Chasing My Own "Yellow Tail"

Hooter Hotline #6 Chasing My Own "Yellow Tail"
January 5, 2010
Yesterday was a really good day. I felt so good that I got on my semi-recumbent exercise bike and worked hard for 35 minutes. “Boys, I want you to help me do this six days a week,” I declared to my husband and son. “I really need to drop some weight and get fit.” I bought the used Nautilus bike several months ago. After rearranging the living room furniture, it has a permanent place there. “No excuses now,” I told myself after moving it in. It is practically silent when in use and looks like a slick piece of modern furniture (that’s what I tell myself). I can watch the news and be in the same room as Rog & John instead of the cold, lonely basement. My goal was to “prehab” for future hip surgery. Frankly, I’m just tired of being as big as a 3,000 square foot house and want my original 1,800 square foot floor plan back. My little 12 mile ride during World News Tonight felt so good that I only had a bowl of raisin bran for dinner and declared I was not going to have any wine until 10 PM in an effort to limit available time for caloric intake. I know New Years resolutions generally start out this well, and that most never cross the finish line. I quit making resolutions years ago because I got sick of disappointing myself. Looking back, that is the one resolution I was successful at keeping! There was some consolation however, when I was making resolutions in those days, I usually got a couple weeks or even a month of clean living out of it. Little did I know that I would derail from my latest attempt at clean living wihin about forty minutes.
John’s New Year has started off well too. He is setting out his clothes for school the night before and is up and at ‘em in the morning without nagging. He has also started taking morning showers…just like Dad. Getting him to bed on time in a positive way is my contribution to his self-motivated plan. I was headed to his bedroom at 9PM to tuck him in and read a quick chapter from Perloo, when the phone rang. I heard Rog pick it up in the living room behind me. I heard him say, “Hello, Oh, hi. Yes, she’s right here.” In an instant, my teeth were clenched and I was ready to snarl, “Why did you say I was right here? I need to get John to bed! You could have told them I was busy and would call them back!” Before I could hiss anything ugly, he said, “It’s Dr. Wheeler.” In the same amount of time it took me to switch from loving mom off to read a bedtime story into bitchy wife shooting darts from her eyes, I did yet another about-face. With a high degree of sweet perkiness, I began the conversation with my surgeon.
After the expected “How are you doing?” questions, she mentioned that the post-op pathology was back. Before surgery last Wednesday, she warned that pathology may take a week and a half or more due to the holidays. I felt the prehistoric hair on my spine bristle like a cat’s when she said that. Having worked every other weekend and many holidays during my 27 year nursing career, it has been my experience that disease never takes a holiday. One of the most frustrating scenarios for nurses giving 24/7 care is to be told, “We can’t do that now because we don’t have staff on the weekend/holiday.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told something to that effect over my years working in a hospital. But I digress. Dr. Wheeler’s call meant that my hunk of breast tissue really didn’t sit neglected in the pathology fridge so that some one could watch football all day on January 1st. Suddenly, I am wondering what they keep hunks of human tissue in. Is it a standard ZipLoc? What about Tupperware? My little Seal-A-Meal bags would work quite well. Maybe those Debbie Meyer Green Bags are the ticket! But I digress again. “This is great!” I thought, “Now I won’t have to wait until my follow-up appointment on Thursday to hear the results.”
The only word that left an impression on me as she started to go through the report was “widespread.” She mentioned it several times mingled with the phrase, “Ductal Cancer In Situ.” I listened closely with my jaw somewhat gaping while pacing back and forth in the living room. John came out of his room and stood nearby, hearing the revelation of more cancer and more surgery. “I am so sorry,” Dr. Wheeler said. “Well, I wanted clarity and now I have it definitively,” I answered. “I would not have been comfortable removing my breast without good reason and now I have good reason.” I must say that having the two lumpectomies is a relatively minor procedure and I don’t mind having paid that price to know what must be done now. I said there was no great sense of relief with my decision to have the revised lumpectomy, but there was relief in hearing that now they had to go. I am okay with it. The “glass half full” view is I don’t have to have radiation and increased vigilance for recurrence. I will have to make peace with all the cons for mastectomy though.
When the conversation ended, I noticed that John was no longer in the room. I went down the hall and saw that he was in bed, light off and holding his Hershey candy bar pillow over his head. Leaning over him I asked, “Oh, Sweetie, are you okay?” He shook his head “no” without moving the pillow. “Are you worried,” I asked. He nodded “yes.” I crawled in beside him just like I had the night he had called out in his sleep. I had nowhere to rest my head. “I really need your Hershey pillow for my head, Sweetie.” He reluctantly handed it back over his head to me, and then pulled his sheet over his head to replace it. “Are you crying, Sweetie? It’s okay. You don’t have to be embarrassed about crying. I know it’s because you love me. Tears are just liquid love,” I said trying to soothe him. “I’m sorry you had to over-hear the conversation. I would have liked to tell you about it in a different way,” I offered. Trying to reassure him I continued, “It’s going to be okay. I’m going to be okay. This will be the last surgery. The bad guys don’t know we discovered their evil plan and we’re going to stop them before they have a chance to launch another attack. I know it sounds like bad news, but I’m glad we know it and we also know exactly what to do to take care of it.” There where lots of kisses on the top of his head and a prayer said for God’s comfort to come over John and bless him with a good sleep.
I returned to the living room at 9:40 PM and sank into the couch. “Open the wine. We’re not waiting ‘til ten o’clock now!” By 11:40 PM, 1.5L of Yellow Tail Syrah had been consumed. As one cannot drink that much wine on a bowl of raisin bran eaten two hours earlier, something else was needed. While still trying to be calorie conscious as we were swilling wine, I portioned out 18 Tostito corn chips each in separate bowls, closed the bag and put it away. I told Rog just to nibble them to make them last longer (right). Pretty soon he got up to get us “one more portion.” Then I got up to get the “for real” last portion and saw that he had left the bag out and open on the counter. Dumb stuff like that makes me smile. So I smiled, ate the chips, finished the wine and slept like a baby.