Doc puts the kibosh on trip downunder !

Four Days Later
Onwards and upwards?? Wrong ! Should have been a little more like Slowly Does It or something else alarmingly simplistic but effective called Take It Easy ….but no…I did not do that. I OVERdid it and somehow, tricked into thinking I am still the smartass who had never spent a single solitary night in hospital till 6 months ago, zipped hither and thither for about four days straight, actually not feeling TOO bad. And in all fairness some of it was sensible and justifiable. A trip to the homeopathic doctor who is soothing and seems to totally understand the toxic effects of all that cancer patients go through with conventional treatment…It is such a relief to have someone who tells you what your organs are going through in a truly empathetic way and actually SUGGESTS remedies and potions and pills to take. The relief is somewhat dissipated when one hands over the credit card fro a mighty big tab---but what price health and feeling good eh?? And at least no going off to Rite Aid to fill prescriptions where I reckon they now suspect me to be some kind of junkie. Though once back home I get a blistering headache as I try to sort through the tons of supplements I have gathered in the last few months and put them into weekly pill boxes divided into morning, noon, evening and bedtime !
So that’s the body sorted---now it’s time for some spiritual sustenance and I beg Nick to do his homework solo for once as mum heads down to Venice for an evening with about 60 folk listening to an Indian mystic named SAHDGURU. He has admittedly, a truly beautiful face with luminous shining eyes and a preposterously peaceful blissed out demeanor that was very lovely and calming. He began about an hour late though and having scoffed about eight little healthy oatmeal cookies I suddenly had a shocking gut ache and my calm turned to panic as I realized the Indian gent was in no hurry with his spiel which began with his childhood and then segued into his early manhood where he realized that he could sit down cross legged to meditate and wake up EIGHT DAYS LATER to find stunned onlookers camped out waiting for him to return to consciousness. A tiny bit boastful but impressive nonetheless. I tried soo very hard to concentrate and take in some pearls of wisdom but next to me sat a heavenly old friend from New York whose son had died about six months ago. I was so stunned and horrified as I tried to imagine her grief and think how I would feel if the unthinkable happened and I ‘lost’ one of my children. It was simply terrifying and made my problems seemed ludicrously miniscule and insignificant just as it rendered the guru’s words impossible to hear for the most part. I recall he said that we must not give others the privilege of being able to hurt or upset us with their behavior or words. Not unlike the message back in the old days when I went to Kabbala . DO NOT REACT. Don’t be reactive. Uh huh. Yeah right. AS IF!
As the hours wore on and I imagined Nick stretched out on my bed watching TV, I regretted very much the fact that I had left my handbag about eight rows further up with another friend. I was trapped and that was all there was to it. Then Question Time began and someone asked about Death and dying peacefully and all that nonsense. I’m not afraid to admit it. I have NO faith and am terrified of dying. But then our man told us we had to make our death a real occasion. We must die with a smile and in great style. He repeated it several times. Yep, we had to move on out with a LOT OF STYLE ! Jeez louise—talk about pressure. Not only with grace but STYLE as well?? Give me a break! It was midnight before I made it back to Hollywood, exhausted beyond belief, so sad for my friend – but at least not filled with too much jealousy for those who could afford his costly four day seminars in LA or month long stays at his Indian ashram. I think it’s fair to say I am SO not spiritual.
Next day I stagger back to santa Monica and am back baring the top half for Dr Bob who frowns and informs me that I have tons of fluid around my huge swollen breast and must be drained immediately. And with no further delay the GIANT horse needles are produced as he totally BLAMES me for it and says it is crystal clear that I have been doing too much. I naturally protested vehemently. Alas, the darling but disloyal daughter told him that I was a shocking liar and that I had spent hours in the garage a day or two ago heaving boxes and looking for paintings and generally acting like some pumped-up circus strong man. He was deliriously happy to hear that his suspicion was right and he ordered me to lay low and START ANOTHER COURSE OF fucking ANTIBIOTICS. Then my Brutus of a daughter mentioned that we were all planning a sortie to Australia the following week and the mild-mannered Dr Bob nearly has a conniption. WHY? He demanded. Because I have family and friends there and I booked it eight months ago I said. And I didn’t get to go last year, I added plaintively. It’s true. Last December was when I felt the lump and the mammograms and biopsies began and then I got the flu and had to move out of my house to rent it and thus, at the very last minute, I drove my children to the airport and being lifelong travelers, especially to Australia, they very happily headed off by themselves feeling rather thrilled I imagine not have an overloaded silly mother tagging along. I wept bitterly and spent Christmas in LA sick as a dog, house sitting in Silver Lake and bawling every time they called. Which was not often.
So I get home, retire to bed, wake up and can’t find the prescription he gave me and dig around for some old leftover antibiotics. Any old ones will do surely to God. And then I do too much and then I lose the bastard antibiotics two days ago somewhere in the house or under my bed but who can tell and then I am back at Dr Bob’s today and I am hugely swollen again and he drains and then, like last time, gets a magnet to find the matching magnet in my expander so he can pump it up through the port – so as not leave any dead space for more fluid to gather and declares that I have obviously have been doing too much and going to Australia tomorrow is out of the question. I weep hysterically with self-pity and obediently head back to Cedars to have it all confirmed by the infectious disease dude—but what’s new? He is beyond conservative…and that’s where it stands…
I AM sad and it sucks…and did I keep the receipts so I can take some of the pressies back for pals downunder???

Toxic Wasteland...thanksgiving and beyond

TEN DAYS LATER
Not unlike Roman Polanski---certain post-surgery patients should be fitted with some sort of electronic security anklet-to make sure they stay PUT, preferably in bed, once back home. So that, trying frantically to make up for lost time, they don’t hit the streets a few days later with a list of errands that would exhaust a driven, wildly ambitious Personal Shopper on drugs and thirty years younger in some TV Reality Show a la Amazing Race.
One of the main problems here? I’m a moron. Why do I imagine I will have more energy than after the last surgery—especially as there clearly must be some sort of cumulative effect now after about 12 hours of general anesthesia during 4 SURGERIES in 10 months. And even worse, as I may have mentioned before, a grand total of about FOUR MONTHS OF massive doses of ANTIBIOTICS that would bring a wild rhino to it’s knees.
I am now officially a TOXIC WASTELAND. Can the antibiotics even be remotely effective after all this time. Surely fucking not!.
Three days before the surgery- two varieties of antibiotic delivered via very large pills—as a preventive measure. Then a week of IV antibiotics - 3 days in hospital and another 4 days of it at home thanks to my trusty 6’ 6” Russian nurse Vadim who obliged again by coming to rouse me from my bed to deliver the I V. And now, another 7 days of pills.
I have officially never felt WORSE. Not during the entire nightmare year have I felt sicker than I do right now. It’s as if I wake up every day with a massive hangover. Imagine being force fed three enormous Indian meals in a row, about half a dozen donuts and then drinking two bottles of champagne and five rum and cokes. Think how you would feel the next day. The blinding headache. The bloating. The gas. The total hideousness. And…the depression.
Got the picture? Well multiply it a few times more and that’s how four months of antibiotics makes you feel.
At least feeling as revolted and revolting as I do means that the day alone on Thanksgiving was sad but I felt no hunger. And there was no pressure to perform any motherly duties. Son Nick in New York with his beloved godmother –ice skating, Broadway show and slices of ‘the best pizza ever.’ And Lola spent it with her second stepmother and half brother and sister. (She veery sweetly brought me a bag of very good leftovers.) Hey, I’m an Aussie I kept telling myself as I lay in bed in a lot of pain, taking half a Vicodin every few hours and emptying the bloody drain- what do I care about Thanksgiving – but these annual family rituals- the accompanying brainwashing TV ads and movies picturing jolly celebrations with your clan have a way of seeping into the consciousness and despite any extenuating circumstances, make the lone twit in bed feel like a miserable old single failure. Yep, well aware that feelings are not facts but my brain can seem like a mighty powerful and willful bitch of a thing sometimes—leading me down very thorny, overgrown paths of sentimental and undermining beliefs.
And what if feelings ARE facts??
MUST read Power of Now again immediately. Though the last time I had the energy to read seems long ago and the voice of Eckhardt Tolle (yes, even bought the book on tape) is unacceptably tedious. I will Google it and see if there is a riveting sentence or two I can memorize. My daughter points out that I have a stack of books written by cheery folks who have had cancer and ‘seen the light’ along with books like “Change Your Diet-Change Your Life’. I know, I know, we are what we eat—Stay Alkaline and test your pee with the drawer-full of PH testers I have but how much frigging broccoli can one eat in a day? And who can cope with an acidic read-out every other day? Next morning I steal a couple of Marlboro Red from Lola, run down to the corner in my pj’s and Uggs and a coat where forty yards away sits a lovely Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Order up one of my beloved Mocha Ice Blendeds, grab the National Enquirer someone has left and run back home. Bliss for about thirty minutes before the guilty goody-goody side of me has a field day.
So a day or two more of deep discomfort, bandage-changing and drain-emptying as the long Thanksgiving weekend drags on interminably and by Monday I have a list of things to do a mile long. Monday morning. Hopped into my car which had only one ticket due to the fact that I have yet to go to the 84 places necessary to get parking permits for my new address and realized I was not up to hitting the DMV to change the Rego address. Not today. Maybe never. But after dropping the over-exhausted teen (who loves New York and wants to move there) at school AND on time, I did, by some miracle, notice the yellow light indicating I needed gas and headed up Vine to fill ‘er up.
This is easy. I can do this. Keen on multi-tasking I make a call, hop back into my car to plug in the nearly out-of- battery-cell phone and get involved in a heated discussion of why the recent announcement that women get TOO MANY unnecessary mammograms is dead-on. These are not fly-by-night fools saying this. They are experts and have studied it all and I loathe the way the Obama administration is being raked over the coals for something that in essence will protect women from unnecessary radiation and then often, unnecessary surgery and chemo. But it’s a thorny issue and yes, there are exceptions but who knows if their lumps would not have gone away of their own accord if they were watched carefully….
Oh I could go on…but my friend is already bored and so I merrily drive off to the next task till I hear an almighty CRACK and realize I have omitted to remove hose from car. SHIT! I stop and see that it has at least come out of the gas entry-point of my car and done no visible damage. But the long snake of a thing has come out of the bowser—is that the right word – and is lying right next to MY car there as people stare disapprovingly. So I run inside and try to explain what happened to a foreign gentleman. Not sure he understands me. I repeat that the gas hose has come off it’s moorings. “Moorings?” Yes, I can’t put it back, I say, looking as sad and tragic as I can. But he waves his arms and says something I don’t understand but I feel I’ve done my duty and hit the road without looking back. A friend later says they’ll have filmed my car with secret cameras and to expect a bill for about $1000. That seems harsh and I beg my brain to file it under “LATER”.
And you probably won’t have a whit of sympathy if I tell you that three minutes later, stopped at a light on Melrose I look over as I chat on the phone and see a black man pointing at something in my car – or at me. I politely ignore him and keep chatting. My eyes flicker to the right again and there he is again, staring crossly and pointing as he shakes his head at me. Oh for heavens sake, I recall thinking—what’s his problem. Lucky I didn’t give him the finger. (My son practically faints with tension every time we drive together. He gives a running commentary as to what lane I should be in, slow down, put on your indicator MUM, NOW...MUM THERE’S A RED LIGHT COMING UP…stuff like that.) The lights change and off I speed only to hear sirens and a loud speaker moments later telling me to “PULL OVER. NOW !” I look back.
Oh, it’s the POLICE. That’s the problem with my foul, gas-guzzling Land Rover Discovery. It’s so high that when the cop car was right next to me I couldn’t even see it WAS A COP CAR. I make up a brilliant story about my young son at the airport calling to say the plane got in early and I’m running late because I’ve just been to my cancer doctor and the very sweet, kind policeman lets me off. I’m sorry but you can’t NOT use the cancer thing for as long as you can. Just lucky he didn’t rip my now out of date Disabled Tag off the rearview mirror and handcuff me on the spot. New Year’s Resolution. Throw out the Disabled Tag and never speak without a hands-free. (And don’t tell Nick—he will be livid. Out of guilt for some driving transgression of the day I sometimes let him drive the last fifty yards down the street. But only when it’s dark and there’s no one around. He’s a superb driver. And yes, I am a wicked, lying scofflaw. I’m going to change.)
And I vow to buy a new hands-free but I also need to get into the New Age and buy a new phone that can access email and so until that decision is made, how can I get a hands-free? I want an IPHONE but Lola says I won’t be able to handle it. I’ll show her!
I head to the nearest Starbucks for my venti latte with half a pump of mocha (it used to be one whole pump) and as I rush past some sort of Christmas display in my hurry to get the last Times, it catches my drain which I have pinned to my t-shirt in …It means the long skinny tube comes out of the plastic bulb and blood spatters on my jeans and a few drops on my shoe and the floor. This may well be one of the low-points of the month and I dash to get napkins, wipe the tiny spots off the floor and then run out the door mortified,NOT looking back to see if anyone noticed as I hold the tube upwards to prevent more spillage. Minus my coffee, I reattach the tube in the car—and realize it’s a bad day for tubing and I am still in desperate need of a caffeine hit.
So off to another frigging Starbucks-miles out of my way—and then come to my senses and realize I need to go home immediately and retire to bed for a couple of hours before heading back out for groceries and the teen. I sleep as if I’ve just done a marathon and wake up three hours later at 4 with that awful sick panicky feeling when you’ve overslept in the day and scarcely know where you are…I must dress and rush to Nick’s school.
My darling son tells me the evening’s homework ahead and we both visibly wilt at the prospect of math, science, english AND history – not to mention reading and coming up with a proposal for the bane of my life—the Science fair Project. I LOATHE Science Fair Projects with a deadly loathing and feel that this is where a guy could TRULY be worth his weight in gold. A man, a father, a boyfriend…even just a man friend. But they’re in short supply so what can you do? I have so far talked the teen out of something to do with engines and fuel efficiency since I argued it would be too hard to show that on one of those wretched display boards. And what is the hypothesis and how do we go about it and do graphs?? I want to shoot myself on the spot when I realize it’s due in a week. Just the proposal – but I know from experience that it will take us forever. Lola suggested growing crystals and at first he seemed excited but I think he now regards it as too girlie. Last year’s was about landslides and the year before it was How Long does Different Food last without Refrigeration before getting moldy and that, not surprisingly, was a humdinger. Rotting, stinking chicken, cheese and vegies in the garage that had to be checked and photographed every few days.
Anyway, he struggles with all this homework due to ‘learning differences’ (after much and thorough testing) and needs more time than most but his mean mother must now drag him to buy groceries before going home as I could not even achieve that in my hideously unproductive day. The guilt, the guilt...about anything and everything and when he sweetly asks “How was your day mum?” I don’t even know what to say. I must lie of course and not reveal that it was useless, I was nearly ticketed by cops and it mainly consisted of sleep. I don’t want him to worry. A fatherless adopted child should not have to worry any more than strictly necessary.
Well I can only imagine he’s been worried this past year. It’s hard to tell how much fear has swirled around the brain of a gorgeous 14 year-old who is growing like a weed, has size 13 shoes and who shaves, speaks with a manly deep voice but still gives very big hugs. He’s moved twice this year, nine times in his life, been to five different schools (two in another country), has tutors three times a week to help with failing grades and a mother who swears like a trouper. But… no boy has ever had a more doting mum or a more fantastic, loving sister. Lola was nine when ‘we’ adopted Nick and she definitely adored my genius idea that we were adopting him ‘together’.
Gosh - I get chills every time I remember the excitement as the birth mother’s due date arrived. We were on HIGH Alert. Forget the anticipation of Santa, Disneyland, the Tooth Fairy –or even her fifth Little Mermaid birthday party. Waiting for her baby brother (we knew it was a boy) to be born beat everything. She was deliriously impatient–and a joy to watch. Every time the phone rang we both screamed. Even Molly the Husky ran around in circles like a maniac. She didn’t want to go to school in case she missed something but I swore on everything holy that I would swing by Campbell Hall on the way to Valley Presbyterian. It was before Mapquest but I had my route worked out. Fortunately he came into the world at about 8pm on a Friday. We were standing by but still imagined it was a few days away. I had just cooked Lola and her friend from school who happened to be with us, gorgeous lamb chops and since I loathe cooking (have I mentioned that?) I’m not keen on any effort going to waste but once we got the CALL at about 7.30 saying “We just wanted to inform you that they’re about to do an Emergency Caesarian – you should come now”. That was it. Dinner was left on the table. We shrieked, screamed, panicked, laughed, ran around in circles and tore out the door to the Valley. Driving like a bat out of hell down Sunset and over Coldwater Canyon, we arrived in record time, taking a good fifteen minutes off my timed practice run. We arrived at the Maternity ward and were naturally sent to lots of wrong places before we ran down a corridor and bumped into a nurse carrying a swaddled baby.
“Is that ours?” shrieked Lola. The nurse looked up wide-eyed as if we might be crazed baby-snatchers.
“Is that the Hobbs baby?” I smiled politely. She confirmed that this was the baby for adoption and we all cheered. But she was a humorless human, was having none of our glee and promptly marched off to the Newborn Nursery, not even slowing down as Lola and Ally ran behind, DESPERATE for a peek. Unfortunately children were NOT permitted in the nursery and I sent the girls around the corner where they frantically jumped up and down to try and see through the glass window. I was still carrying the great huge camcorder bag which I had not had time to open….I followed the nurse as she put the drops in his eyes and rather roughly checked him and measured and with shaking hands tried to get out the camera. He started to howl and I was desperate to pick him up but I wasn’t about to grab him for fear of being sent out with the kids…I guiltily waved at them as they madly gestured for me to bring the baby over to them. I did finally get to hold him for a few precious moments and weepily took him over to the window so they could get a glimpse. Beaming faces. All very touching, All so very sweet. One of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
The adventure began and not an ounce of jealousy ensued. She relished the thought of him as ‘her baby’ from the moment she held him two days later in the hospital as I signed papers and we prepared to drive him home with us. From then on she would rush in from school, sneak into his room and pick him up even if he was asleep, against strict orders, to ‘watch over him’.
“He’s asleep Lola. Go and play in your room honey.”
“He was awake mum—he was crying” she would lie, bald-faced, thirty seconds later, having wickedly woken him from a major snooze.
As he got a little older she and her friends would spend hours fussing over him, giving him bottles, bathing him and dressing him up (often in dresses, like a doll, sometimes with lipstick- he didn’t mind) but always with extraordinary maternal finesse and expertise. (I could care less about babies at that age). Our place was a favorite hang-out and understandably. They got to PLAY with a REAL LIVE BABY who left the long-begged-for American Girl doll and her myriad outfits for dead. All her pals adored him. Especially our fabulous next-door neighbor who was exactly Lola’s age. Lauren, also adopted, was mad for Nick as well and would often appear, pretending she had permission, to help Lola give Nick a bath and then stay for dinner—often her second. There were endless calls from her mother insisting I send her home immediately – but we all loved her lively, giggling presence and I often fibbed that we’d begged her to stay so she wouldn’t get into more trouble than necessary.
Yes, with a mother and a sister who give and demand more annoying kisses than most, he knows he’s loved and gives tons of affection back–but it doesn’t stop the guilt. That’s who I am.
And now there ‘s the bloody guilt all over again that I decided to have a double mastectomy and DO this to my poor body. I’ve had a good look and the new breast is in fact fairly lumpy and odd-looking. A bigger scar than last time—but that’s to be expected. And I don’t care about scars.
I drag myself down to see Dr Bob the next day and he’s happy as a clam. He really just takes a quick peek under the bandages to make sure there’s no sign of a flaming infection again. Satisfied, he tells the nurse to change the bandages. As I realize he’s walking out the door, I don’t have the energy to speak up and ask about lumpiness or any other bloody thing. I’m over it.
And I’m over antibiotics. I’ll be finished in a few days but I’ve been awfully good. I take the pills on time like a regular goody two shoes. Okay—I gagged a couple of times this week and spat out several pills in fury as I dry-heaved and wept. But the prospect of another staph infection and MORE antibiotics has kept even a rebel like me on the straight and narrow.
Onwards and upwards.

Fourth Surgery this year ! dec 4

Friday Morning – Three days later.
I have talked the darling daughter who has no college on Fridays and works every week at her coffee spot ALL day (as distinct from her dawn shifts) – into cancelling her daylong shift and coming with her mother to a far distant land in the San Fernando Valley where I have to confess I have had crap in storage for—gosh, let’s think, since I sold my Hancock Park house eight years ago. Even after selling many big pieces to an auction house AND a massive garage sale where I was utterly ruthless thanks to mean friends who made me sell things I regret to this day (like a vintage child’s coat stand I still miss that was SO adorable) there was still tons of stuff from a 6000 square foot house with a guesthouse and a pool house and two huge basements that had all been filled by yours truly, a serious hoarder - and so furniture and baby clothes and boxes of photos that I refused to part with all went to a 10 by 20 unit in the Valley eight long years ago. And then, when I returned from Australia two years ago after the four year stint to look after my dad – I had all the stuff shipped back that I had optimistically shipped there, thinking I would find HOME back in the wonderful Land of Oz but alas…it just didn’t feel right once my dad had died. Four years of hanging out at hospitals, rehab centers and retirement homes had proved less than scintillating and besides Lola my daughter dearest was back in America and so, along with Nick and I, BACK IT ALL CAME, at vast, vast expense, to join the stuff that had stayed behind in the Valley. They loved me at All Aboard Storage. Another 10 x 20 unit was filled. They were side by side. Very convenient.
And so, there we were, in blistering heat in Sun Valley, unlocking the units for the two foul-tempered moving men who stared at the boxes covered in about an inch of dust. It was pretty much impossible to be ‘in the moment’ and even remember what on earth The Power Of Now had tried to teach me as I already DREADED—with a mighty powerful dread, the unpacking and deciding of where all these reminders of bygone days would go AT THE OTHER END IN A FEW HOURS. Things I had totally forgotten I owned. Growing up poor, things I thought I desperately needed and MUST cling onto – hang the expense. As they piled it all onto the truck I tried to imagine where the big pieces of furniture would go—the lovely old armchair covered in green velvet my dad had sat in for sixty years, the loveseat covered in brown velvet that my mother had inherited from her mother and had prized her whole life….the black velvet bed from Central Park West, the gorgeous mid century sofa I had found in Sydney and had had re-covered in hot red wool, my granny’s favorite old china and the hand-carved bench her grandmother had made….where the fuck exactly would it fit? My brain hurt.

At the new apartment there are three bedrooms instead of two, because I need a bedroom for the angel pie daughter after she broke up with her boyfriend and besides, this is twice as big, much better value, and best of all, HAS A DOUBLE GARAGE out back where I can put all the stuff from storage, thus SAVING a truly embarrassing and shocking $560 a month I have been paying for two years. And half that much for the 6 years before that. Yep, lotta money. I am fool. We know this. I have clung onto tables and chests of drawers—NOT priceless gems, just weird funky chests of drawers from second hand stores and vases from Goodwill and pillow slips and blankets and towels from Target and plates and spatulas from Ikea that have now become THE most expensive pieces of crap of all time after traveling, I kid you not, from NY to LA to Sydney to Melbourne, back to deep in the Valley and now to Hollywood. Yep, that’s the kind of tight ship I run!! I realized the full extent of my sickness when the guys informed me that a second back-up truck was needed. It would not all fit in the first dirty big truck. A tiring nightmare of a day. A costly one. Lola cursed. I swore like a sailor and I nearly forgot to pick up the darling Nick Hobbs from school.
Two weeks later
Okay—so it’s been grueling period. I’ll try to keep it brief as even recalling it makes me want to slit my wrists. A week after the hellish move out of the storage joint to my new digs near Beverly, I then hired the same surly moving guys and we moved everything out of the apartment on Rossmore to join the stuff at the new place. The double garage I had loved so much was already UTTERLY FULL and when I tell you that discovering I had cleverly managed to HANG onto two large filing cabinets filled with fascinating things like AT&T bills from 1997 along with treatments and faxes I had sent to about two thousand producers, was one of those major self-loathing moments. I think you know what I mean.
Boxes of thirty seven different drafts of a script I had spent just six or seven years of my life on—a script that was as close as two weeks from shooting in Vancouver with Howard Stern having actually taken two weeks off his show to come and play a sleazy record producer and me and Lola and the entire crew all there in hotels totally overexcited as script, sets, locations were all locked!!!…..Before the dickhead producer had a meltdown and pulled the plug for NO good reason. And then lovely folk like Melanie Griffith refused to lower their fees to help get it back on its feet again and the adorable Howard Stern sued us for his lost two weeks wages and well…despite another six months of blood sweat and tears, it went down the gurgler and my second directorial effort never materialized.…
Love seeing those shooting scripts and music cassettes of all the fabulous gospel music that we had selected for my wonderful romantic comedy again….good times….years and years of my life down a very disappointing drain.
And then there were the boxes of Nick’s heavenly baby clothes plus an entire box of all his Batman costumes (he was a truly obsessed Batman and called me Robin for at least twelve months) and photos of my dad in his Spitfire and stupendously sad and brave letters from his days as a POW on the Burma railway that seemed to come hurtling at me like missiles out of the dust. And old passports of my mother and postcards she had sent me from Crete on her way to join me for the European holiday of a lifetime back in the days when I had it all and was a young whizz kid TV reporter fresh from Australia living in London with a glamorous and successful theatre producer. And BETA tapes of me on my TV show Hobbs’s Choice in London and huge one inch cassettes of short films starring Rowan Atkinson and written by Richard Curtis that I had directed—but NO machines in existence to even play them any more, They had to go. It all has to go…
But not the twenty five boxes of fantastic albums from my former life. They could become a book, perhaps. Photos of Jack and Anjelica and Roman and me and Mick Jagger and all of us at the Red Ball in Paris or lying on the beach in St Tropez or going to see Bob Dylan with Diana Vreeland or at the bull ring in Ibiza on acid watching Bob Marley and the Wailers or having Prince Charles to dinner in our swanky Knightsbridge home or interviewing Andy Warhol for my TV show…..
I yi yi .These memories rushing at you as we stuff yet more boxes into the garage and try to put them in some kind of order, TAKE THEIR TOLL. They can sap the life out of you. I have moved about 18 times in twenty two years. It’s too much.
The unpacking….I feel ill and hot and sweaty and still toxic and poisoned after a year of mammograms and missed diagnoses and botched biopsies and waiting and being told I am fine and then being told I am not fine and then more biopsies and guilty, lying gynacologists and a lumpectomy and chemo and steroids and four general anaesthetics and three surgeries and ten weeks of antibiotics and the electric sessions and the oxygen treatments and the Vitamin C infusions and the expanders being expanded and the needles and IV’s—so many needles….I just don’t feel too good. I don’t have a lot of zip in my step right now.
As far as the surgery decision is concerned, I have no more energy to give it and so very simply I decide to continue with Dr Bob and he schedules the surgery to try and restore my breast for ONE week later.
But I am just so deeply, madly tired that I do something I seldom do. A few days later I put the surgery off for two weeks so that it will be eight weeks from the last surgery and I can be uncommonly SENSIBLE and rest and do yoga and eat well and go to bed early and meditate.
NONE of which I do, naturally. I feel compelled to unpack every last idiotic possession and get the place totally together for the sake of my sanity and that of my kids. How can I come back home from yet another surgery with drains and pills and have to fight my way past boxes and suitcases full of clothes I forgot I had?
And here’s the one bonus for me with moving. I get to go to one of my favorite haunts – IKEA—where I can navigate the place like a pro and dart hither and thither quicker than anyone I know. Here’s the secret – go online, cruise the catalogue for about sixteen hours, make a shopping list, print it out and then enter through checkout, go straight to the gigantic shelves and JUST GO CRAZY. I decide to punish Nick for nothing in particular and drag him to Ikea with me on the way back from picking him up from a party. But because he is so cranky (it was a girl’s party I made him go to because I said yes on the Evite without asking him and he is livid but I feel bad and don’t want to let the gal down) and because he has been going to Ikeas on different continents since he was a small boy in his Batman outfits (try London, Melbourne, Sydney and Burbank) he has a hissy fit outside the store and insists he needs to skateboard for a while and he will join me in there. So I give up and rush on in and he finally remembers to join me hours later when I have heaved great boxes down from shelves and am now in the checkout line. He’s become an annoying clone of his cheapskate, miser sister and thinks he can bitch about my spending and guiltily I realize he is right about certain things and I angrily take them out of the trolley as he says deeply irritating things like “It may be only ten bucks but it all adds up mom !!” And by the time we are in the car I scream “It’s funny how you didn’t mind me spending SEVENTY dollars on your brand new purple suede skate shoes yesterday Nick ! Funny about that but I’m not allowed to buy a ten dollar plastic grocery bag holder from Ikea to help me save the environment !!” and then we scream at each other for awhile and like a very bad parent I even mention the money I spend on tutors which is unforgivable but I put it in the context of “You need to take some responsibility and do your share of the homework on your own” and then he screams that he doesn’t care about school and tutoring and he’ll “just live in a sewer” and then I decide to cool it and we don’t speak the rest of the way home. But I adore him and he helps carry everything inside and then apologizes later for not coming in to help me in Ikea right away and I am touched as I nearly always have to ask him to apologize but soon I realize it’s just because he’s sucking up and his beloved big sis has offered to take him and hear a band she knows because he loves music and he’s a drummer. And I don’t have the energy to say no and they go with a few of her friends and they have a ball and even drop into a black light party on the way home and apparently Nick dances like a mad thing and is very cool.
So anyway, about eight trips to Home Depot, Target, CB2, West Elm and Kmart later (a lot of it just research-not ALL compulsive spending) and I have bought yet more extension cords and picture hanging hooks, hammered and assembled and glued and stood on ladders and hung mirrors and fought with my kids and made their rooms look pretty darn great. I’ll be honest- I do sometimes wish there was a good man who found me gorgeous even with my ludicrously short hair and who would have the keen, cosmopolitan intelligence to appreciate my manic ability to make a wildly stylish yet COZY home. I mean it’s not everyone who has the foresight to bring their Aussie electric pizza maker and seven fabulous old lamps to America and then find the cunning store on Third that sells Oz to USA converter plugs. Am I right? Frugal AND a connoisseur of good lighting!
So at Sunday night at nine pm after running to get a Gift Card from Forever 21 for the girl who had the birthday party and then running to Office Depot for a math graph notebook and then hitting the Cactus Taqueria on Vine for our dinner and after barely stopping for two weeks straight, the gorgeous new Spanish-style apartment is looking pretty together and I relax for the first time in a fortnight as I watch Curb Your Enthusiasm with my kids in the living room with a fire blazing and stuff myself with toast and peanut butter (I HATE tacos) and hit the hay by midnight. Take the heavenly teenager to school and INSIST ON A KISS IN THE CAR – not usually granted - because he is staying the night with friends as his silly old mother has her FOURTH surgery for the year coming up in a few hours. I thoughtfully do extra nagging about homework and teeth brushing so he doesn’t think anything is different.

MONDAY NOV 23rd– 3pm A very kind friend Diantha brings me back to St Johns where I lie through my teeth about the last time I ate. It was 10 am not 9—what the hell—I’m an old hand and I was determined to finish my Starbucks. So here I am again and my dear friend Richard is here because he insists that there be someone with me during this time leading up to being put under the knife which is just so touching since it has occurred to no one else in my life..
And here we are at Admitting…again ….the taking of the vitals, the off with the undies AGAIN, signing many, many forms I NEVER read, remembering with guilt that I have yet to make a will, hoping that the letter I wrote to get out of that parking ticket will do the trick and that they’re not clever enough to check and work out that my Disabled Sticker has expired and I really should pay it….
And Dr Bob is late again and I run to the toilet to drink from the tap just cos I’m thirsty AND a rebel…but I’m really an idiot and have taken two Ativan—I thought it was one but I forget everything these days and I think I took another and I feel so groggy and out of it that I may vomit any minute and I just want to get on down to that operating room guys…Here’s the shocking truth. I look forward to the drugs and being put out. I NEED THE FUCKING REST. A quick cell phone call to my Nick and Lola and that’s all I remember folks.
WAKE UP AT 12.30 am and there’s my divine smiling daughter who’s been waiting for hours for her mother to wake up and be brought back to the hospital room. A daughter is a very wonderful thing and I am deeply grateful for having such a complete gem. Realizing where I am and what’s just gone down, my hand goes to my chest and yes, there’s seems to be something resembling a breast there. I sure as hell am not about to look under the bandages and the bra contraption they put on you but just feeling that fake titty mound makes me quite happy. If not drugged out of my mind and completely devoid of anything resembling a singing voice I could even be tempted to burst into song. Something corny. ‘I ENJOY BEING A GIRL” comes to mind. Lola tells me that she spoke to Dr Bob on the phone and he said it went well.
I feel great relief. It’s moments before Thanksgiving - a year since I recall feeling that small but quite hard lump in my breast. A really chilled glass of good French champagne would go down well right now, I chirp brightly, delirious for about 18 seconds before I realize I’m in some serious pain here. But bubbly is not on the menu and after about half an hour of chatting with my darling that I now cannot remember- I suddenly see that my poor angel who started her day at 6 am at the coffee joint and then had a full day at college till 10pm, is ready to schlep all the way home to Hollywood. She looks shattered and I wish to goodness I’d come round a little sooner for her sake. I kiss her goodbye and she’s gone. Lie there feeling guilty that I left home in Melbourne at 20 and never went back. Never hung out with my mother again. Except for stressed, tense, unreal periods during holidays. The guilt is monumental and seems to be fade-resistant.. And then I remember – or did I dream it—that whilst coming out of the anasthetic, I agreed to use a bedpan to pee – but couldn’t once they put it there and they took it away. THE HORROR…THE HUMILIATION. I despise bedpans and do not believe in them. I think it was the reason I had a baby at home—someone told me they had to use a bedpan after giving birth..I really hope it was a dream.
I also wish that for the love of God Dr Bob had been kind enough to give me that doohickey you just press and pain medication floods your veins. But noooo—I’m now in searing pain and here we go again with the pressing of the red nurse button which means you WILL be ignored for a good ten to twenty minutes before a grim night shift nurse appears and invariably expresses shock and confusion when you ask for your pain medication. I am not disappointed but eventually, two percocet are given and things calm down. I go to sleep –wishing to goodness I was capable of following orders and sleeping on my back but I simply cannot do it—my back starts to ache after about ten minutes and gets worse as time goes on which is why I can’t even enjoy massages. Sleep on my back is simply not an option—though I regret it even more when I read in Us magazine that Tom Cruise sleeps on his back to avoid wrinkles around eyes and neck.
Tuesday
Wake up in stunning pain and beg for the Percocet immediately. It’s only 6 am, have eaten nothing for about 24 hours and would love to have some food in my stomach. But no breakfast in sight.
What a decision. Risk feeling ill with the Percocet on an empty stomach or put up with a couple more hours of scorching pain? I go with the pills and when breakfast finally arrives I find it hard to hide my disappointment upon discovering that my two pieces of French toast are cold, grey and preposterously rubber-like. Now we all know that in 2009 hospitals have yet to equate nutrition and health in any way shape or form ---but this is taking ignorance TOO FAR. Are they SERIOUS?? This is my third stay this year at St Johns and I should know the score but I’m tired and grumpy and hungry and sore and I press my buzzer and ask if any other food can be found for me—food I could EAT. Well, about forty five minutes later a really mean, mean woman comes and yells at me that I hadn’t filled out a menu and I point out that I was in surgery and not offered a menu to fill out and she says well that’s not her fault and I LOSE IT AND YELL THAT IT’S NOT MY FAULT EITHER AND IS THERE ANY THING AT ALL I COULD EAT ? PLEASE ??
An hour later she brings eggs that have been poisoned I think—they taste like fucking dog food and they too are grey and I cannot possibly eat them and they’re cold and suddenly I am very sad.
But what makes me even sadder is that I have a raging thirst and have been drinking lots and lots of water and so about every ten minutes it seems I have to pee and that means I have to unhook both the pulsating, inflated leg cuffs I am wearing that prevent leg clots and then I have to unplug the IV stand and hook up the cord so it doesn’t get caught on the bed, like last time, and unplug my computer so I don’t trip over that cord, like last time, and put on my Ugg Boots since I have a thing about bare feet on hospital floors and and then drag the IV stand into the tiny airless bathroom and them empty the heavy dangling drain filled with blood and then pee and brush my teeth and put on some moisturizer cos I have a theory that having a general anaesthetic is ageing and then I have to shuffle back into my messy room to plug everything in including my legs and get into bed and drink some more water…and do it all again. EXHAUSTING. Well at least I am getting some exercise and it beats a catheter. I think.
Dull day. But blessed pills make me sleep for a lot of it. When I am not sending psychotic emails to folks.
7 pm The angel posing as my daughter brings delicious salad from Wholefoods with tuna and mint and beans and all sorts of goodies and I feel better immediately- (note to hospitals all over the globe—good healthy food makes you feel BETTER)—and even she nearly gags when she takes a bite of my turkey dinner and agrees that I’m not being paranoid and that someone’s trying to poison me. I soon send the baby girl home to hang with Nick who’s been shockingly sweet on the phone and has told me made himself Trader Jo’s Piroggi for dinner and is doing his math homework. Wow. Amazing how easily they just straight out lie. (I know this because math teacher has since emailed to say it was NOT done ).I give him about ninety two instructions for packing as he is being collected tomorrow at 10 and taken to LAX for flight on HIS OWN to NY to spend Thanksgiving with his godmother but he doesn’t listen as closely as I hope. If at all. I tell him to study my typed packing notes and the itinerary –and he knows enough to agree- but I would bet anyone now that he ignores them completely.
9.30 pm A VERY exhausted looking Dr Bob shows up after a day of surgery – he seems to be very popular right now—and he helps me off with the bra contraption and I suddenly realize it’s the MOMENT OF TRUTH as he takes off the bandage. Not completely but enough to see that IT COULD WELL BE A MINOR MIRACLE. HE DIDN’T LIE..MY BREAST SKIN SEEMS TO BE UNCRUMPLED AND IT LOOKS LIKE A NORMAL BREAST AND I AM VERY, VERY HAPPY.
“You are a genius “ I tell him and he smiles….”I told you…” he says..
I asks if he put Alloderm back and he says “Yes, just a little. I want to put more in later..”
Whatever…this is a GOOD OUTCOME…..I LOVE DR BOB…
He looks very tired and I tell him to go and get some sleep while I tidy my room again and try to straighten my bed. GOD FORBID they could ever make it. That’s what nurses are meant to do. There is little more pathetic than making your own bed in pain at 10 pm at night. But smooth tits are good too. BE THANKFUL I tell myself – and I am.

Time to Become Two Titted again....nov 29

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Next Day.
Since none of what I have done is reversible, I must carry on in quest to restore myself to two-titted person so it’s back to Dr Rex, the young and very amiable one in Beverly Hills (very Dr McDreamy) for a second visit to see if I like him as much as I thought I did. One visit is not enough I’ve realized when sharp knives are involved. I’m shown reconstruction photos but these are not reassuring. Gruesome shots of grafts from the upper inner thigh, the stomach, the buttocks and the back with fresh livid scars leaping out at me. I immediately assume these photos mean the doc thinks I will need such surgery but he starts off by denying it, saying that he thinks my breast skin will SOMEHOW un-wrinkle and un-shrivel back to life. Maybe.
But what he REALLY recommends, to minimize the risk of re-infection is something different. He is suggesting taking both triangle-shaped latissimus muscles from my back – the ones you use for pull-ups or a mighty golf swing– and putting them into my breasts to support the implants. And because it’s my own living tissue, there’s very little chance of re infection and it will look better BUT---to make it look symmetrical he wants to do BOTH breasts-so that means two incisions under my arms – another two further down for the camera to enter my body and two more incisions where the muscles are slipped in. A four hour operation and 4 drains for a couple of weeks. FOUR BLOODY DRAINS hanging around yours truly. Two was charming. Four really sounds like fun.
He’s cute but not that cute. Jeez. And that ol dead people’s skin, Alloderm (which would support the implants –instead of the aforementioned latissimus muscles which I now realize I’m very fond of just where they are) is sounding good right about now.
Let’s leave back muscles where they naturally reside and pop some new nice clean Alloderm and an expander into my left and see if we can’t get back to where we were…and then wait two or three months till, God willing, I might be ready for the permanent implants and life again as I once knew it. That’s Dr Bob’s plan and it’s sounding good—especially when I discover that Dr Rex, contrary to what the girl answering the phone told me, is not contracted with Blue Cross and thus it would cost me a good deal of cash.


Two days Later
Dr Bob starts to seem like an even MORE APPEALING OPTION WHEN I go to see YET ANOTHER surgeon Dr John…a very well-known one at UCLA who does a heap of breast work and who many smart and well-heeled Beverly hills ladies all love and praise to the skies…I had seen him in my initial quest for MR RIGHT but passed him over when I realized I was basically penniless and HAD to go with the best of the lot who were contracted with Anthem Blue Cross but as a former journalist I am curious to educate self and get the lie of the land so to speak. At our first meeting he had concurred about expanders and finally implants as the way to go and now I am curious, IN THE LIGHT OF THE TEN WEEK STAPH INFECTION, to see if he suggests staying on the expander/implant path or might he be on the same page as Dr Rex and recommend the latissimus muscle removal- or perhaps even some other whacking great surgery.
By the way, just negotiating getting to UCLA is enough to put you off…Could it be any duller? Going to Westwood is massively dull and then getting a spot in the colossal car park and finding your way into the right building is not for the faint of heart. And though it should be comforting that the correct building, number 200, is actually named THE PETER MORTON Building, it’s not. Hard to say why as he’s one of my oldest friends since the London days and the Hard Rock on Knightsbridge (that really dates me!) but here’s my thought for the day. Once old pals become billionaires, things just somehow aren’t the same. And anyway, the last time I tried to get out of the PETER MORTON BUILDING, after seeing a wonderful oncologist recommended to me by the stunningly effective and clever movie producer Laura Ziskin (who raised $100 million in one night last year on TV in her STAND UP FOR CANCER marathon on all the networks) it was like trying to escape Fort Knox. It was about two hours after Michael Jackson’s body had been taken there and it was bedlam. The gorgeous male friend who actually accompanied me to see this marvelous man Dr John Glaspy (giving me an upsetting glimpse into how divinely comforting it would be to have a husband to go to doctors with, though, what if…. what if he disagreed with me and had ideas of his own and insisted I hook up with a doctor I didn’t LIKE---hmmm, maybe not so groovy) ….sorry, I digress…anyway my friend had been called by a music industry lawyer friend as we sat waiting for the doctor. This friend said he’d heard Michael Jackson had overdosed and died. It was hard to take in—as I feverishly studied my questions for Dr Glaspy who I was using as a final sounding board for my double mastectomy decision. I thought he was a good guy to go to for the TRUTH. When I went to see him a month or so earlier, at Laura Ziskin’s suggestion, I was blown away at first sight. This was a man with the kindest, wisest, loveliest eyes I’d ever seen – and a very charismatic, magical smile. I adored him on the spot. Husky, but definitely marriage material. Smart as a whip. A researching, groundbreaking oncologist. A winner…Okay, okay I’m getting carried away. I admit it.
Best of all, he was BRUTALLY FRANK. One of the reasons I had even wanted a second opinion was because although I liked the oncologist I had been seeing, she had basically fudged the truth. Or put a spin on it that is truly scary and horrifying when you are first diagnosed with ‘fast-growing invasive breast cancer. She had told me that chemotherapy would boost my chances of survival by about 30 %...and as my daughter and I sat in her office a few days after my lumpectomy she pretty much made sure of our business by adding that if the cancer was not ‘contained in the breast’ it was not going to be pretty. “If it spreads, there is nothing more we can do for you.”
No further discussion was offered or asked for. I could think of everything –but nothing to say and I looked over to see my darling daughter in floods of tears. So, although it seems moronically naïve and just plain moronic in retrospect, I asked not a single follow-up question. I was rendered speechless by such a definitive statement – and my own ignorance. Fearing she might lay something even scarier on us – such as, tests indicated I had six months to live, we fled. And about ten days later I embarked on my three months of vile chemotherapy. But as the weeks wore on and I lost hair and sense of self, I did start trying to catch up with the whirlwind and find out more information. I read books, I searched the internet and I bought the $350 Moss Report. He’s not a doctor but a very well-respected journalist/researcher who has written huge 500 page reports on virtually every type of cancer known to man.
But I must boast that by the time I started to wade through this very lengthy tome, I knew enough to to be able to email the assistant to Ralph Moss, pointing out that some of their facts about available breast cancer tests were out of date. She politely agreed, apologized and sent an immediate refund. But what is NOT in dispute is that most oncologists do present statistics in a way that promotes the use of chemotherapy whereas the true statistics are that CHEMO IMPROVES YOUR CHANCES OF SURVIVAL ONLY BY ABOUT 1-2%. YES, JUST ONE TO TWO PER CENT.!!!
So when I walked in to see John Glaspy and told him about my cancer he immediately responded with “Well if you’d come to see me sooner and told me you did NOT want chemo, YOU WOULDN’T HAVE GOT AN ARGUMENT FROM ME !!
Excuse me?? What kind of heretical talk was this?? I practically hugged him on the spot—simultaneously devastated that I had already finished the fucking chemo. And so I asked him if he agreed with the statistic that chemo only improves your survival rates by THIS ALARMING 1-2 % and he said YES. “But you never know’ he added, trying, I suspect, to simply comfort me,
‘Perhaps you’d have been in that 1-2% and it’s saved your life’. He smiled his ridiculously lovely smile and I found myself choking back tears- suddenly weepy, weary and touched by his kind manner as a flash of leaving one’s kids behind seized my brain.
Okay—well that was a flashback to our first meeting where he even discussed the advantages of complementary treatments like Vitamin C therapies and acupuncture etc. The guy was a veritable Renaissance Man. My kind of oncologist. And so I had revisited him to discuss the concept of the double mastectomy INSTEAD OF RADIATION and he agreed with me that the side effects of radiation were very much played down and that by using the new skin and nipple-sparing techniques for mastectomies, it was definitely a good option ESPECIALLY SINCE THE LYING PRICK OF A RADIOLOGIST – one of the top guys in Beverly Hills had lied to my face and said that he almost NEVER saw any side effects to radiation nor did he ever see problems with the skin of women who already had implants. Women like me. To my face he lied with an Aussie pal as witness who knows a lot about cancer and the whole ball of wax. She too was stunned given that it’s VERY WELL DOCUMENTED that the breast skin is fairly likely to ripple and get lumpy after radiation. Which is when I stormed off with my fellow Aussie and thought “Well bugger that for a joke” and embarked on my mastectomy research. Not that it’s actually turned out all that well of course….but still, getting an infection only happens to a small minority.
And SO it was now, after being reassured by Dr Glaspy that my chances of recurrence were down to 1-2% after a double mastectomy and that he would recommend it, that my dear friend Richard and I tried to leave UCLA. We immediately felt the buzz and panic in the air and at every turn came across hoards of crazed people running in all directions. We were assured by two nurses in the elevator that they had just been with Michael Jackson and he was NOT dead. But moments later, caught up in the drama of it, all we headed outside to see helicopters and paparazzi galore and well, the rumors now were that he had definitely died. It was ghastly and confusing and just so deeply troubling and upsetting. We had a coffee in the café and then---well, we sat in our respective cars for almost THREE hours trying just to get OUT OF THE BASTARD CAR PARK.
SO, WHERE WAS I?
Back at UCLA –about 3 months after my last visit with Dr Glaspy---to see a reconstructive surgeon, Dr John who I had seen once before. I had liked him but as I said, I chose Dr Bob as I both liked the look of his work and he took my insurance.
Well, this time round, the good surgeon takes one look at my breast area and visibly winces. He seems bad-tempered and I instantly blurt out “Please don’t hate me –I went elsewhere for the surgery because I couldn’t afford you”, but it doesn’t seem to appease Dr John. In fact I suspect he thinks the talk of money rather vulgar. He basically acts like a war general, telling me to man up and to jolly well ‘live with it’ (meaning the lopsided unibreasted phase) for about six months to “completely minimize the risk of reinfection” and stop worrying about the way I look – as if I’m some half-witted shallow vain fuckwit who is making a mountain out of a molehill. (Well I’ll be frank -I’m as vain as any middle-aged fool who still harbors just the faintest glimmer of hope that I’ll still meet my dream man and provide my heavenly adopted son with a father figure)
He then demands—with not an iota of the charm he showed the first time around, that I sit and bend slightly forward from the waist so he can grab the subsequent roll of fat and then concludes that in 6 months or more a ‘flap’ would be the way to go. He could take skin and muscle from my lower stomach, making an incision’ from hipbone to hipbone’ and use it to make a breast from scratch, nipple and all. Somewhat stunned, I ask if he doesn’t agree that I could just try having an expander put in again. No, there’s too much risk of re-infection he insists like some know-it-all-celebrated surgeon and besides, he bitches,” that’s all they know how to do at St John’s - you need to come to UCLA where we know how to do flaps.”
Only one tiny problem…I don’t want a fucking flap. (And by the way, I do not use the term ‘know it all’ lightly…fact is they have done NO studies or compiled NO statistics on any of this because I’ve asked all eight surgeons I’ve seen and it’s educated guesses ALL the way with half saying “Go ahead and fill ‘er up in 6-8 weeks---and the other half saying “Wait 6 months before putting back the expander.” So, let’s be very VERY frank - it’s a crapshoot all the way. And grudges against other hospitals are not MY BUSINESS Doc.
And by the way, this ‘flap’ thing they love mentioning …I totally understand that some women who had very large tumors were simply not able to have the skin-sparing mastectomy I was ‘lucky’ enough to have and this flap or skin graft – (taken from back, stomach. upper thigh etc) was an unfortunate necessity but I would prefer to go the simplest route for now…and once his very sweet assistant shows me horrifying photos of the huge long scars – about 14 INCHES LONG – on the stomachs of poor women who needed – or were talked into goddamn flaps, I really know I won’t heading back to UCLA for a little while.
But I do spend a fun evening at the Hollywood School House and help put up decorations for the Halloween Haunted House which is an 8th grade fundraiser and since the darling boy is in 8th grade and they are raising money to go on a fabulous trip to Washington DC I feel compelled to hit Vine American Party Store and buy lots of witty scary things—limbs and heads and bloody swords and cobwebs and you name it. All stuff I ALREADY have in a couple of boxes somewhere in the depths of my garage OR in storage but I have never boasted that I know where anything I possess actually is after so many moves so little things have to be bought over and OVER again..verrry frustrating. The kids have a ball and Nick flirts with the girls and even though they won’t kiss you in the car when you drop them off at school of a morning, Nick is clearly thrilled to see me and gives me lots of very adorable hugs and has a ball helping hang things and placing the coffin he’ll pop out of, in a prime spot. Some parent helpers get a kick out of me at the top of a very high ladder in very high bright red patent leather Mary Jane Manolo’s. What can I say? I’m chic. For an hour.

Taking to the weed...nov 23...

IT”S TWO WEEKS LATER
And if I could afford it, I would double my daily Cymbalta anti-depressant dose as it sure doesn’t get any easier looking down at my chest when I shower or undress. It’s sad and flat and the skin is just as I imagined –crumpled and wrinkled and unrecognizable. And to think I could have opted for radiation and NOT A DOUBLE MASTECTOMY! What was I thinking? The guilt about putting my body through this knows no bounds. (I know, I know—soldiers and car accident victims lose limbs and are far, far worse off than me, complaining bitch…but I’m sorry—I just feel better putting it down and getting it out of my brain. I doubt anyone is reading now anyway.)
Occasionally, if heading out to socialize, I pop on a bra and stuff it with Kleenex, literally, and at other times I just stick to baggy sweaters. But here’s my big confession. I am truly demented at this point I think as I am still actually thinking of CHANGING SURGEONS…after all this. Because when I visit Dr Bob a few days later, he says he wants to book me in for surgery the following Wednesday to open me up again, put in more Alloderm and replace the expander. (Yes, he admits, that he will look like a ‘goat’ if I get an infection again, but he doesn’t think I will and wants the best possible cosmetic outcome).
Now in many ways that would be fantastic but appointments with both my oncologist and the Infectious Disease doc are both issuing dire warnings that WE MUST WAIT AT LEAST 4-6 WEEKS to make sure that no microscopic infection is left that could possibly burst into bloom again once foreign objects are inserted. And my gloom and doom oncologist, by the way, who says she’s never seen anything worse, is very doubtful that putting back the expander at ANY stage will result in a decent cosmetic outcome. She’s talking about removing what skin is left and having skin and muscle grafts instead. Hot diggety dog—that sounds like fun…cutting off skin and muscle and moving it round my body.
SO, having heard of yet another great breast surgeon, I head off to Beverly Hills to meet him, desperate to hear if he thinks my breast skin will survive if I wait the month or will I need skin grafts. If he says what Dr Bob says, then I will relax…maybe. Well, it’s a tedious 95 minute wait cos Dr Cutie (he is very, very attractive this guy—looks no more than 30 but who can say for sure?) was in the back doing liposuction on some woman who had a lot of silicone injected into her butt and breasts that needed to come out. “I’m a perfectionist” he boasts and I believe him. Within moments, like the pathetically compliant person I’ve become, he drains the small amount of fluid I’ve told him that Dr Bob put in there to keep the breast skin from sticking like super glue to the chest wall and HE says, and this is where I can’t help but wonder if he is not just saying it to diss Dr Bob, that all fluid must be drained to avoid any infection breeding. BUT now, it’s like a GIANT industrial vacuum has sucked the life out of me and I am left, just moments later, CONCAVE…with a little mound of skin still above my nipple and so when I look down, I cannot see it. It’s like a very dried prune and how this can end well I have NO IDEA. He does say that he has seen skin come good again once it is inflated with the expander but I DO NOT BELIEVE HIM.
How can I wait another six weeks? I will go crazy because here’s the thing- Like a phantom limb that people claim causes pain, this lack of breast actually hurts. I swear it and now that the air has been sucked out, I actually feel a straining tension every time I breathe. IT’S DEEPLY DISTURBING AND SO, within days it’s back to Dr Bob and I mutter something about going to the acupuncturist and getting a massage to explain why the antibiotic fluid he put in has now disappeared. LET’S GET THE SHOW ON THE ROAD DR BOB, I SAY …CAN WE GO BACK IN AND DO SURGERY AT THE END of the week?
But blow me down if someone hasn’t got to Dr Bob and he’s now changed his tune and says we HAVE TO WAIT for 6 weeks at least. “So what about the fact that you have been saying how nervous you are that the skin will not survive this wait?
He claims, in a veerrrrrrry soooothing voice, that he is sure the skin sticking like glue situation is NOT irreversible. I DON’T BELIEVE HIM. I wish I did .I’m sad. He is now just playing it safe and the truly upsetting thing is that because of that, I may end up having to have tons more surgeries—skin grafts, flaps and endless opportunities for infection. I’m fucked. Whatever. Life goes on. Like the insane half witted moron I am I have yet another appointment with Dr Cutie in three days—just to see what he says.
I know I know,I need to get a life and start making money and find a guy.
So I have a lovely friend –a writer, actress and painter whop attributes her endless creativity to pot. Marijuana. Weed. She calls it pot as she is old like me. She’s been, like many others, urging me for months to take up Bikram Yoga, meditation and pot. Since I am now officially a sleeping pill addict – Ativan and Ambien definitely do the trick as distinct from the 12 melatonin a night the homeopathic dame suggested –which I did try for a few days but they did fuck all and I do have a crumpled up prescription from my Santa Monica doctor Cynthia so I decide that despite my abiding fear of pot due to several horrifying experiences over the years, perhaps I should give it a try. But I have to say I am terrified.. I truly am a ridiculous lightweight and just one or two puffs can render me comatose One dinner party I gave an English friend about a decade ago might give you some sense of my low tolerance.
Back in the days when I had some dough I had invited a dozen people over for a lovely sit-down dinner and there we were – in the huge living room of my stunning Spanish house in Hancock Park (painted walls and a double height ceiling, a Romeo and Juliet balcony – those were the days !) sipping Cosmopolitans when a music producer friend of mine lit up a joint. So as not to be a party-pooper when handed the joint, I took one hit, ONE, and within about three minutes felt very odd and thought I should perhaps check on how dinner was coming along. I staggered to the kitchen to see how my housekeeper was doing with the roast chickens (yep, used to have a housekeeper) but found myself unable to speak and felt really, really strange so I managed to retrace my steps to the divine Malibu-tiled staircase in the gorgeous circular foyer and climb up them, into my office at the top of the stairs on my way to the bathroom to splash water on my face. But as I entered the office, I found I could move no further and had to lie down IMMEDIATELY on the office floor- no longer able to function or MOVE. Not sure how long it took for someone to find me – but suffice it to say that I spent the ENTIRE DINNER PARTY on my office floor. Every time I tried to move I collapsed again, sometimes vomiting into the bowl someone had thoughtfully put next to me. I could think a little but only horrifying thoughts of never being able to move or walk again and at least three times I muttered “Ambulance, call an ambulance….need to go to hospital.”
At that point in my life I had never spent a single moment in hospital and have an abiding fear of them but I truly thought that with this one puff of a joint I needed to be there. Fortunately they all ignored me and even my horrified but cool under fire daughter Lola, 13 at the time, had the nous to say “Mum you’ll be fine, no need for an ambulance.” Naomi Watts, one of the guests, was the most capable and she spent a good deal of the dinner holding frozen peas to my head. Several other people popped by for a glimpse but only momentarily. They were having a ball in my gorgeous dining room and didn’t need to dwell on the downer hostess. Lola was brilliant enough to get Nick, then only four, to bed before joining the adults at the table and laughing over ‘silly old mum’. By the time I could move a muscle again and get to my feet, ( I had been motionless for almost four hours, not able to move ) the dinner was over and everyone had left, including the guest of honor – a former boyfriend from the London days who knew my lack of oomph as a pot smoker and hadn’t batted an eyelid or been in the least bit worried. “You shouldn’t smoke, you know better” he chided as he headed off into the night. It was tragic and humiliating and I had missed all the fun. I was furious with myself.
And yet and yet—maybe chemo had toughened me up. And so off we head in my pal’s electric car to a “Pharmacy” on Western. It’s surprisingly neat and clean – not the grubby den of iniquity I have imagined but still I feel completely wicked though my friend reminds me that it’s just been announced that they’re not even bothering to bust these joints any more. Oh, how civilized of them to come to this conclusion. Doctor’s letter and drivers license are handed over and forms are filled out and I start to feel as I’m waiting to see another medico. Not quite sure why we have to wait since there isn’t a soul there on this Tuesday morning but finally we’re ushered into the inner sanctum where my friend is greeted like a long-lost friend by the three smartly-dressed very sober dudes in there. They ask me to describe my preferences and my pal quickly steps in to explain that I’m ‘not a smoker’ – but that I’ve been through ‘cancer, chemo, you name it’ and need a little cheering up.
Any pain, they ask. Nothing dramatic I say, emphasizing that I truly do get stoned with alarming speed and thus want the lightest pot they have.
Any depression, I’m asked? Yes!! Trouble sleeping? Absolutely, a big problem!! And perhaps something to get me going in the morning I suggest, suddenly rather thrilled at the prospect of these precision strains of pot. From under the glass counter jars of pot are produced for me to sniff. They all smell rather lovely but the different aromas are utterly meaningless – I’m hardly a weed sommelier. “Just something light and breezy” I keep repeating. “Nothing too strong!”
They look at me quizzically and I finally suggest “You decide, I trust you”. It’s odd when words come out of your mouth that you simply didn’t plan. Whatever. They are happy to be in charge and I am given three containers with different labels
Morning – “Big Wreck”
Day –“Blue Haze”
Evening – “Sonoma Black”
Not sure I want to spend the day in a ‘blue haze’ but too late she cried… now we are ushered over to the refrigerated section. The stress of my first purchase over, I’m now on a roll. I buy liquid pot – some sort of lemonade soda that boasts a warning “This bottle contains two strong doses”, a pot brownie and a sort of chewie thing that’s ‘like a protein bar with a kick’.
They then ‘gift’ us both with a gorgeous colorful glass pipes – or is it called a bowl? Hand over my credit card, am given my future discount card and it’s out the door with my score like a giggling schoolgirl. Head back to my friend’s house and she shows me how to load the bowl, put my finger on the hole and light ’er up. (Strange, I know –to be such a totally hip sophisticate in so MANY areas – just not the dope-smoking one.)
I take one tiny puff, then another and feel completely fabulous in about thirty seconds. Mainly with the anticipation of having fun -such a novel concept. Am too scared to go home and face the boxes I am meant to be packing up for my big move to new digs in a week so I drive off to the local Thai Massage Parlor for one of the 40 buck sessions I have been meaning to try for the last year. But it’s only once I’ve been directed next door to the Peruvian chicken joint to use their ATM machine and come back and forked over the cash that I remember why I’ve been avoiding a massage. It’s because I can’t lie on my stomach and I am wary of arms being pulled and really only want my head and and legs and feet massaged, lying on my back. My masseuse apparently speaks NO English and I am finally forced to pull up T-shirt and show ghastly lack of breast and mime that it hurts so she will understand. By the time she finally summons the cashier who speaks English and I go through it all again, I feel fairly straight and I start to notice the place is hot and stuffy. A cup of tea and some toast at home is sounding good but I daren’t hurt her feelings so I lie there tenser than I’ve been for quite a while she tries to rotate my arms and do other painful things. But when she starts to walk on my thighs, approaching my stomach, I draw the line and make a run for it – pointing to my watch and pretending I’m late. She gives me a filthy look, realizes she ain’t getting no tip and I’m outa there.
Home Sweet Home. For that much-needed cup of tea and well, it’s downhill from there. I begin a very unfortunate read of the New York Times which has me in a white hot blaze of anger within moments as I read a truly horrendous story about how mammograms are next to fucking useless and how the bastards at the American Cancer Society now admit that the benefits of mammograms have been OVERSTATED. The American Cancer Society now actually admits that mammograms “mainly detect innocuous tumors that will never become life-threatening while they FAIL to detect most of the dangerous tumors.”
Oh REALLY !!!????? That’s great guys…well done. Fantastic work. So you’ve made a bunch of radiologists and oncologists and drug companies and surgeons rich because of INSIGNIFICANT TUMORS THAT HAVE BEEN DETECTED and silly bitches like me have rushed off to be opened up, blasted with chemo, radiation and whatever other shit a bunch of dinosaur doctors can come up with. I’m so angry I have to get the stepladder and reach up to the very top of the kitchen cupboards and find the American Spirits and light up immediately before heading off to pick up the teen from school. I sure as hell don’t dare take a hit of pot and risk freaking out as I ponder whether my tumor would in fact have finally dissolved of it’s own accord or been of no danger whatsoever. HAS THIS WHOLE FUCKING YEAR BEEN AN INSANE WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY AND TEARS??
What can I say? Another night of takeaway, history homework and Ativan. Who knew that the Duke of York both named and used to own all of New York and treated the farmers like shit, charging them huge taxes. Men can be foul. What’s the bet it was a bunch of guys and not a female who decided we ALL NEEDED TO PUT OUR TITS IN THOSE CHARMING MAMMOGRAM torture machines and then get diagnosed with cancerous tumors? When the darling daughter finally gets home exhausted from college at 10.30pm, I give her a Tiger Balm neck massage. And then she gives me one. That’s the kind of fun-loving folk we are.

Am now a mono tit ! nov 15 09

Monday Oct 5
And so, the former health nut who prided herself on never having spent a single solitary night in hospital (gave birth to daughter squatting on bedroom floor, seriously!) is now packing for another two nights at St Johns and wondering just how many moisturizers I will have the energy to slather on. It’s very drying in hospital rooms and a gal can’t help but feel that a general anaesthetic sucks the life out of both body and facial skin..And here’s the good news, no school lunches or homework to nag about for two days but could there be anything more aggravating than a 7 pm surgery and an entire day without FOOD, water or coffee . A friend comes to collect me and am teensy bit tense and irritable as we fight our way through peak hour traffic from Hollywood to Santa MOnica and I realize that I will in fact be there long after the 5pm check-in time. As a result everyone seems to have clocked off for the day and the place is like a ghost-town…There are two other very sweet friends meeting me inside the hospital and we’re all non-plussed as we wander up and down, take the elevator to different floors and resort to calling out “Hellloooo”, literally, trying to find some humans who might be appropriate to the situation.
Twould be laughable if I wasn’t dying for a vodka and a fag – but finally, passing janitors and floor-cleaners, we come across a dimly-lit admitting desk in an inner lobby straight out of the Shining. The gals there seem cranky and crabby and when they realize that no pre-op bloodwork has been done they start to whisper and I find myself defending Dr Bob and explaining that as he thought my breast was about to explode there simply had not been time for any pre-op niceties and besides, I say, I was here a few weeks ago. I am very healthy – “Except for the exploding tit” snickers one of my pals and they both collapse in hysterical laughter. A humorless scowling nurse hustles me into a pre-op cubicle and her colleague joins in and vitals are taken. I point out that they were taken a few hours ago at Tower Oncology but they ignore me and the usual dull questions are asked about allergies and crap and then they ask who will be driving me home and I say that I am to be admitted for two nights and all hell breaks loose and they insist they have NO knowledge of a sleepover whatsoever !!! They are very indignant about it and I actually scream as one of them, who may or may not be trying to emulate the drug-crazed Nurse Betty on the new TV show, inserts an IV with all the finesse of a panda bear wearing snow mittens. My two pals appear in the doorway as the other nurse repeats over and over that there is NO paperwork that will allow me to stay the night and I keep insisting that Dr Bob said I WAS!! It’s farcical and surreal but TERRIFYING too and both pals are now suggesting, with total candor, that perhaps it’s best “we leave now and come back another day”. I am sorely tempted but Nick is now staying the night at a friend’s and I would hate to waste that. And then I’m asked the dreaded question –“What procedure are you having?” and I have to say in my own words “Well they’re taking it all out – the expander, the alloderm and leaving me …empty.”
And in the nick of time, here comes Dr Bob –or God to the nurses and both women seem to relax. One of my girlfriends, a New York toughie, demands to know why it all seems so chaotic and disorganized. I am mortified. He’s a SURGEON, for fuck’s sake. You can’t demand to know anything. But Dr Bob really doesn’t have any of the arrogance or sense of superiority that so many have and he is totally unruffled and pleasant as he tells soothingly it’s all ‘under control’. (So he lies a little..) He confirms to the nurses that I am indeed staying and that’s that. Indeed, I don’t have the energy to go home and come back another day- even though, Dr Bob has bags under the bags and I ask him when he last ate. He just smiles and attends to paperwork and I search feverishly in bag for a protein bar thinking that may revive my flagging surgeon. Damn. Nothing. I suggest a cup of coffee, prepared to personally run to the nearest Starbucks—but he doesn’t seem tempted. Well just give ME some drugs then, I shout to noone in particular. Am ignored. Pat on some eye-cream and rub lotion on hands and then it’s off with the goddamn ’undies again. I make one last cell phone to call Lola and then, as the girls are now chatting merrily, already charmed by Dr Bob, I try to get their attention for a farewell. But they’re distracted. They want to make sure they have an ‘in’ with someone who’s renowned for doing stunning faces and eye jobs.
It’s so late in the day, no one bothers to put me under before I am wheeled into the operating room which is scary and messy with boxes piled in one corner and the white tiled walls are a little dingy. It’s certainly not as gleaming and groovy as on Grey’s Anatomy. At least there’s a gloved, masked person attending to very large long sharp instruments—but where are my drugs?….Ah here’s the drug man and all I can think about as he chats wearily to me is that it is nearly 8 pm and aren’t all these folk tired and hungry and desperate to get home?? They must HATE me.
And I’m out.
But only till midnight when I come around. This was a quickie—just a 90 minute surgery. I don’t feel so bad—but then I remember – and like some tragic amputee, I feel for where my left breast was… Nada. Flat as pancake. GREAT! Even though I knew it was coming, it SUCKS.
And on top of it all, I am bloody starving and all they can find is a cranberry juice and some dry stale crackers as they give me yet another round of IV antibiotics. I try to tell them that I’ve had my antibiotics as 2pm but have no energy to argue and thus can’t even go to sleep till about 1.30am.
Okay—I’ll admit it. This is no longer fun. The nurses barely come anywhere near me for over two days. The lunch ladies come in and give me food. But two or three times I have to get up and make my own bed so I don’t have cold tootsies. Aren’t nice cheerful nurses meant to do that? One tit and cold feet. Give me a fucking break.
And when two sweet friends do come to visit, it ‘s so tiring having to chat and entertain them that I suddenly have such guilt at the amount of time I spent trying to divert and amuse my old dad during his endless stays in hospital.
By 2 pm on Wednesday I pack up and wander off past the nurses station to meet a friend who has come to pick me up who is waiting in the car park. I don’t even bother to say goodbye to anyone—they don’t seem to care.
It hurts like hell as I, A NEWLY MINTED MONO TIT, schlep all my belongings to the car and head off home. Moments later I make a dash to pick up the teen who grumbles a lot but I can tell is secretly pleased to see his mum. But I’m embarrassed when he gives me a gorgeous giant bear hug back at the apartment and I shrink back slightly so he doesn’t feel the lack of a bosom on one side. Does he even know what has happened? Not important – there’s a heap of homework to nag about.

Doc warns tit may EXPLODE...sun nov 8 09

It’s now Saturday night.
Vadim has just finished the 90 minute ritual of stabbing me hard before giving me the IV antibiotics, Nick is skateboarding over to a friend’s house in the hood and then they’re off to the Grove to see a movie. My daughter is off to an art gallery opening and they both think I’m tragic for staying in yet again. Their obvious sympathy makes me feel even worse. I wasn’t always this anti-social hermit. But then my phone beeps with a message and it’s one of those alerts attached to my Gmail calendar reminding me that I actually DO have an INVITE tonight…to a friend’s house for a dinner party. Shit. I think I will have to make the effort to go just to prove to my kids that they don’t have a pathetic recluse on their hands.
So off I schlep in foul mood to find several smug married couples and a few old ring-ins like moi. Polite chit-chat and whenever anyone lowers their voice and tries to engage me in conversation about ‘my cancer news’ I very politely and humbly tell them that it’s all totally under control and have never felt better. I know they’re dying to see what growth there is on head under my cute raffia pork pie hat but perversely, I don’t take it off. Fuck’em.
Now the hostess, an actress, takes about an hour explaining to the guests all the renovations she has made to the house---every last one is a shocking mistake and she has rendered the house now virtually unbuyable and unlivable—but would she listen to my clever, cunning ideas? No. Thus, a miniscule kitchen cut off from everything, two front rooms with zero flow and a big back family room devoid of atmosphere or anything resembling decent lighting. I start to yawn and there is nothing but bitter cold white wine. My cosy bed and the pile of Netflix is beginning to beckon. “Get a grip”, I scold myself. Smile and mingle. Exercise your very flabby Chat ‘n Be Witty muscle.
But it’s when she gaily announces twenty minutes later (now getting on for 9.15pm) that the pizza will be delivered ‘very soon’ and then we can all start playing CHARADES, that I start to panic and realize it is IMPERATIVE I find a way TO ESCAPE. Pronto!. Cats, she has three or four cats. That’s it. I am allergic. (I was about thirty years ago – once, I think) So now I run to the bathroom and rub my eyes vigorously and splash them with water and then struggle back out to the throng and my hostess. I sniff a lot, hold tissues to my eyes, and in a sad-eyed whisper, BEG forgiveness but it seems my cat allergies have ‘come back with a vengeance” and I must sadly take my leave.
YES!!!! I am driving back down Sunset deliriously happy—even though I am actually a rather superior Charades player, I just wasn’t in the goddamn mood and I decide that I might be a tad devilish and stop by Pinkberry for a medium passionfruit and then pop next door to the newstand for an early Sunday New York Times. Now we’re talking.
Well first off, there are 14 PEOPLE IN LINE AT PINKBERY and I cannot abide a queue so I head next door to the newsstand and as I pause to look at Star magazine I watch as the last Sunday New York Times is bought from under me. Okay, this isn’t going quite as planned but figure I should just get something achieved and drive a few blocks up Vine to get some gas as am very low. Dangerously low. So low that I run out right on out of fucking gas one and a half blocks later. I manoever to side of road and realize, to my horror, that it is another one of THOSE Saturday nights. The good news is that having run out of gas about 5 times this year I had to fork over and move on up to the Deluxe membership level with AAA so that I can just call up my buddies there any old time when, like the total fuckwit I have become, I run out of gas. I dial my cousin in Melbourne and probably blow $80 chatting while I wait for my saviors to arrive. Then hit the gas station, spend another $80 on my worthless gas guzzling Discovery and head back home, having nailed another fun-packed Saturday night. I hate weekends and I hate Saturday nights and all they represent and the fact that they still have the power to make me feel so sad and alone. But hey, there is an email from Dr Bob waiting for me.
It seems that the one I sent to him two days ago–where I pleasantly but rather pointedly remark on his NOT noticing my infection or treating it aggressively enough has certainly gotten his attention and playing it hard to get in NOT going to see him this week has also proved rather effective. He insists on coming to see ME, the next day, to see my breast for himself. It feels odd but I do sincerely like the guy and well—who can resist a home visit from a cute surgeon in his scrubs. I can’t help but wonder if he put them on just for me. To look professional.
I insist Lola be there for the visit –in case he is mean and there’s some secret doctor network that means he knows just HOW many other surgeons I’ve seen and there’s a big showdown, a shouting match…but no.. he’s sweet and very pleasant. Although, as my cancer therapist (who at $225 a session is only affordable once in a blue moon) later points out, anyone who thinks they might be sued is bound to be pleasant AND very careful NOT to apologize in any way, shape or form. He doesn’t blink when he reveals that he knows I saw the surgeon from Cedars who deflated my expander but does mutter something about the problem of accumulating fluid in the space. He sticks to his upbeat spiel of “Well there’s less redness and I think the antibiotics are working” and then even ventured a “Well I understand that you felt safer with IV antibiotics” which was a bit much given that at this point at least 6 other doctors have said that was the ONLY fucking way to go. Why I can’t say those very words to him makes me feel like a giant wimp the minute he has gone. I was even hoping my feisty daughter might chime in with something that resembles chastisement but she doesn’t. Not her job. It’s tough. He asked if I would PLEASE come to see him the following Friday to see what progress my unruly, disobedient, wayward breast was making. I say yes and he’s gone.
“Well he’s sweet and kind and he cares” says Lola and to cheer me up, drags me up to he heinous Universal City Walk where she’s heard about Zen Zone. A place that hails from Japan where you hand over yet more dough for healthy, brain-boosting cocktails made from exotic fruits and a smidge of medicinal alcohol, an oxygen tube up your nose for energy anti-ageing and if you’re in the mood, a massage. We blow $50, skip the massage and decide that the Universal City Walk is an unacceptable location.
The next week
Is spent waging a losing battle—with my inflamed breast which refuses to go back to normal. Months of antibiotics have been dumped into my system and still the nasty red patch persists where the skin itself is hard and creepy and crepey and just looks like it could be breaking down. I hit Tower Oncology every day to be stabbed and whereas I would once read the Times and try to make notes, now I have resorted to turning on my little TV and watching it like a zombie. I‘m too tired to exercise, I’m shattered from not exercising – it’s a vicious circle I can’t seem to escape. I do take all my supplements and try to think positive thoughts…no, I lie…there are few positive thoughts in my cloudy brain and I begin to fear it will be another slicing open for yours truly. I visit the surgeon from Cedars and he curtly says to make an appointment for surgery – but with no feeling or affection and I feel like an anonymous patient whose name he’s forgotten. (He had forgotten!)
Is he my guy –or do I stick with Dr Bob? Why can’t I make a decision here? This is ludicrous. MY brain hurts from thinking and I’m so bloody pooped but can never sleep and am invariably still awake when Letterman come on and then it’s a quick switch to Jimmy Fallon. I do love the Letterman show where President Obama points out, to folk saying he is being disrespected because he’s black, that he was in fact a black man before he became president and Dave responds with a wonderfully dry, stone-faced “And how long have you in fact been a black man Mr. President? I like that we can now use ‘black man’ again instead of the idiotically pc ‘African American’ moniker.
And so when Dr Bob calls on Thursday and asks if I can pop down to Santa Monica to see him the next morning, I start to say yes—but then realize I have to see both the Infectious Disease guy and the oncologist the next morning. I offer to come in the afternoon but he has a conference and so he begs me to at least email photographs. Reluctantly I ask Lola to do the honors and she takes some photos that actually make it look quite frightening. I send them off and he calls Friday evening and begs me to come in and see him on Sunday at his clinic. He adds, fairly dramatically, that he’s worried my breast might EXPLODE. I kid you not—that’s the word he uses and adds that he is afraid the skin might rupture or EXPLODE as it looks so thin and that he NEEDS to see me for himself.
Sunday Evening oct 4 Pre-emptive Surgery or The Real Deal
I drag a friend with me to meet up with Dr Bob at 6.15pm …it’s already getting dark and everything’s locked up when we get there and it all feels weird and scary and a teensy but unorthodox. I’m ready to head for the hills and just settle for Cold Surgeon from Cedars but no, here’s Dr Bob telling me to come on in –he’s inside. So sweet –he’s popped his pale blue scrubs on and it looks like just a regular consultation, almost. My girlfriend, who’s never seen the breast in question – tries to act cool when I strip off and makes a valiant attempt at asking some of the questions another friend has emailed to her iphone to ask…but they soon become redundant somehow in light of the fact that Dr Bob has actually taken the liberty of already booking me in for surgery the very NEXT day at 5 pm. Either he is genius clairvoyant/mental telepathist who is reading my mind and knows I am on the verge of dumping him as my surgeon and wants to scare me into a preemptive surgery quick smart—or he genuinely thinks I need to be under the knife quick smart! My pal Sheila dutifully asks some questions as I moan about how to logistically plan how Nick will gets to and from school but the darling daughter, despite her crammed schedule as both college student and coffee shop manager will help it happen. She is the best and am secretly thrilled she is breaking up with her boyfriend. He is very sweet but I need my darling girl.