Tumor Tuesday

No, I don’t have a surgery scheduled.

I do have my annual MRIs and visit with my neurologist coming up but that’s not until early October and, I’m figuring, I’ll get the same news as last year. Yes, one of your rooftop tumor garden meningiomas is bigger and growing BUT we’re not gonna yank it just yet. This being news I welcome – NO surgery this year. YEA! – but which also keeps the snake of low level disquiet slithering through my system.

I see my handsome cornea specialist again next month but I’m not expecting any fresh scalpel bouquets.
So, wut up with last night’s heavy duty Dream Time inpatient action? Got me hangin’ but, on being bounced out of this seemingly never ending, tedious, scary saga – kudos to Coco – I was/am totally exhausted.

Of course.

I didn't expect to recover from my second operation but since I did, I consider that I'm living on borrowed time. Every day that dawns is a gift to me and I take it in that way. I accept it gratefully without looking beyond it. I completely forget my physical suffering and all the unpleasantness of my present condition and I think only of the joy of seeing the sun rise once more and of being able to work a little bit, even under difficult conditions.
~ Henri Matisse

Good for you, Hank! Me, I’ve clocked past my eighth surgery and am no longer amazed when I come out of these dances alive. Happy, yes. Determined to recover fast and splendid, yes. Thrilled to see the sunrise? You bet! Surprised? No so much.

Scars are simply modern battle wounds. Sometimes the enemy happens to be inside us.
~ Andrew Grey

I love my scars. I’d paint them gold and limn them all with fairy lights if I could. Each one tells at least a few stories. Good and bad alike.

…it’s not brain surgery.

Acting's entertainment. It's not brain surgery.
~ Anthony Hopkins
Fashion and style. It's not brain surgery.
~ Cindy Crawford

Can we retire this idiom? I prefer it’s not rocket science. It puts Star Trekkian adventures in mind versus my own ferocious battles to survive, thrive and dance another tarantella or two. Has rocket science become boringly easy now or something? It's no more mentally or physically challenging than playing Garth or strutting down a catwalk? Gosh, just ANYone can build a spaceship that’ll go to Mars and Jupiter. Ah...nope.

I found a wonderfully fun book, years ago now – I had brain surgery, what’s your excuse? An illustrated memoir by Suzy Becker. She’s an illustrator who writes (or a writer who scribbles – one or the other). I absolutely loved this book and am bummed that, with all my recent cleaning, culling and rearranging, I don’t seem to have it – gone baby gone. Christ, I hate having to part with cabbage for books I’ve already read but I need this one again.

Possibly I didn’t lose this slender, beauteous, funny volume but lent it to a fellow tumor traveler and maybe she/he passed it on to another and so on. That’s cool – very. OK, I guess I don’t mind buying the book again.

Nevermind.