Good Crazy

There's a "belated birthday" greeting card that used to be a very popular item.  On the front it said something like "There's no excuse for me missing your birthday."  Once you opened the card it said "What are you looking in here for?  I said there's no excuse!"  No blog entries since 9/14.  No excuses.  Unless you count the "My blog, my timing" line of defense, with which I absolve myself of this particular crime.

The religious school year revved up right after my last surgery, so it's been a good kind of crazy, not that other kind, that has been taking up my time.  Since then Rod's parents, Tom and Maggie, moved from their house on a mountaintop (or at least that's what it felt like because my ears always popped on the way up and back) in rural western Connecticut to an apartment in Teaneck, New Jersey.  Now they're only 20 minutes away from us and less than 20 minutes from Manhattan!  It's nice to able to drop in for a visit and not have the driving time be longer than the visit itself.

Between their move, all the fall holidays, our upcoming book fair (delivered today,) and everything else that starts with the new school seasons (mine, Ari's high school, and Alex's college,) simply doing what's needed each hour of the day has made the time fly by.  One minute I'm hoping that my next surgery, scheduled for October 22, would be put off just a bit more - the next, I'm wishing it would be tomorrow, already.

We have to be at the hospital at 6:30 a.m. for a 7:45 start, but this one is general anesthesia and a few (either 2 or 3) nights'  stay.  It's time for that left side latissimus dorsi flap reconstruction (see http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/surgery/reconstruction/types/latdors.jsp for technical details) and frankly, at this point I'm more worried about the devil I know -  the pain and subsequent bruising (pain for a couple of weeks after) from the stupid IV on the back of the hand.  I visited my oncologist also (I have finally sent my tamoxifen prescription in to be filled) and she laughed when she heard my greatest anxiety was about the IV.  I figure it's keeping my mind off what the potential other sources of pain could be after a procedure like this!  I know I'll have a Novocaine pump again and I know I'll have one or two drains, both of which I know how to handle now and neither of which particularly causes pain, just temporary inconvenience and some physical awkwardness.  According to the surgeon, this should be the last major (read: hospital stay) surgery for the reconstruction process.  The rest ought to be all out-patient.

To repeat a quote used by our rabbinic intern, Jen Gubitz, a hallmark of Jewish humor is "the absurd ability to keep us laughing in order not to cry." (Rabbi Telushkin)  I have to once again thank my father, this time for his sense of humor, which I think I inherited, or absorbed, or whatever it it that allows me to say things that other people find funny, which in turn, makes me smile too.  (You never realize what a hot commodity a smile is until you can't find one in yourself.) 

At this point in the game, I hope that I am not "laughing in order not to cry." Instead, I'd like to think I'm just feeling a bit better!