Pull Up a Chair

Complications

I was asleep when the house phone rang at 2:07am this morning. Dad answered the phone. He knew who was calling. He knew something was wrong. No one calls a house phone in the middle of the night unless there is a problem.

Dad and Natalie came into my room and woke me up to tell me the news. To put it mildly, I was very angry that my sleep was being disturbed. Dad started explaining things in detail. I was having trouble following what he was saying because I was so sleepy. I barked at him to get to the point. He said that Mom had to go back into surgery.

What Dad had been trying to explain to me was that a clot had formed in the main vein carrying blood back from the reconstructed portion of Mom's new tongue (called a "flap") and blood was pooling inside. Surgery had to be performed immediately in order to try and save the tissue. The head surgeon, Dr. Ryan Heffelfinger, was called back in to reconnect the flap. Luckily the clot was discovered early enough that the tissue was still healthy. In the vast majority of similar cases, the flap tissue does not survive.

Attaching thigh tissue to a tongue is a long and tedious process in which nerves and blood vessels must be sewn together. It requires a talented and experienced surgeon (imagine trying to sew two angel hair noodles together end-to-end, and you'll have some idea of what microsurgery involves). Mom was in surgery for another four hours (approximately 2:30-6:30am) while the flap was successfully reconnected. Dad made sure to thank Dr. Heffelfinger. It had been a long 24 hours for him and his team.

It was a scary night for Mom, but she is doing well now. Other than dealing with standard intensive care procedures, we spent the day opening letters and gifts (thank you to those who sent in cards!), talking with family, combing Mom's hair, and watching MythBusters. Mom is really excited to see her sister, Ellen, who flies in tomorrow.

We all are relieved that everything is back on track despite the complications early this morning. Thank you all for your comments and continued support. Thank you Holly B. for the amaryllis.

- Matthew

 

Glossectomy

It's been a long day. Dad, Natalie, and I left the house around 5am and sped to the hospital to see Mom before she left for surgery. Thankfully we were able to spend some more time with her before she went into the OR. It was difficult for Mom to try and mentally prepare considering the rapid 24-hour turnaround between her MRI scan and the surgery. Despite the disorienting suddenness of everything, we were all relieved and extremely grateful that the surgery could take place today. At the rate the cancer was spreading, waiting any longer could have been devastating. It really was a blessing that things fell into place such that the surgery could be performed today.

As for the surgery, it was a long and intricate procedure. Mom went under around 8:00am. The surgery took over 11 hours to complete. Approximately 90% of her tongue was removed. The surgeons tested the remaining tongue tissue extensively, and all results indicated that the cancer had been completely removed. Tissue was taken from her thigh and used for tongue reconstruction. A sensory nerve was connected from the reconstructed portion to the remaining part of her tongue. 

Looking ahead things will be extremely difficult, and nothing is certain. Talking will be limited, and will take continual practice to improve. Mom will not be able to swallow at first, but chances are okay that over time she can relearn how to. The trach tube will remain in for at least 1-2 months, and the feeding tube will indefinitely be her primary source of food/water intake.

All things considered, Mom is looking great. She was very uncomfortable at first when she awoke; it's scary, psychologically, breathing through a straw in the neck. Now that she has more medication and is sitting up, she is looking more at ease. She is communicating with a notepad and pencil. In a couple of days, she'll be back to blogging on her new laptop.

I told her that all of the pain she is experiencing will be worth it when she is recovered, cancer-free. I told her to think about visiting my apartment in Chicago and all of the things we'll do together when she visits, including walking along the lake. That made her smile.

Thank you for all of your continued love and support. It gives Mom strength. Thank you Joan Smith for the beautiful orchid.

- Matthew

 

 

An open book

 Last week, two days before Christmas Eve, I found out that the results of my new biopsies were positive for cancer.  I had thought that the result might not be good.  My tongue had been hurting again in a couple of spots.

I spent a few days dealing with feelings of overwhelm.  Was I going to die?  Could they fix anything?  Would I lose my ability to speak? This morning I had another MRI and an appointment with the doctors who had built my first tongue.

They recommended that my entire tongue be removed, including the new part that had been built from my wrist.  They felt it had become compromised by being next to the new cancerous area.  They are planning to create a whole new tongue with skin from my thigh.

This new tongue will not operate as well as my last trist (tongue/wrist) did.  The trist had one third of my tongue to at least push it forward and side to side.  I had regained the ability to speak pretty well and was gradually eating more and more foods.  I will be able to speak some in the future because I will still have a larynx, but my swallowing will be impaired. 

The new surgery is no guarantee of being cancer free for good.  Aggressive tumors sometimes come back, particularly after salvage surgery like this.   I thought about what would happen if I just kept my current tongue. At least I would be able to talk and eat, even if I gradually used more pain meds. And the chance of recurrence is still present even with the new surgery. 

But I chose to go forward. The last surgery did bring me two great months with family and my kids.  I would do it all again -- and indeed am going to, in order to keep on going - come what may.

In fact -  I am going to do it TOMORROW.  They had a cancellation right before my appoinment.  I feel better now knowing that at least the tumor will not be growing bigger over the next few weeks.  Usually my surgeries had always been scheduled a few weeks in advance.  It just seemed like a wonderful miracle that I am able to go forward without letting the tumor get any bigger.

Yesterday I was out shopping at Urban Outfitters with my kids:

Tonight I leave for the hospital.  I'll stay there overnight and my surgery will be first thing in the morning.  I'll be there for a week again. 

My New Year's celebration this year will certainly be different.  (I've never partied in a hospital before!) I hope I can celebrate being cancer free all next year. 

The future is an open book for each of us. 

What ever happens with my ability to talk clearly and eat,  I will be able to make art and write.  I will work to make my future an open artbook.

Eclipse

Matthew, Natalie and I stayed up until 3:30am to watch the lunar eclipse  the other night.  Matthew's flight was so late getting in from Chicago that it was after 1:00am when we got back from the airport.  By that point staying up another hour or so was easy. 

December 21st was the first time since 1638 that the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, and a lunar eclipse happened on the same night.  It seemed like an occaision worth waiting up for.  Plus, the moon was full and bright over our house.   (I've posted before how much the moon means to me.  See the August 26th post, "Wonder" here.)

It was icy cold out.  The moon looked just like the pictures I had seen earlier in the day of a lunar eclipse on Yahoo.  My camera barely gives a hint of it how cool it was in real life.

 The moon gradually got darker and darker and then became a rusty deep orange.  It didn't look like the moon at all.  It was like it had turned into Mars.  I wondered about what mankind's relationship with the moon would have been like if the moon were always that dark.  It wasn't the warm golden glow of a harvest moon.  It was a dark menacing presence. 

When the moon became dark, the stars all around it in the sky became brighter.  Brilliant compared to the way they had appeared a short time before.

When I was watching the eclipse a line kept running through my head, "In a dark time, the eye begins to see."  I didn't know where I had heard it or what it was from.  It just seemed hopeful and true.   It turned out to be the title of a poem by Theodore Roethe. 

In a dark time, the eye begins to see,

I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;

I hear my echo in the echoing wood-

a lord of nature weeping to a tree,

I live between the heron and the wren,

Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

 

What's madness but nobility of soul

at odds with circumstance?  The day's on fire!

I know the purity of pure despair,

My shadow pinned against a sweating wall,

That place among the rocks - is it a cave,

Or winding path?  The edge is what I have...

 

I have learned this past year what it is like to walk on the edge, facing possible death from my cancer and also experiencing incredible love and support from family and friends.  Being sad one minute and then rushing to take more flower pictures.  Working to try to make a cave a winding path.

We didn't stay up to see the moon turn white again, but when I woke up a few hours later around 7am, it was bright outside my window.

Those who know me well know that Christmas is not my favorite holiday.  Working many years in retail with long hours and impatient customers has dimmed the holiday spirit for me a bit.  Not to mention hearing countless sorry renditions of carols on the Musak system.

Even so, Matthew, Natalie and I had a good time decorating the tree the next day.  The old pagan custom of bringing greenery inside at the darkest time of year hit me this year more than most.  Greenery served as a symbol of eternal life and a reminder that the green of new life or spring would come again.  Or as wikipedia puts it, "Perhaps they wished to honor and imitate the triumph of these living greens over the cold and darkness of winter." 

I saw the green this year in a way usually only reserved for my favorite holiday - New Years.  For me New Years has always been a holiday of hope and celebration of a new start.  I love New Year's parties and have often made elaborate collage/art books of what I want to work on or experience in a coming year.   This year has been a hard one for me.  I'm ready for a new one.

But New Years isn't here yet.  It's Christmastime.  And that means stars.  Brighter than ever on a dark night and on top on an evergreen tree.

This is the star elf on our tree:

Happy Holidays!  Whether it be Chanuka, the festival of lights, or Christmas, and the light of a star over Bethlehem, that you celebrate - may there always be light after darkness for you.

 

Happy Birthday, Mom!

When I was thirteen I thought my mom was a most embarrassing person.  Not to mention clueless and lacking in style.  There may have been moments when I enjoyed her company, but in general, I was a disagreeable know-it-all with my mom.  An ungrateful daughter who kept her room a mess and wanted more money and new clothes and rides to see her friends.

No one could be more surprised than I am to be over fifty and to enjoy being with my mom now.

My mom just left a few days ago after being at my house for over three weeks.  She kept me company and made sure I got as much TLC as possible after my surgery.  Many of you got her email updates about me from her Blackberry.

No one could be more surprised than I am to be proud of my mom's technical savvy and general level of cool.  Few people at 78 regularly send pictures and emails from their Blackberry.  Fewer still are only recently retired, living in loft apartments, and driving cream colored convertible VW Beetles.

It's not like she's annoyingly trying to be young.  Her loft in an old factory building is not Dwell magazine modern, but loft meets Williamsburg.

I think my mom is happier with her life now than when I was thirteen.  I know she lives her life more on her own terms than she used to. 

When she came to visit me, she decided to take Amtrak from Minnesota to Philadelphia instead of a plane.  She used the excuse of not wanting to risk leaving her Beetle in long-term parking and having it be snowed in.  I think she really wanted the adventure, however, of getting a sleeper car and traveling the way she remembered taking trips as a kid.

The way she described the food in the dining car, her sleeper compartment and her adventure made me want to try overnight train travel sometime myself.

Back in the 1960's few women had careers.  My mom might have preferred being a career woman to having a house and four kids.   She went back to work when I was twenty, and my youngest brother was ten, and kept working until last year. 

A few years ago, she surprised me by telling me about a memo she had written and a meeting she had set up to encourage some changes where she was working, saying, "Dr. Phil says you have to strike at the right time to make a difference."  She was offered more responsibility and a promotion for her efforts.  Who thinks of career advancement as an enjoyable idea when they are over seventy?

And who thinks about it so much on their own terms?  She told them she was interested, but still wanted to be able to travel to see her kids and to make use of her season matinee tickets to the symphony.

I'm proud of my mom in a way I wasn't when I was younger.

                                                                                                                                                          August 1959

She always painted or did quilting and sewing projects.  I now know that influenced me to view being creative as an important part of life.

                                                                                                               Detail of painting on board.  Circa 1965

My mom totally rose to the occasion when she was staying here.  The first time she saw my arm bandage being changed she had to go sit down in another room and put her head between her legs so she wouldn't faint.  Soon she was changing my arm bandage so I didn't have to have a home health worker out to do it.

She made Marc great dinners and took care of laundry.  She bought our groceries and helped out however she could.  She was always on the look out for new foods I might be able to try.  She also kept an eye out for books and magazines. 

Once when we were at a Target we checked out in different aisles.  She saw the new Vanity Fair with Lady Gaga on the cover and knew I would love it so she bought it.  Meanwhile, three aisles over, I had picked up the same issue.   She was so aware of what I might like we learned to double check with each other to avoid duplicates.

My mom loves flowers and gardening.  She has given me a Longwood Gardens membership the past few years for Christmas.  My Longwood pics in this post are in colors I thought she might like.

 I can still be a know-it-all with my mom.  At least I know enough now to know she's great and to be grateful. 

Thanks for everything Mom!  Happy Birthday!  I love you!

 

Staples out update

I wrote nothing last week.  It was hard to type with the big bandage and wound vac on my arm and I was feeling a little down and worn out after the second surgery. 

I was feeling better by yesterday.  Here I am getting ready to leave for my doctor's appointment in one of the few things I had found to wear that would fit over the Popeye the sailor man forearm bandage.

During the week I wore the wound vac in a backpack.  It had to be running 24/7.  It sounded at times like a ticking time bomb and it was easy to get the hose snagged on door handles and other things as I was going about my day.

My upper thigh has developed a scab about the size of an index card at the graft site.  They took the partial skin graft (or very thin layer) for my wrist repair and covered it with a yellow petroleum-infused gauze-like fabric.  It was supposed to stay open to the air as much as possible.  All week long I had worn a sarong tied at the hip, with my leg out.  Marc kind of liked this arrangement, but it did make it hard to think about going outside.

In order to get to the doctor's office downtown, in the picture above, I had taped half of the top of an egg carton to my leg to create a protective cover for the scab.  I wanted plenty of air to be able to circulate and didn't want any fabric to stick to the new scab.  My pants were roomy so you couldn't tell. 

My doctor took the staples out of my thigh at the donor site.  The fabric covering had been stapled in place.  He also took the staples out of my wrist where the graft was attached.  I no longer have to wear the wound vac - only a thin wrist wrap. 

My trach bandage got changed.  It's healing nicely and will soon no longer be noticeable.

I had to have more biopsies taken from an area of my original tongue.  It was an area that was painful and I was concerned about.  We'll know the results by Friday. 

I've been able to eat more different foods lately and my ability to swallow an chew continues to improve.  I still use the feeding tube for liquid meals a few times a day, but I've added Stouffer's Mac and Cheese (I add a bunch of lightly cooked chopped spinach to this - tres Popeye), smoothies, cheese cake, pancakes, spinach souffle, quiche, and a few other items to the things I am able to eat without too much difficulty.

When I was writing about my health updates, they seemed like such a mixed bag:  Yay - no more wound vac noises!  Yay- I can eat more and go outside with my egg carton lid innovation!  Boo - more biopsies for cancer recurrence were taken and I don't know the results!

Jade, my friend Hollie's daughter, sent poems and words of wisdom in a lovely letter.  Among them was a poem by Rumi about human reactions to events:

This being human is a guest house,

Every morning is a new arrival,

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

Some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

 

You never know if an event will ultimately be a positive or a negative.  It reminds me of one of my favorite stories.   You may have already heard a version of it:

Long ago in China there was a farmer with a son who helped him on his farm.  One day the farmer's son broke his arm and couldn't help his father with the crops.  That was a bad thing.  Then the army came through and conscripted young men to leave to be a war.  The farmer's son didn't have to go because he had a broken arm.  That was a good thing.  After the war the families of those whose sons went to war were given riches and honors.  The farmer didn't get any.  That was a bad thing.  Then there was a regime change and those that fought in the war were disgraced and had riches taken from them.  The farmer didn't lose anything and was favored by the new regime.  That was a good thing. 

The story can be made to go on and on with different outcomes - all stemming from the broken arm.

A true story closer to home:

My sister, Ellen, was renting a house in Alabama a few years ago while teaching at a university there for a semester.  Her husband was still finishing teaching in Idaho.  One night she woke to see a hand silhouetted on the window shade - lit from the street light outside.  Someone was trying to break in. 

Ellen immeadiately jumped out of bed, turned on all the lights and called the police.  She spent the rest of the night in a hotel.

The next morning she went to the Animal Rescue Center to find the meanest looking, but sweetest dog she could find. She brought home a dog she named Pepper.

Pepper has become my sister and her husband's total baby, a super sweet, energetic and loving dog.

More than once I've heard Ellen say, "I'm so lucky to have found Pepper.  I'm so thankful for that prowler!"

You never know what will ultimately be positive or negative.  Pepper has remained a good thing buddy.

 

 

 

 

Skin graft

 

I went into the hospital yesterday morning at 5:30am for the surgery to finish the skin graft on my forearm.  They took a partial thickness of skin from my upper thigh to do the repair. 

They felt my tongue was healing well and they took out my trach.  I am so excited to no longer have the trach!

I was home from the hospital by early afternoon.

My forearm now has a cast-like bandage on it, attached to a wound pump.  The wound pump has to keep going 24/7 until my follow-up appointment next week.  The pump creates a vacuum to speed healing and help the graft to adhere.  Even though it's portable and could easily fit in a backpack, it sounds like a ticking time bomb so I don't imagine I'll do any shopping other than online this week.

My thigh has a thin bandage that I'm supposed to dry with a hair dryer on low twice a day for 15 minutes at a time.  The bandage is supposed to dry into "a thin antibiotic scab."  It feels like I got burned or scraped or something, but I have good pain meds so it hasn't been too bad.  I just still feel really sleepy.

 

A few quotes about skin.....

Carving is easy, you just go down to the skin and stop.     

                       Michelangelo

I don't think that bravery is about skin. Bravery is about a willingness to show emotional need.    

                      Richard Gere

All the beauty of the world, 'tis but skin deep.    

                     Ralph Venning

I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being skin deep. That's deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas?    

                      Jean Kerr

Many will call me an adventurer - and that I am, only one of a different sort: one of those who risks his skin to prove his platitudes.    

                    Che Guevara

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.                     Samuel Ullman

Flowers from Joyce with fill-in roses from Connie.  Thanks!

Eva

My neighbor, Jenn, is an ENT nurse.  When she heard about what I was going through, she immediately thought of a speaker she had heard at a nurses' conference in Chicago a few years ago.  The speaker had the same kind of cancer as I had, also had her tongue rebuilt, also had no risk factors and was making her living as a motivational, inspirational speaker.

Jenn kept trying to remember what the speaker's name had been.  She asked at work, but it had been a few years ago and no one she asked could remember.  Jenn, like me, hates having extra clutter around, so she doubted she had kept anything from the conference.  She went down in her basement and looked through a box of work related papers anyway, hoping maybe, just maybe, she had kept something from the conference.

Viola!  The conference brochure turned up in the box.  She couldn't believe it.  She called to tell me right away .  The speaker's name had been Eva Grayzel.  And it turned out she was from Pennsylvania not far from here.

I went into the hospital for surgery, but checked out Eva's website here   after I got back home.   Last week I took the time to email her.  I told her a little about myself and said I would love to meet her.  I offered to pay a fee for a one-on-one session with her, not knowing how her speaking/consulting business might work.

The next day there was an email from Eva.  She said she would love to meet me.  There was no way she would charge me.  And, by the way, she was going to be speaking at a Chanukah service near me two days later.  Would I like to come meet her, talk with her before the show and during dinner, and take pictures for her blog?

I emailed back right away, "Sounds great!  Count me in!"  That's how, last Friday, I celebrated the second night of Chanukah for the first time in my life.  I celebrated as Eva's photographer in a packed Temple on the Main Line.

We met before her performance.  She was working to lead a childrens' portion of the service, as a storyteller and performance artist.  This type of work is something she does in addition to speaking at medical conferences.  She had begun her career as a performance artist and shifted to more motivational work after she got cancer. 

We talked during dinner and before her second session of the evening.  She was so gracious, so full of energy, and so completely understanding of what I have been going through.

The next day she was heading to San Diego to an event for dental hygenists.  Eva speaks at conferences, but also volunteers time to promote awareness about oral cancer.  I admired her ability to live what her business card says: Turning Adversity into Opportunity. 

This is a quote that has been on my mind today:

Look at every path closely and deliberately.  Try it as many times as you think necessary.  Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question.  This question is one that only a very old man asks.  My benefactor told me about it when I was young, and my blood was too vigorous for me to understand it.  Now I do understand it.  I will tell you what it is: Does this path have a heart?  All paths are the same: they lead nowhere.  They have paths going through the bush, or into the bush.  In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere.  My benefactor's question has meaning now.  Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, the path is of no use.  Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't.  One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it.  The other will make you curse your life.  One makes you strong; the other weakens you.

                                                                                                    Carlos Castaneda  The Teaching of Don Juan

No matter how we live our lives, we are all no longer here in the end.  This quote motivates me to continue to follow my heart as I move forward and continue to heal.

  

Thanks for finding Eva's name, Jenn!

Eva, thanks for being such an example of living with heart!  I can't say enough good things about meeting you.

Prayers

"I used to believe that we must choose between science and reason on one hand, and spirituality on the other, in how we lead our lives. Now I consider this a false choice. We can recover the sense of sacredness, not just in science, but in perhaps every area of life."
                                                                         Larry Dossey, M.D. in Reinventing Medicine

 

I have long believed that everything is connected in life, that the more you explore science the more you have to be awed at the marvelousness with which life comes together - how everything is a wonder.

Back when we lived in Minnesota, I read Healing Words, The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine by Larry Dossey, a Dallas physician specializing in internal medicine.  It was the first book I had found that looked at the subject of science and religion from a doctor's point of view.  It was filled with studies of how prayer influences outcomes in positive ways.   Growth rates of plants that were prayed for were studied.  Recovery rates from surgery were studied.  The prayers of people from different religious beliefs were studied.  Outcomes of prayer when people knew the person they were praying for, and when they did not were studied.

As mentioned on his website here:

         Before his book Healing Words was published in 1993, only three U.S. medical schools had     courses devoted to exploring the role of religious practice and prayer in health; currently, nearly 80 medical schools have instituted such courses, many of which utilize Dr. Dossey's works as textbooks.

       As we recognize that the "empirical evidence for prayer's power is indirect evidence for the soul," Dossey believes we will find ourselves praying more prayers of gratitude and fewer prayers of supplication. This, asserts Dossey, is "the proper response on realizing that the world, at heart, is more glorious, benevolent, and friendlier than we have recently supposed."

Thinking you believe in prayer is one thing.  Receiving your own prayer shawl and reading words from people who have prayed for you is another, more emotional experience.

Last night, Marc's step-mom, Connie, gave me a beautiful dark purple prayer shawl that was edged with fringe.  Connie had sent out pieces of fringe from Maine to friends and relatives with the help of Marc, Annie B, my mom, Rachel and others.  People held the fringe while praying, or wishing me well.  Then they sent the fringe back to Connie to put on the shawl.  Many sent notes or cards.

When I read the list of people who had known about this project, when I put the shawl on and looked at the notes and letters and cards, I was humbled, honored and truly grateful.  Even though I can talk, I was speechless or could only keep saying, "Wow." Pause. "Wow."  And I just kept using more and more Kleenex and crying as I read the cards and notes.

Thank you, everyone!  I do feel very supported.  I have one more surgery this Friday to take a partial thickness skin graft from my thigh to fix my wrist.  I think they will be taking out my trach at that time, too.  I still feel a little fragile at times physically, but I do feel supported.  That support makes such a difference - a huge positive difference to my state of mind and determination to work through what lies ahead.

I remember how I felt when I saw the tree pictured above.  I pulled the car over and got out and walked right up under it.  It was so inviting and magical to be enveloped by the branches filled with blossoms.

Trying on the shawl reminded me of the same feeling.   To be wrapped in so many prayers and well wishes is amazing wonderful feeling.  Maybe a better choice of adjectives will occur to me later.  Right now I am still stuck on, "Wow!" and "Thank you!"

 

Here is a poem about prayers I like at the moment:

Pray what prayers you can.

Don't stop praying because

there are some words

you cannot say.

The need for prayer

never ends - yours, mine

and millions of others.

Pray what prayers you can.

Nancy Gibbs Richard

 

I think my neck and the swelling in my face is looking better all the time.  Prayers are working at my house! 

Great minds think alike.  My Uncle Jim and Aunt Carol Ann and cousin Gretchen also sent me a prayer shawl from their church that is a beautiful soft blue color.  I am very blessed!  Thank you, to my Florida family!  I'll model it in a post soon!

Holiday party

Thursday, I went to my neighborhood girl's night holiday party.  I wasn't sure how I'd feel when I got there, but I was feeling good when I left the house.  I had a great scarf on.  It's all about the scarf these days!

I brought a bottle of wine for the hostess, a Red Bull for me, and a Vera Bradley bag for the Yankee swap gift exchange.

I ended up having a wonderful time - stayed for four hours!  My virgin post operation party.  I wanted to make sure I looked energetic and sounded good enough so that no one would feel sorry for me.  You don't want to be the Debbie Downer at the holiday deal.

Success!  I never had to repeat myself. I got a coupon for a pedicure (I LOVE pedicures) as my gift in the exchange.  I enjoyed catching up with friends in the neighborhood.

The only rough spot was the buffet table.  OMG.  So many great desserts.  One in particular was a cake with white frosting covered thickly with coconut and decorated with real holly and berries.  My mind was working overtime with the fantasy of being able to push everyone away from the table and to be able to use both hands and grab and eat as many desserts as I could stuff until I felt full for once.  I just have to keep thinking, "There will be food in my future!"

 

Thanks for the flowers, Joyce!  I am still taking more pictures of them. I put butterflies in a few.  They represent transfomation and that's where I am these days.