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.
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