to the hospital for:  The... Horse... Needles.  You don't want to know about that.  The buildup is uncomfortable, especially on a weekend.  When I tap my lower back, it waves & ripples like a waterbed -- weird!  All of this is apparently because of very severe radiation damage to the tissues.  My body never expected to get sunburned on the INSIDE, so it's protesting greatly, and not accepting of further traumas.  Still, the needles are a few minutes pain a day, vs. 24 hours with the drains, so I remain grateful at having the drains out.

Young Kevin continues to do cheer-up visits, thanks to Donna, who will have a special place in heaven.  He's come to know whom he's visiting now, so he breaks into a run, and I hear his little feet and open the door to greet him.  He knows he's about to be received by the perfect audience, someone who wholeheartedly applauds his every word & deed.  Last time, he spotted me thru the stairs leading down to my door, and insisted on to watch me backwards while descending forwards.  He's still not quite steady enough on his pins for this to work real well, and it was pretty hilarious.  We had an excellent visit, and increasingly amazing conversations about zebras, alphabet letters, eyebrows, and frogs.  And about picnics!  Donna takes him out to the park for lunch on pretty days (and we've had a bunch of those), and he calls them nik-niks.  Ahh, the important things in life.

And my whole team visited one day for an Offsite Meeting. This label was meant to be a joke but, being programmers, we couldn't resist actually talking shop after all.  But we managed to enjoy waffles and strawberries in the meantime, courtesy of Doug, and had a good time.  It was SO-O-O GOOD to see my friends for awhile -- we're so used to being together, and isolation doesn't suit.

And my sister took me on a wonderful ride to Bonny Doon and back, with a stop at the fuschia farm, and I had a glorious sunset oceanside dinner with Hannah.

Other than that, my biggest excitement has been restoring my life support after getting my computer upgraded.  The whole point of the upgrade was so I can go back to work (telecommute), and the one application that resisted all attempts at repair was my office mail.  After 6 weeks, billions of dollars in connect time to vendors' sites and support charges from vendors who insist it's the other guy's fault, and unloving exchanges with the corporate help-in-a-pig's-eye desk, I finally got reconnected.  It took 2 days to bring in all the mail that had piled up (I'm not joking).  And I have now been forcibly slammed into Windows 95, which I continue to regard as an expensive and incomprehensibly voluntary virus.  But... the world marches on, and I guess so must I.

The surgery on Monday:  We did the Microsoft cut-and-paste, now it's time for the Compare-X.  So far, I've been hooting and tweeting in discord; after the surgery, I should be tweeting harmoniously.  This will be good.  I didn't think I cared much about such things anymore, but I found I was very ashamed of my appearance.  The rare times I was forced to appear in public, I felt everyone was staring at me, looking at me as diseased, mutilated, icky.  It bothered me more than I thought it would. I will be glad to look more "normal".  I have to get rid of all my buxom-woman's T-shirts, such as "Stop Staring and Grow Your Own" and "Bounce, Bounce, Bounce", and am looking for a T-shirt that says "My other pair is a 44D".

This surgery is supposed to be a lot easier than the last.  We'll send everything more than a handful to Goodwill, and then put happy faces on the remainder, and that will be that.  I am fighting with the doc to not stay overnight, and I think I have him convinced.  (Tho I will miss the dark-of-night partying with the geezers in nighties.)  If all goes well (wouldn't THAT be a change?) I could be working as soon as a week later, provided I telecommute.  Crazy as it sounds, I am chafing at the bit to go back to work.

Speaking of work... I have of course been teased by people all over the world who have seen my company's travails in the paper.  Thursday, when Candy took me to the hospital for preregistration, I was sitting having my blood taken when I heard a woman bellow, "[my bank]?!? SHE WORKS FOR [my bank]??!??".  As I walked out, this eNORmous woman charged out, multi-hued as if wearing the colors of war, and pinned me to the corridor wall (literally, yes!), and started telling me all the agonies she's been thru, and all the misery her branch manager, Leon, has gone thru trying to make things right.  We gathered quite a crowd. I went into psychiatric-nurse mode and listened sympathetically, and when she came up for air, I told her that really part of the blame was Leon's.  All this would have been less upsetting if Leon had given her the proper product disclosures so everyone would know what to expect.  This was, you see, the new product, the No-You-Can't-Have-Your-Money account, and it was simply a matter of being unprepared for the new features.  She was so emotional, she didn't pick up I was having her on until she realized her cohorts were laughing hysterically.  So I left her laughing, and promised her that, now that I'm coming back to work, there will be no further incidents of this kind.

Well, hopefully I've caught everyone up, after my long dreary silence.  I will of course let everyone know how things go on Monday.  You've carried me thru so far, and I continue to need and appreciate that you care.