Prologue ... to the power of two ..(squared)

Bonsoir tout le monde. Hope everyone had a splendid weekend. Where did I read that Sunday evenings were the most stressful for folks, with the anticipation of having to go into work on Monday morning? And to that I now reply that life is too short! It's all about perspective, as a dear sweet cousin said to me this evening (great catching up with you BTZ!!)

So... I promise to keep it short tonight (I know, I know... the gal who cried WOLF!) ...it's true though ... when I displayed what I wrote yesterday, all I saw was a block of text - it made me think of George Orwell's 1984 for some reason (how's that for stream of consciousness? Just all those words and letters and punctuation marks ....and it also happens to be one of my all time favourite books ... double double plus good). One of my dear friends (who is an artist - how cool is THAT?? I know, right?? AND she is amazingly - I mean incredibly talented ... gorgeous stuff ...and best of all, she's of Italian heritage, and she speaks French - had to throw that in there!) ... in any event, LGB suggested I add visuals (grazie, bella!) and last night, I threatened to upload a pic of my battle scar, so without further ado, here it is....


Here's how I ended up with this lovely little doo hickey thingy.

On April 11, I was admitted to St. L's, a hospital about an hour from where hubby and I live. There, Dr. M. and a team of neuro-dudes and dudettes, nurses, anaesthesiologists, doctors, doctors and more doctors hooked me up, prepped me and then gave me some really good drugs ("is that you Jesus?" zzzzzzzzzzzzzz), and then when I went to la-la land, they proceeded to shave a little of my hair (I am obsessed with my hair - follow me on Pinterest and you will see ....ask my hubby and you will know ... ask my friends and they will concur ... I get hair cuts every five weeks ... obsessed. Oh, did I mention, obsessed?) .... then, pinned me down (I still have a little scar on my forehead and the back of my head), and made a two-inch or so long incision, and - are you ready? - yes, they bore a hole in my head! (I tried to find a shot online - no luck - will keep trying though)...

OK ...  I seriously just laughed out loud! (Does that make me loopy? Or loopier (yeah, yeah, I am anticipating your saying that, dear hubby!) I guess I just never imagined myself saying that ... I mean, there are all kinds of bad jokes ... you know the kind: "snort snort ...does he have a hole in his head? snort snort" ...and here I am, someone who actually had a team of highly educated folks drill a hole in my head and extract some of my brain!! How's THAT for a Facebook status? Wow (and after all, I would imagine that the folks who end up being neuro-oncologists aren't exactly the folks who barely scrape by and graduate in the median percentile ...with all due respect, before anyone is touching this gal's brain (and her hair ;-) ...) they best be THE smartest folks out there!)

So, they sent some of the grey bits down to the lab/pathology folks right away and the rest of it went to Sloan Kettering; for you folks who may not know what the heck Sloan Kettering is, it happens to be renowned as one of the best cancer institutions in the world, headquartered in NYC. It's ironic really, because when I was a little girl, I always dreamed of being on stage in NYC, and here I am - with bits of me on stage - as it were - in NYC ... at the best of the best.... guess that counts, right? The procedure took about three hours, then I went to post op, where I entertained the nurses for a couple of hours (hey, they had me on a morphine drip ...."more please" ... followed by "a funny thing happened on the way over to post op, ladies and goims....") and then they rolled me ("weeeeeee .... ooooh, Percocet? Yes please!!") into ICU, where I spent the night. Truth be told, I felt mildly guilty, actually, as I felt pretty good, all things considered - and I could hear them wheeling in patients that were in really bad shape ... like BTZ said, it's all about perspective.

Flash forward - on April 25 (ironically, the 36-year anniversary of my mom's passing .... she passed of a (gulp) brain tumour (gulp) at the age of 51 (gulp) ...but she was looking down at us from heaven - I just KNOW it!!) we met with Dr. M (gosh, he's so cute; plus, he laughs at all my corny jokes AND he hugged me - I love an audience; what can I say?!) to discuss the whole Nuke-Fest + Hope-I-Don't-Puke-Fest and here we are .....

OH! One last thing .... when we met with Dr. K (the neurologist - another nice and super smart dude), he was the gentleman who was fortunate enough to deliver more wonderful news ... (ready for this?) ... that I have also officially been diagnosed with epilepsy. You see, the 腫瘍 (couldn't find Korean, so Japanese will have to do! "腫瘍" is Japanese for tuuuuumaaaaa) is what was causing those weird auras, and epilepsy is a rather broad ailment. Sigh. My immediate reaction was shock (read: "what the f**k??? or as they say in Italian "che catso??"), then mild despair ("waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ... *sniff* "waaaaaaa" *sniff*). You see, in the state where we live, it is the law that if someone is officially diagnosed with The Big E, then one has to be "seizure-free" for a year and until then, driving ain't allowed. Dang it all, right? But hey ....bright side to everything ....I am blessed to have a number of very kind-hearted, generous folks who are Driving Miss Daisy (thank you all ...); I am hoping we might be able to get a disabled parking sticker (told hubby that I want a bling-y one ... My Thang for Blang - plus, might as well benefit from good parking - is that so wrong?) .... and it's only for a year ... 321 days to go ... :-). Hubby was joking that we are working our way through the ailments/maladies alphabetically (he's a type 1 diabetic) - cancer, diabetes, epilepsy .. next - flatulence! (warning - do NOT pull his finger! I repeat ... do NOT pull his finger; or mine, for that matter. Hey, we're middle-aged - it happens!!)

Well, so much for keeping it short (sorrrrrryyyy) - on the positive side, I am thinking there won't be a Prologue Cubed. :-) As always, dear friends and family, thank you - for your love and support and comments and for being here! I hope you know how much it means to me and to hubby that you are reading these - like my dear friend DW said, it really does make us feel close to all of you, and it gives us comfort. And my heart is overflowing with love ...(for some reason, I keep getting a visual of the Grinch's heart - that last scene when it grows three sizes and SPROING!! - busts out of it's normal size cage, but the thought that I was the Grinch before all of this is rather, well, unappealing/unpalatable/depressing to say the least! I do like the visual though ... !)

Wishing you all a fantastic evening and tonight's closing is courtesy of Ms. MS (part one - will save part deux for a little later...)

Radiating Happiness,

Cancerella

xoxoxo