Adventure

I had gall bladder surgery on Friday night; woke up in agony Thursday morning around 3am, and woke up my poor Dad to drive me into the ER. Poor Dad: he can't even watch me put an earring in, but he had to sit in the room when the hep-lock went in, and listen to the woman in the next bed screaming because she'd had a stroke and was 30 weeks pregnant, and they couldn't hear the baby's heart beat. He turned gray. I sent him home, and didn't let anyone come back until I was discharged. I couldn't bear to have to worry about them.

But I missed the kids terribly. Was having a weepy moment about it when the perky GI interns came in to listen to my lungs, and I couldn't breathe because my head was clogged. So I got a little tool for lung exercises. Which I used anyway. What the hell.

I had my first MRI. What an exercise in self control. The mind wanders--you try not to let it wander, because the churning and grinding from the machine is very much what I imagine a submarine might sound like, and there I am in this thin tube and I may as well be submerged: I'm strapped in at the legs and can't reach down to unstrap myself. "Rocket Man" was playing through the headset. "Breathe out, breathe in, hold your breath," the woman's voice would break in, and every time I had to hold my breath about 5 seconds longer than was comfortable, which increased my anxiety. How many people squeeze the alarm ball and get themselves pulled out before it's over? I wondered.

Happy to be home. So happy.