Cancer IS NO FUCKING 'GIFT' IN MY BOOK

Next Day.
I’m back at Cedars where I spent mucho time for scans back when first diagnosed. No more confusion with the East and West Tower and which of the 82 parking lots to use. No sirree. Am revolted by my own familiarity with so many medical establishments around LA and reminds me of how my whole life revolved around these places in Melbourne as I spent four years trying to keep the enlarged heart of my father beating.
East Tower—into one of those elevators that are beyond crowded. Every floor is lit up. Could I be any more irritable? I DO NOT LIKE BEING ONE OF THE SICK PEOPLE.
3.30 Appointment with Infectious Disease dude. Doctor Sam. Like one or two of the surgeons I interviewed he insists on his female receptionist being present – so that double mastectomy patients won’t make subsequent accusations of sexual harassment or inappropriate touching. AS IF!! What jury would believe a doc hitting on the angled breasts of yours truly.
He politely asks me to ‘disrobe’ but I note rather petulantly that there are no robes to put ON and suddenly feel very modest and hideously exposed sitting on the annoying paper-covered table naked from the waist up.
Apparently, a dark red crimson-colored breast is all an experienced ID needs to see before demanding the name of my oncologist. I tell him and before you can say “WILL I LIVE?’ he’s called my esteemed oncologist Dr O on her cell and is saying
“Lyndall’s had a staph infection for 5 weeks and has only taken oral antibiotics so far. Can she come down right now to start on IV?
And so, just 35 minutes after arriving at Cedars I am forking over a mere $9 to the parking lot guy- my cheapest stay ever. How much DO they make at those Cedars Car parks in a year???
Fifteen minutes later I’m back at Tower Oncology Center, a place I hoped never to set foot in again, despite the kindness of all the nurses and nurse practitioners who pumped me full of cytoxin and taxotere - the heinous chemo drugs from March to June. I recall Buck Henry’s alarming email back at the end of February when I first announced my chemo schedule..”Welcome ! You’re in the cancer club now whether you like it or not—with all us old codgers!” And when I told him I was off to Tower he actually uttered the words “ I’m jealous”
“You’re going to love it there, he insisted. I used to look forward to it. They’re soo nice., They bring you warmed blankets, ladies come round with snacks –(or hand-knitted beanies if you’re going bald) and you can even order meals from about a dozen restaurants.” claimed thefamous fusspot enthusiastically. All true, I discovered and they bring it straight it your numbered recliner chair.
Well my fond memories didn’t match Buck’s but there were friendly familiar faces everywhere. They greet me like a long-lost buddy but also express shock that I’m back. I swipe a few candies from the giant jar they keep as if we were kids getting a shot. I prepare to go and use the machine that I know will produce foul tasting coffee but somehow can never resist but before I can even decide on hot choc or vanilla latte I am being ushered into the massive Chemo Lounge, a massive 3000 sq foot area consisting of several nurse stations and about 40 widely spaced recliner chairs - all with their own TVs and uncomfortable side chairs for the poor old friends/spouses that sit grim-faced and uncomfortable for the 4 hours that most chemo treatments take…Though in my case, the chair was usually empty as Lola found the proximity to Barney’s a tad irresistible and would sprint down there and come back to give her tethered old mum a show and tell.
I’m weighed, vitals are taken(so dull and unnecessary) and I’m down in the chair and hooked up in record time. Do they think I’m ill or something? Just a burst of pre-closing time efficiency I tell myself till my oncologist Dr O comes rushing up, aggressively pulling the hospital-like curtains shut to envelop us in our own rather claustrophobic little cubicle. No verbal greeting. Just a big hug and an uncharacteristically pointed “I cannot believe that surgeon! Why did he let it go this long?” She motions for me to lift up my tank top which I do and her eyes widen a little but before I can ask if she thinks my breast will fall off she chides me for not having come to see her earlier. I am tempted to point out that her scheduling assistant never responded to my email but fear it would sound ungracious so instead –
“Yes I wish I had too…” but here’s the weird thing. It truly had NOT occurred to me to discuss the Flaming Red Tit problem with my oncologist. I guess I thought I was done with cancer treatment, not fully comprehending that my compromised system and thus a susceptibility to infection is all part of the chemo/cancer deal and if I had a brain in my head I would have realized that but chemo has definitely dulled my brain –plus I think that in some corner of my brain I still cling top my former identity as health nut/athlete/gym junkie…and so who needs to check in with their oncologist before surgery is even over?
DR O then proceeds to inform me that –after routine post-surgery antibiotics – an ongoing infection should be treated with oral antibiotics for just 3-4 days before getting aggressive with IV antibiotics. She notes with barely-concealed contempt that I took two weeks of Tetracycline before two weeks of Augmentin followed by a week of Clindamycin.
‘About 21/2 weeks too long” she says and then justifies her claim by painting a very grim potential scenario. “If the infection is allowed to take hold and then really won’t budge, at some point you will have to be opened up, and all foreign objects taken out -ie both the expanders and the alloderm have to be removed. The problem is that then the breast skin tends to stick to the chest wall like superglue and when you try to pry it all apart, the resulting cosmetic effects could be ---well, less than ideal. (Code for HORRENDOUS!)The ID doc had already warned me of this. Funny how Dr Bob had never mentioned it.
“So aggressive treatment as soon as possible is the only way to go. I want you to do IV for two weeks 7 days a week. The IV antibiotics bypass your stomach. I can’t imagine how you feel after five weeks of them. It’s very bad for your system you know.”
“Well yes,” I say suddenly very close to tears as I notice a good-looking man holding his wife’s hand tightly as the nurse inserted an IV.
To think I might have avoided over a couple of weeks of the bloating, diarrhea, toxic exhaustion, depression and sleeplessness due to the oral frigging antibiotics but DIDN’T, makes me very, very sad.
“What do I say to Dr Bob ?” I ask
“Tell him I’m trying to salvage the situation. Use the word salvage.” Another hug and she’s off and I sit there, unable to stop watching the couple opposite. The lovely husband has just brought his wife another pillow and keeps smiling at her and rubbing her arm.
I dread those stomach-churning moments of clarity when both denial and one’s Pollyanna-ish belief that some criminally handsome soul mate will appear one of these fine days and make up for his tardiness by being extra heavenly and sexy come into sharp focus and one realizes it is bullshit and one is very much ALONE. Now and forever. Unless some utterly freakish seventy year-old decides he can go nuts and date someone over 40 which is darn bloody unlikely.. AND I KNOW OF WHAT I SPEAK. TWO OLD BOYFRIENDS, 70 AND 72 RESPECTIVELY, ARE BOTH DATING WOMEN UNDER 35. OKAAAAY??
The nurse returns, pulls out the IV and I’m free again. It’s now 5.45. Nick’s school ends at 6pm. I’ve already texted his math tutor to say “Please tell Nick to hit the lunch tables right after tutoring and to do his homework.. That’ll be the day! Poor child. He’s very social, a bit of a chatty Kathy and loves nothing more than a good gossip at the lunch tables after a long day.
I arrive at 6.05, five minutes after the very strict closing time and there’s my gorgeous tall teenage boy perfectly happy to be the lone student - the center of attention with the afterschool staff and dreading the sight of his dragon lady, whip cracking, homework-enforcing mean mother. I fork over the late fee and we speed off.
There’s approximately 9 minutes till the next tutor arrives at our apartment but Nick is starving so we make a pitstop at the fabulous Cactus Taqueria on Vine (no fast food Taco Bell for us) and then rush home to discover that if I’d checked my texts I’d have seen that the tutor cancelled and then realize in my hurry that I’ve left my wallet at the Taqueria. A weeping, cursing dash back, convinced it would not be there and that I deserve to be flogged or worse. But it’s there. I love Mexicans. If only Nick and I had kept up the Rosetta Stone Spanish CDs I spent a fortune on…I leave them a twenty and rush home ecstatic. My biggest kicks these days come when I find things I have just lost.
Two days later. Saturday morning.
Tower Oncology is shut at weekends…so, in order to have my IV antibiotics they send a nurse to me. In my case a 6’6’’ Russian in jeans and flip flops called Vadim – much to the surprise of Nick who seems faintly irritated by the rare sight of a male on his territory. As it is, he’s like a caged lion in our small apartment, desperate to get out and start cruising the neighborhood with friends but that’s along way off I point out. You still have science flash cards to do and reading and math and I begin my weekly sessions of bribery, begging, maybe some more bribery followed, almost always, by screaming.
“Do your flash cards and then I’ll drive you to drumming in West LA and then to the opposite side of the earth to meet your skateboarding pals ”
We both know I’m wasting my breath. I’ll end up doing the history flash cards because the ludicrous curriculum at my Aussie Church of England Girls Grammar School let me study Latin French, English, Math and Science (supposedly preparing me for a proposed career as a doctor) which means I am staggeringly ignorant and I’ve actually come to enjoy doing the flash cards and learning who folk like Kubla Khan were and what caused the Civil War and stuff like that.
But I digress. MY brain is fuzzy. To the well-known syndrome of Chemo Brain has been added the “I’m permanently buggered from antibiotics” brain.
So here we are in a charming street right next to the 405 where Nick takes drum lessons in some random warehouse and I am on the cell phone in the sweltering heat probably getting brain cancer according to Dr Mercola who inundates me and many other nuts with his medical newsletter just about every day and No, I can’t find my ear device and so my ear will just have to suck up the radiation as I give breast surgeon Dr Peg an update and she says I should just dump Dr Bob and offers to call him on the spot and tell him he’s fired.
“He SHOULD have put you on an IV weeks ago!”
But I hate to hurt anyone’s feelings and what if he’s still the best surgeon in town but just skipped the “How To Treat A Staph infection” classes.
“I’ll call him now. You don’t have to ever speak to him again.” Says Dr Peg very matter-of-factly. They’re a tough breed, these surgeons.
Whoaah! It’s like getting a friend to break up with your boyfriend for you. Not quite. But I tell her to hold off. I need to digest all this. I quickly hang up because I can see that Dr Bob is calling in. Well blow me down if he doesn’t sound all hurt and offended that I have cancelled Monday’s appointment. (This is after both Dr Peg and Dr Sam have called him to tell him about the unanimous decision to put me on much stronger IV antibiotics).
I explain that I will be seeing the Infectious Disease doc again to see how the IV drugs are working.
“Well you need to come in on Tuesday or Wednesday and if the redness is still there I’ll open you up and wash you out and take out the expanders for a day or two and then put them back.”
Well that’s a winning suggestion. Ignore the fact that I am now on IV antibiotics and just hit me with two general anaesthetics and slice me open twice in three days. Wow, who could resist the thrill of being unconscious and then fighting one’s way back out of that lovely anesthesia fog twice in three days.
And by the wayI don’t even understand –nor do I care to frankly- the logistics of how he manages to drag out through a small incision around my aureola a huge whacking great thing called an expander (which can be inflated or deflated by injecting a section of it with liquid through my breast) as well as cutting out all the Alloderm, the dead people’s skin which may or may not be the cause of the infection?
That would leave me with crumpled up skin for a couple of days.
And then, three days later, cutting me open again around my nipple he somehow manages to shove a nice fresh expander back in there. As well as another fresh gob of Alloderm to strengthen my now paper-thin skin?
I know—don’t ask. Talk about a can of worms. My head is spinning and I can barely hear Doctor Bob who is at his son’s baseball game and so I just say
“Well I’ll have to think about that” not daring to even hint that I’m being told to give him the old heave-ho. I politely promise we’ll speak soon even as I feel shocked that he’s so cavalier in the way he talks about cutting me open. I click the phone off as he is still speaking . I CAN NO LONGER COPE. My son and his drumming teacher have been standing outside the car in the sweltering heat. Feeling completely frazzled I open the window and we discuss Nick’s drumming. As he lingers I realize he needs his $60 cash for the lesson-oh and another $60 for last week’s missed lesson. Great. Is it any wonder I am still toting the $20 handbag from Forever 21 that I bought for my 23 year-old daughter who refused to be seen dead anywhere near it on the grounds of it being cheap and nasty. So mumsey sports the cheap bag while daughter dearest has snatched the vintage but divine Prada bag I was keeping for best.
Here’s the rest of my day—as if I needed any further confirmation that I now officially have NO LIFE. I drive Nick from West LA halfway to downtown where they skateboard at Lafayette Park. It’s a big scene. Everyone there looks like a scary gangbanger but it’s broad daylight and he’s 14, nearly 5’ 10’ and has size 13 shoes. I watch through the wire fence for a while and then rush home to sleep. As my head hits the pillow, my phone, always close enough to keep radiating my brain, rings and it’s the teen calling in the sweet, kind, loving totally MANIPULATIVE voice that I am powerless to resist explaining that his friend’s brother can’t make it and would I come now to pick them up and drop off his friend in the Hollywood Hills and then take him to Toluca Lake to spend the night with my ex-husband. Not Nick’s father but the father of my daughter. I adopted Nick and he has no father but occasionally my ex, who likes him a lot, has him for the night and he and his third wife, take him to the Smokehouse, Bob Hope’s favorite where ribs and meat a plenty are devoured.. Wife Number three is twenty years younger than me. Of course. Nick and she have a blast together.
It’s Thursday.
What a fun day. I’ve just had my eighth intravenous antibiotic session at Tower Oncology and been to see my third reconstructive surgeon in hopes of finding someone who ‘feels right’ to replace Dr Bob. And I’ve yet to even fire Dr Bob on account of I’m a pathetic, guilt-ridden moron and also because I want to keep my options open. What if I don’t find anyone better who takes insurance who I feel is ‘right’ for me?
Anyway, they all have different plans of attack but on one thing they agree. If we can’t get the Flaming Red Infected Tit to calm down and the expander and the alloderm have to come out, ‘tis not a good thing. Because to be on the safe side, they would have to stay out for a month, at which point the crumpled skin would shrink and shrivel and almost certainly not recover. Thereupon, best bet might be to lop everything off and do skin grafts with skin taken from my back. Although Surgeon Number two, a woman, did suggest the radical and universally rejected plan of waiting a week, taking out the expanders and in one feel swoop, popping in the permanent implants, sewing me back up and ‘hoping for the best”. My oncologist – and the Infectious Disease doc were not amused by that scenario.
This third plastic surgeon, Dr Keith – let’s see –young , unsmiling, serious, kept me waiting an hour and a half in a frigid overly-chilled Cedars consult room and having already googled him and found out he was someone who excelled in sewing back arms and hands and fingers, I couldn’t help but think he will be somehow less intrigued by my old tit than a chopped off leg needing to be stitched back on….
And yet and yet…I feel so utterly and completely confused, at the end of my rope, sick to death of weighing up my options and basically at my wit’s end that within about three minutes of rather theatrically opening my paper gown to reveal the tragic rack, I have let him have his way with me---which is to say I am letting him deflate my poor, POOR bosom’s expander so that there is ’less stress and trauma” on what is clearly already a traumatized area.
I am squeezing my eyes shut as the doc injects me with a big old needle and the nurse gently pats my balled-up fist. Suddenly, I am outside my body and watching this little scene and it truly is SO surreal that this is what it has come to—virtual strangers injecting a breast within minutes of meeting you. I even feel disloyal to Dr Bob.
And although the look is not good, think deflated balloon where the surface is crinkly and sad, the deflation does produce some relief. Like other surgeons I’ve seen he’d like to see what happens after another week or two of antibiotics and then, yes, he’s all for opening me up and taking out the expander. But is he the doctor for me ?? Is he the surgeon I will dump Dr Bob for? So hard to tell in one quick consultation that began an hour and a half late and that lasted only fifteen minutes. But at least everyone’s on the same page. Things have GONE HORRIBLY WRONG AND UNLESS THERE’S SOME KIND OF MIRACLE, the surgery will basically have to be undone and the crap that’s been put in will have to be taken out. “You will have to be device free for a couple of months.” He insists.
Titless on one side for two months? Excuse me?
He did suggest that smooth expanders were the way to go rather than the ones with a rough surface. The tiny little crevices are a breeding ground for bacteria he says but when I mention it to daughter dearest Lola later she recalls that Dr Bob said the rougher expander meant the skin did not adhere to them in some demented unhealthy way. When I sneakily ask Dr Bob about the smooth ones, he says he has never heard of them. What does this mean? Every last tedious detail takes on more meaning.
I BORE MYSELF TO DEATH AND DON’T CALL BACK THE FRIENDS I have because I am dull and self-obsessed and have little good news but some of them are even more boring than me –especially when they tell me “Well you sound FANTASTIC ” Oh yeah?? or “I’m sure it’s all going to work out really well.”
Oh really??
“In six months you’ll be good as new.”
Is that a FACT?
or this one today…”You know, I haven’t called but I really do have your back cos whenever I pray, I pray for you.” OH JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP. And if I ever read about one more jerk saying that CANCER WAS A GIFT, I will personally punch them.
WHAT SORT OF FUCKING GIFT IS IT, PRAY TELL. I’ll tell you what a gift is… a gift is a new Prada bag, a $10,000 gift certificate to Barney’s, a gift certificate for a massage, a lovely orchid, very expensive perfume or something of that goddamn nature. NOT CANCER. And for what’s it worth, I am no different, certainly not gentler, nicer, kinder--I am already nice!!! And my priorities?? Well yes, they may BE A LITTLE DIFFERENT...now I think I may put more emphasis on being BITTER AND TWISTED. (Ah, feel better now).
But of course I am nothing but polite to all these deeply irritating souls who just don’t get that a simple, mundane expression of sympathy would be so appreciated …like ”You poor old thing’ or I’m going to be dropping by with some goodies/groceries….but it’s okay. Folk get nervous to be around sick dopes going through surgeries and think that instead of dropping off the Greenblatt’s Chicken and Vegie Soup, (which they’ve promised about 8 times) they can just substitute it with an email about Kathy Freston’s Reasons To Be A Vegan post…You know, I could be as happy and glowing and healthy looking as Kathy Freston if I was married to a zillionaire and had my own fucking chef to cook tasty, anti-oxidant packed grub. Kathy Freston bugs me. Entire world bugs me. And moments later I am filled with monumental self-loathing for being such a ninny. I’m not blind, deaf or paralyzed so clearly am just whining ungrateful jerk. And those penetratingly negative feelings have probably just proved enough of a catalyst for new cancer tumor to have formed. I CAN’T WIN.

Health Food hell

So---the next two weeks. A lot of draining goes on of fluid now collecting in something called a seroma...a pocket that collects when you remove breast tissue leaving space, not unlike empty closets or drawers for things to collect... and more antibiotics than CAN BE POSSIBLY BE GOOD FOR those crucial flora in my gut....So a lot of time is spent at Erewhon (now that I've felt obliged to boycott Wholefoods since Mr. Wholefoods is opposed to a public option for Health Care) asking for THE most effective and thus expensive probiotics for my stomach. The pale, wan salesperson somehow lures me over to the weirdo counter where bizarre, strange drinks called things like Motor Oil Maco and Seaweed Soup are recommended on an individual basis. The pony-tailed anorexic behind the counter asks for a quick health history and his eyes start to bulge in a very unpleasant fashion as I tick off cancer, surgery, chemo, more surgery, staph infection and antibiotics. He looks up a book before telling me to settle down while he whips up something "really healing and beneficial".
Five minutes later he pours almost black goop into a large paper cup and whacks on a price sticker that reads--I kid you not- $24.95.
I think of doing a runner but just smile weakly and push my trolley to the checkout. I take a large sip and have to report that it tastes fouler than anything I've ever had the misfortune of tasting.
"This is vile" I say to the pretty checkout girl..."I think I may vomit."
"Did you get it over there?' she asks nodding her head towards the bar. I nod back.
Lowering her voice, she whispers conspiratorially "Do you not want to pay for it?"
"I'd be THRILLED not to pay for it" I respond, sensing some long-standing feud between her and the pony-tailed dude.
"Good, I'll tell him it's bad" and she tosses it in the bin instantly.
Perversely I start to wonder if it just might have been the magic cure-all for infection. Too late.

Week drags on—friends stop calling for most part and I just spend a bloody fortune on twice weekly Vitamin C infusions, three more trips to the oxygen joint where I have discovered the answer to claustrophobic nightmare side it...Delve into my bedside drawer which now contains about 27 different things to make you blotto---from Ativan to Xanax, Lunesta, Ambien, Vicodin.. Well, you get the picture and in fact half a Xanax really does the trick in the Oxygen Hyperbaric Chamber. It’s niiiice.

The days truly blend into each other. I try--but I can't fight the overwhelming, utterly horrifying exhaustion that comes over me at least two or three times a day. I find myself leaning on the kitchen counter, unable to even stand without leaning as I wait for the kettle to boil or as I butter toast.
It reminds me of my mother. The last two years of her life she just had no energy. None. I remember my shock the first time I noticed it on one of my annual trips back to Australia. She just leant on the counter every time she tried to cook something or make a cup of tea. It made me cry then when I realized just how tired she was. It makes me cry now. She was dead a year later.

And then the two weeks of the antibiotic, Augmentin, is up and it's back to Dr Bob.
I am convinced he will now send me to an Infectious Disease doctor as my breasts look almost exactly the SAME. Instead he hums and ha's and talks vaguely of perhaps opening me up to take out the expanders and wash me out.
So I nervously suggest that perhaps I should go to see an ID doctor and he actually listens.
That is to say he doesn't actually send me to see him. But he does say "I know an ID and I'm going to call him right now."
And he does so--there and then- somewhere else so I don’t hear what he says but he does come back and informs me the ID has suggested I go onto another antibiotic for a week called Clindamycin.
Now I must just state that I am not the shy and retiring type --many pals would claim that the exact opposite but here's the thing --I just DID NOT have the energy to ask why he was not sending me to see an expert in the field of flaming infected breasts.
This particular antibiotic makes me feel like everything else I've been through is kindergarten -these pills make me almost comatose. I sleep almost every day, all day. Take my son to school and come back home to bed. Swear every day that I will go down to the gym in my building but cannot do it. Impossible.
Anything but takeaway is almost impossible. Trying to help the teen with the endless amounts of homework makes my head hurt. Badly. Gives me a blinding headache and I am irritable and foul and barely human.

One week later. (2pm appt with Dr Bob)
It is five weeks today since Surgery. I swallow the last vile Clindamycin with a chocolate shake I have made for Nick and myself in lieu of a nutritious breakfast. We’re incredibly late. Somewhat justifiably as Lola has broken up with her boyfriend and she stayed over and slept in my bed last night and woke me at 6 am as she rummaged in my closet for some cosy piece of cashmere to pop on for her early job, reappearing ten minutes later to report a dead battery and beg her ambien junkie/zombie of a mother if I would drive her to the coffee shop where she has to open up at 6 and ‘prepare stuff ‘ before opening the doors at seven.
It’s still dark outside and now that I’m here, crippling fatigue aside, I’m suddenly fearful about my daughter entering through this squalid back alley entrance on her own. I accompany her inside to make sure there are no burglars waiting to pounce. Cannot believe how brave she is and suddenly guilty and bitter that I never had a rather menial but impressive job like this opening up a hipster Melrose coffee shop frequented by freshly CAA-signed young screenwriters and many other wanna-be’s. I marvel as she whirls into action – turning on the coffee machine, putting out the pastries and generally showing a speed and high energy efficiency that hitherto has not been demonstrated in my kitchen or home. Eggs are cracked, benches are wiped, glasses are polished and deeply impressed I wonder who has entered my daughter’s body. I beg for a latte but she’s too busy and so I rush home and crash back to bed, not even hearing the 7.15 alarm.
Drop the teenager off at school and ominously the head master who greets the kids every single day, approaches my car.
“Say good morning to Mr Darryl and look him in the eye “ I hiss to Nick as he lumbers out of the car and naturally Nick looks away and grunts something unintelligible at Mr Darryl who can never quite hide his displeasure at Nick’s ridiculously long hair and skintight hot pink girl’s jeans. (He prefers a nice girl jean – so much tighter, cheaper and more colorful than boy jeans usually and I am secretly proud that although his sexuality is not in question he is quite boldly foppish in his dressing. I wave at Mr Darryl and speed off to Santa Monica for the zillionth time this year.
Fed up with paying $14 every time I see Dr Bob. I park half a block away in the Funeral Parlor Carpark and run in for what seems like my 900th checkup. As I undress and put on the seersucker gown I take a good look in the horrifying but appropriately-lit exam room. My left breast is still a very angry red after 5 weeks of swallowing enough antibiotics to stop an angry rhino in it’s tracks.
Dr Bob enters and like some robotic hooker, I open my robe as I greet him. He pokes. It hurts.
“Still red” I say.
“Yes but a little better” he counters
“Well” I begin but trail off …. Why is it so difficult to argue with a surgeon?
“Perhaps a little but it is still red. What about seeing an ID guy?
Silence. He takes notes.
“Maybe IV antibiotics are the answer at this point ..”
“No I think another 5 days of Clindamycin is the way to go..”
Really? REALLY??? Just slide into my sixth week of antibiotics even though they’ve made ME feel sick, toxic, beyond the valley of depressed and exhausted but have NOT even begun to tame the blazing hot, flaming red breast?
I feel beaten but using every last drop of energy I have left I manage to ask
“And you don’t think it makes sense to check with the Infectious Disease doctor you spoke to last week to see what he says?”
“No, try these again, “ he says, handing me the prescription.
“Okay” I say meekly and start to get dressed.
I reach the Funeral Parlor’s empty half acre parking lot to find that these godly Christian bastards have called the towing company and yes indeedy, they’re hooking up my car!
I whip out a twenty and make a tearful plea to please, please NOT tow ..
“I’ve just been with my cancer surgeon and he kept me waiting forever..”
“Fifty dollar call-out fee” interrupts the slimy mean guy.
I whip out another thirty bucks and he unhooks my ride. Fifteen seconds later as I speed back towards Hollywood I boldly dial my breast surgeon Dr Peg and leave a message. Apologizing profusely in advance for calling when I know how busy she is, I ask if she thinks a sixth week of antibiotics is the best way to go at this point.
Eureka! She calls me back before I have hit the 405 and asks if she’d heard correctly. I STILL had an infection?? I was to call an infectious disease doctor immediately and she gave me the name and number of the same ID doc that the surgeon at the Hyperbaric Oxygen Center had given me three weeks ago. I called and was told they couldn’t fit me in for 2 weeks but moments later Dr Peg texted to say she had made an appointment for the very next day.

Discover Infection....so amusing

Wake up feeling feverish and my chest feels like it's on fire. Try to be good mother and make school lunch but can I be really frank? Making school lunches bores me rigid and he never likes them and so I hurl a few snacks together, give him the six bucks for school lunch, hand him his morning drugs (Adderall for the ADD and Accutane for skin plus some multi-vites!) plus his bowl of Cheerios and milk that is eaten in the car with towel on lap and off we head to school, late as usual. Johnny Depp's children's bodyguards - two gigantic black gentlemen who hang out at school next to their equally humongous black Escalade all day, snap their heads round to look as I loudly roar to a halt. I smile insincerely and wave as Nick cringes, swearing under his breath. They stare back stonefaced and off I zoom to Starbuck's for my morning Venti. Too tired to even wait for my order in a standing position. I have to sit- the sweat pouring off me.

I call Doctor Bob. In surgery all day. I call his cell. No response.
So called my breast surgeon Dr Peg who happily was available in one hour. (Officially she is not the doctor in charge at all--it is the Reconstructive Surgeon but what's a mid-reconstruction sheila to do ?? Be your own advocate and call the next surgeon on one's list- the one who made the first cut and scooped out all the breast tissue. She's also the one who first gave me the staggering news that I had invasive breast cancer. She did my lumpectomy. I like her. She's a woman. I wish she did reconstruction as well.

Back home to hit the hay for half an hour before dragging self off again for...?? .Gosh, how unusual. Another doctor visit. WHAT a scintillating life.
My very beautiful breast surgeon takes one look at practically luminous red breasts and declares
"Jesus, you've got an infection.!"
At this moment Dr Bob calls me back and when I see it's him calling I ask Dr Peg, somewhat panicked, what I should say.
I AM ACTUALLY FEELING GUILTY THAT I have gone behind his back as it were to get a second opinion on my now dark red heat-radiating boobs.
She just takes the phone and tells him very matter-of-factly that I have an infection and need antibiotics. Okay, great. But is he going to be upset with me I keep wondering, like a nervous schoolgirl. Yes, it's insane but not totally...
After all, Dr Bob is the one who swears he will deliver beautiful breasts again and I am feeling somewhat captive and inclined to keep things jolly and pleasant.
And so, when he calls me an hour later before I have even collected the meds from Rite Aid, insisting I come to see him tomorrow, I am somewhat miffed and desperate to ask why the HELL he did not even diagnose this infection ! But instead I simply ask meekly if we can make it monday as I actually have plans tomorrow. No, not a lunch or a high-profile meeting, not even a quick guilt-ridden trip to Fred Segal or Barney's - but a couple MORE doctor appointments.

No, am not ludicrous hypochondriac.
Well actually--maybe I am. Cancer, a lumpectomy, chemo, a double mastectomy and a nice staph infection WILL turn a gal into a bit of a scaredy cat.
And concern (outright terror comes later) now spurs my sluggish brain into recalling that I should be checking in with the fabulous Dr Cynthia in Santa Monica who has been giving me 90 minute Vitamin C infusions during chemo as well as various supplements. Unlike the vast majority of doctors on Planet Earth she is not a total dinosaur and seems to have grasped the readily available knowledge that nutrition, supplements etc can actually prevent illness and promote wellness. Yes, that's it, she's a wellness practitioner. She believes in homeopathy and even blood tests to see what heavy metals might have seeped into one's system.
So I call to tell her about the infection and she says to come in the next morning for another Vitamin C infusion and suggests that I then call a joint in Beverly Hills to book a session in a Hyperbaric Oxygen chamber. Really. And that it can help with post-surgery healing as well as infections.

FRIDAY
So, was greeted like long lost buddy at Dr Cynthia's and before long, stabbed with a needle for the 980th time in 9 months am resting in yet another recliner chair with whopping great bag of Vitamin C plus some other goodies--Vitamin B and some homeopathic tinctures as well.
It's lovely and restful for about 90 seconds and then two things invariably happen--the Vitamin C gives you a raging thirst AND makes you want to pee in a bad way, but one becomes a master at putting down one's Starbuck's, the Times, popping down the footrest and keeping one's arm totally straight as one manoevers the IV stand past lots of sets of feet belonging to annoyed people who never seem to need to take a pee as they sit lined up in this ridiculously narrow room. The stand and I have to get water from the water cooler, then go to the bathroom and do what one does, one-handed....and back again. Exhausting. And this is the repeated at least three or four times in the 90 minute procedure as I guzzle water and yawn trying to ignore the blazing row that now rages inside my noggin...The wholistic side of me is convinced good healing stuff is flowing through my veins but the skeptic in me screams out "Waste of bloody time and money!"
Speaking of time and money the internal furore now reaches new peaks as I drag my tired body back down Wilshire Boulevard to the aforementioned Hyperbaric Oxygen place and have to strip once more and show my tits to the admitting doctor who happens to be a very nice breast surgeon from a few floors above who is filling in for the doctor/owner of the place who's on vacation. He takes the proverbial 'one look at my tits' and tells me that the minute I have finished with my oxygen treatment I must call his friend, an Infectious Disease doctor at Cedars and have MY INFECTED BREASTS looked at.

I thank him for his concern and take the name and number he has frantically written out for me-offering to make the call himself- and again, the cynic in me says that perhaps he is just a germ freak--or his pal needs new patients and I head out to the room where the oxygen chamber lies there like --well like something astronauts would practice in at NASA or--- just like it did in that famous photo from the 80's where Michael Jackson lies in one in an attempt 'to enhance and extend life'. No, it didn't work out so well for him but then again, he was nutty and did not have infected boobs.
So, wearing a little cloth robe I hop on the gurney type thing, am given lots of information about pressure and having to swallow so my ears don’t pop and if I start to feel real pain then I must tap on the thick plastic ceiling above my head etc etc But I tune out as I suddenly start to panic about the claustrophobia side of things.
But I'm too chicken to get out of it all now and have already handed over my credit card.
So a button is pressed, whirring sounds begin and I wish my son was here. He would enjoy it.
And then the end of the giant tube is shut and a deafening silence descends.
Shit, I think I want to pee again and I truly loathe myself right about now for getting into this insane pickle. Is it time to start banging on the ceiling.
No, hang on, the jolly fat attendant looms into view above me holding a phone . He starts to speak to me from outside the space ship. I can hear him and somehow he can hear me.
Very sophisticated technology for the 80's.
He asks me what channel I want and I spot a TV far far above me, faintly visible through the thick plastic. I go for CNN and then lie there for an hour hideously uncomfortable. For one thing, CNN, I now realize, repeat their headlines every few seconds.
Desperate to pee, my back starts to hurt and I have to swallow every ten seconds because of the pressurized space ship I am in and there are stabbing pains in my poor old innocent ears...Finally, about 50 minutes in, I can bear it no longer. I will pee in the space ship and my back is burning and I am sort of freaking out.
I tap frantically. Nothing. I can hear music coming from behind me.
More tapping.
Nada.
Has everyone left? Maybe there was an earthquake and I won't be found for 48 hours.
God I hate my life.

Eventually the jolly fat one appears, still bopping to the music he has clearly been grooving to in the back-- and starts to speak but he has forgotten the phone and I cannot lipread. Try to stay calm.
He realizes and disappears as he grabs the phone.
'I want to get out NOW PLEASE!" I plead...and he then informs me that because I am the equivalent of 3000 feet under water or 30,000 or something (I thought it was space ship, not a friggin SUBMARINE) it will take him at least ten minutes 'to bring me up'.
"But I am up. I am up here in the bloody bastard room like YOU" I want to scream but just grin like a fool and beg him "Please come back in ten minutes. Don't forget"
Five minutes which seems like five hours later, wet with perspiration, I tap again.
"Am I up yet?"
Apparently I am still a few thousand feet underwater.

And then I reach dry land and the gurney starts to slide out and I jump off the gurney before it is even fully out. I've never been happier to reach dry ground EVER.

The skeptic in me laughs maniacally at the goody-goody self-healing side of me.
"Well the stress of that little adventure will have cancelled out any good it might have done you".
Hard to argue with myself on that front.

I am practically hyper-ventilating at the exhaustion/cost factor of it all and it suddenly hits me HARDER than usual that of course none of this alternative wholistic type shit is covered by Blue Cross. They only cover the hard-core drugs of course.1 Bastard Insurance shysters. Big BLOODY PHARMA. Big Pharma Fucks. And if I see one more TV ad for some foul drug with nine hundred hideous side effects I will scream. How can anyone take the FDA seriously when they let all these ludicrous ads on the airwaves which have categorically made people ask for more and more prescription pills.
I head to a 7/11 for a nice coke before I can swallow one of these new whacking great big hard-to-swallow antibiotics and now on my way to school to collect the teenage son and head straight to his orthodontist to check on his full mouth of braces before swinging over to his dermatologist for his monthly check-up and blood test to make sure his poor little liver is coping with the Accutane. This is insanity.

Next Check Up..

Shit ! Doctor Bob says that until the drains are less than half full for two days in a row I have to keep them in--so, that of course is fantastic news..NOT !
Two stupid bags hanging from my body for several more days. I should have lied about the amount of fluid. But this is what happens to people who don't read the Home Care instructions very carefully and inadvertently tell the truth.
Beyond depressing but I try to be a cheerful, upbeat patient as one does with a doctor, especially a surgeon who -and it's really just hitting me now - I will be seeing every week or two for the next three to four months as he puts dirty big needles into my breasts to expand the expanders before finally opening me up again to replace the expanders with permanent implants. At this rate it'll be 2010 before sex could even be a remote possibility. Literally.
I have so many questions - but try to keep them to a minimum especially when my opening salvo "Do you think my breasts will ever look less horrifying?" is met with a chuckle and "You're such a character!"
My next attempt, said even more pleasantly (I swear!) is "But has anyone ever looked this bad at this point?" meets with silence and the doc asks the lovely young nurse for more tape to bolster my misshapen breasts. Did he hear? Not sure but best not repeat it I feel in case it sounds accusatory.
It is just so odd the way one feels one feels one HAS to treat doctors with kid gloves and the utmost respect---After all, it's my ONLY body and my only life. Oh and let me be very clear about this....former questions to doc were not out of line. My breasts are NOT a good look. One breast is twice as big as the other and has a strange egg-shaped lump veering out crazily towards the armpit whilst old leftie (which was innocent and had just one old benign tumor ) is like a flattened pancake and has a downward-facing nipple....
BUT, lest you think I give my breasts no credit ---I have to admit that my main fun in life now is when - somewhat akin to a nervous tic, I compulsively push the expanders in and out so that they 'pop', simultaneously if I get the timing right -with a satisfying little "POOLOOP" sound.... good times.

Next couple of visits....
Okay, I am going to spare you the truly and deeply tedious details but suffice it to say that a couple of days after my drains have been taken out---my breast swells like a balloon and the doc has to get out the horse needle and drain my breast since fluid is collecting right around the underside where the cadaver skin--politely called Alloderm- has been placed. Now this is a day or two after another horse needle has injected MORE fluid into the expander...so- and this is where my drug-addled brain loses the plot-I have been expanded and then drained- but in different spots though they feel like the same spot but since I am far too squeamish to look--what do I know...but none of it is really explained properly and I am tired of asking questions and think that perhaps ignorance is bliss.
I just know I am like human pin cushion and keep asking why my breast gets redder and angrier looking by the day. But he says it "all looks fine -- just fine " and who am I to argue.
Just know I am feeling BAD--- really bad, like "Can I actually stay awake and alert enough to keep driving the car down Olympic Boulevard?
Whoops, just ran a red light camera and GOT yet another bastard bunch of BAD points- as I speed home from the doc to my beckoning bed.
I suspect that maybe actually I'm really sick when I don't even have the energy to nag at my gorgeous but very distracted son about his homework every ten minutes. Then I know something's wrong when I lie in bed - completely lacking the energy to get up and make the breadcrumbed chicken breasts I had PROMISED TO COOK after three nights of takeaway. Was deeply grateful when child offered to microwave some mac n cheese. Organic, natch.

At about 8 pm he goes down to the underground car park to search for his special 'composition' book in the car and I wonder whether a quick nicotine hit will give me the energy to help him with the mission statement for a fictitious charity he has just told me he has to write for English and I swiftly turn on the stove’s gas burner to simultaneously light a stick of incense and my cig....and then in a flash of brilliance decide to get a protein hit with a quick spoonful of peanut butter.
Uh oh---I hear Nick outside the front door putting his key in the lock and grabbing a paper towel to wipe some tell-tale ash from the counter, I then make a lightning dash to my bathroom where I shut the door, take a last drag and spray the non-aerosol air freshener. (Even a very tolerant 14 year-old son draws the line at his cancer victim mother smoking)

I slip out a few moments later feeling positively lightheaded and dash to Nick's room to see if there is any way humanly possible to help him with the essay- other than by actually WRITING THE WHOLE THING MYSELF. I lie on his bed waiting for him to find his agenda and the essay directions.....that'll be twenty minutes..
But right about then I smell something burning and then there's a DEAFENING ALARM going off....is it our smoke alarm--or the building alarm - or both?
Well okay, I don't actually recall turning off the gas burner and I MAY have flung the paper towels in the general proximity of the stove and well, in any event, the roll of paper towels is now very much ALIGHT on top of stove!
I shriek like a banshee as my brave darling son comes to the rescue, grabs the frying pan scoops it up and manages to hurl the flaming missile into the sink before turning off the burner on the stove and turning to give me an accusing look.
"What did you do??" he shouts.
"NOTHING! " I shout back as I grab a towel and start waving it under the alarm. But it doesn't stop and as Nick opens the front door to get some air we both note that lights are flashing, the alarm is loud enough to reach the Valley and we see residents fleeing to the Stairs carrying small dogs and cats and crying babies in their arms. A huge German Shepherd practically runs me over as I rush out to look.
“Oh I bet it's a false alarm,” I mutter guiltily--though it does seem like a weird coincidence.

Any thoughts of sticking it out soon leave my pounding brain---This alarm is PREPOSTEROUSLY LOUD and so I reluctantly don Uggs, grab keys and follow my son who is thrilled to be leaving homework to join the rushing throng of residents hurrying down the stairs. I decide on the elevator but find that a huge iron door has appeared out of nowhere and shut off access to the foyer where the elevators are...so yes, even I have to backtrack and use the bloody stairs.
And there they were - the entire population of this enormous apartment building gathered at the back of the building. But look, it was a lovely hot evening, a brilliant red sun was setting (which would otherwise have been missed.)..there were little kids in the pj's running round and shrieking like wild things, overexcited teens texting their pals and people laughing and cracking jokes as they petted each other's pooches. EVERYONE WAS HAVING A BLAST. Okay so a few cats in their carry boxes hissed a little and one new mother with screaming infant seemed a tad stressed but generally there was a sense of bonhomie- especially when about ten burly firemen arrived and everyone cheered. And there was no proof it was my fault.

Whatever--people were back in their apartments 25 minutes later, I had not been charged with arson and I still had to write the bloody mission statement as Nick was way too frenzied now to focus. I practically hallucinated as I wrote the last sentence at 11.35, Nick now snoozing happily in bed.
I empty the fucking drains and it's me for the hay.

Plastic Surgery....but not the good kind!!!

HAVE JUST HAD A DOUBLE MASTECTOMY….So some kind folk email me and ask "How's it going ?"
Well just fine and dandy I say...though part of me wants to shriek-- It's a miracle and God knows why or how I am here writing and utterly alive!!!.I mean, WAS the combo of a jet-lagged jet-setting plastic surgeon and a sleep-deprived 'new mother of triplets' breast surgeon the IDEAL combo for me and my bilateral skin-sparing, nipple-saving mastectomy with right lymph node removal and then reconstruction ?

For instance, the morning before the operation...there's the glam good-looking young reconstructive surgeon Dr Bob yawning insanely, eyes barely open and boasting of two weeks of wild nights in Ibiza till 5am every night on his vacation, which had ended just ONE day earlier ---as he asked me "Are we, (yawn, yawn), saving the nipples or not??(yawn, yawn)..I don't remember"--- and as he madly scans notes clearly trying to remember who the hell I was and what he was meant to be doing for about 6 hours the next day, I helpfully offered to call Dr Peg, the ridiculously gorgeous breast surgeon on her cell to ask if she was indeed saving the nipples since it was really her decision in her initial three hour stint before the Big Guy took over.....Alas, I couldn't hear her answer when I reached her 'cos the 6 week old twins were screaming in the background like banshees and she sounded croaky and SHATTERED and crabby...."Here, speak to Dr Bob" I said enthusiastically, since I had chosen, with questionable wisdom, two surgeons who HAD NEVER WORKED TOGETHER before...(most mastectomies are done by a team that have worked together but after meeting a heap of doctors, I had decided I liked these two, both stars in their fields, and had hoped, in vain as it happened, that they might have at least met OR spoken before this) .....but as I looked up I realized that Dr Bob had slipped out of the room....probably to get a hit of coke....so I hopped out in my gown to try and find him--but he was nowhere to be found and I figured well....they'd meet tomorrow in the operating room, and Peg had already hung up anyway..!
Hmmm. sSould I run for the hills now I asked myself, but faltered as Dr Bob reappeared, smiling.
....Suffice it to say that later in the day, jetlagged myself at about 2pm, the scheduled time for my surgery the next day--I had a mini panic attack and called Dr Bob's office and said I was NOT HAPPY about the fact that the two surgeons had never met OR spoken to discuss my case--NOT HAPPY I repeated a FEW times... and I'm afraid I was probably even fouler than that and eventually Dr B called back to try and calm me down...but he sounded like he'd just swallowed 6 valium or shot up, so was not remotely soothed by the call!
In fact, decided to pop out and buy a LOT of goodies (Chinese food, vodka, chocolate) to stuff into my face before the midnight deadline....and probably should, in the spirit of total candor, confess that realizing, as I stood in a tragic Trader Joes line that I would never have sex again, I made a quick detour on the way home to the Hustler store (they WERE having a half-off sale!) and purchased a couple of vibrators--well three actually--they were SO cheap. But coming out and finding some foul west Hollywood parking inspector giving me a dirty big ticket was VERY upsetting in my fragile state, and when I found that whipping off my trendy trilby to reveal bald head--"Hellooo, CANCER!!!' and then pointing out the Disabled Card dangling from my mirror did not inspire him to tear up ticket, (was in front of a driveway okay??) I wept, slammed doors, drove off like bat out of hell and was forced to run into 7/11 for some lovely American Spirit, poison-free fags.

An hour or two later my darling daughter came over to calm down mama....and SCREAM about the cigs and as I wondered aloud if I shouldn't have perhaps gone with one of the BREASTS ONLY dudes in Bev Hills (surgeons who only deal with breasts and nuttin else), Lola googled up Doc Bob's slick website and showed me all the stunning face lifts he also does and said "Mum, for god's sake, get a grip, faces are harder than tits...he'll be fine!" Why the hell I hadn't bargained for an eyelift as well while I was under I could not comprehend --I mean why not at least wake up with SOME part of your anatomy looking better than before--that would be a bonus, right ?? !! Note to self--am a MORON!

At 2am -after one last mouthful of cheese on toast and one last secret cig in the bathroom (I had found where Lola hid them)--staggered into bed, guilt-ridden about nicotine.....But now, just wish I had taken a photo of my rather stunning pre-op bosoms.

Anyway---I did survive the massive 8 hour saga--(they cruelly intubated me to make sure I would)...despite the South African anesthesiologist being mean and only giving me about one and a half seconds of fun before I was OUT--I had begged for a few minutes of euphoria and the 'good Michael Jackson stuff' but he was not amused--a real pill who had even tried to trick me with a casual "So how was breakfast this morning?" as he casually wrote some notes...

Both surgeons were LATE by the way. Over one hour !! It couldn't start till both were there and so I had to lie in dull room till 3pm (peak jet lag time for those recently returned from Spain !!) while annoying nurses changed shifts and asked the same deeply aggravating questions like "What is your understanding of the procedure you are having today? Please tell me in your own words.. "
Foul curses under my breath with Lola giving me filthy looks and the one to whom I said "My understanding of it all?? Two people attacking me who have never met !" then got all uppity...and discovered that I hadn't taken my undies off as instructed for the friggin bloody buggery catheter ! She was really vile and said nothing could proceed till I took them off. Bitch !! So, a cold bloody bum as well as everything thing else, including white tight spanx like tights to stop swelling. Like HOW?? (NOTE--LOLA is cranky now cos she says I stole these bits from her recollection of it all and that I am drug-addled fooI ---and don't remember all this but I really do)

Three days in hospital---all a blur and guess what? Doc Bob took off on holiday again the next morning and the breast surgeon had a three day weekend to hang with her twins, thus alarming several nurses who were shocked to discover there were NO instructions...but darling Lola had grilled them both when they each finished surgery the night before and was very in charge and together.....I barely remember a thing except for the big giant white Labrador some old couple brought in for 'healing purposes' who was trained to get up on the chair next to my bed --but NOT trained to show a whit of interest in me as I patted him. He wouldn't even look me in the eye--bastard!

Drug-addled days lurking in bed and stumbling round the apartment. I have rediscovered Jon Stewart and am in love with him....
--till the brilliant, sweet divine Lola Nightingale (who has looked after her mom so DIVINELY and well) took me to see Doc Bob ( finally back from his mini-break) yesterday and he announced that the witty ol’ drains have to stay in another week- cos there's so much bloody BLOOD still flowing from the wounds down lovely tubes into two huge plastic bags that are pinned to the witty mastectomy bra contraption I am wearing.....drains that unless you are some kind of friggin technician and close so they are airtight and very, very carefully shut them, tend to leak out onto your very best 800 thread count sheets you have been saving for fab hot date--or, in my case, the day you return from tit surgery. Also, note to sheilas who may have to endure this gorgeous surgery one day soon...when you wake up so out of it and practically comatose from so many drugs and sleeping pills that you decide you HAVE to defy doc's orders and drive yourself just a couple of blocks to Starbucks for delicious Venti Latte, then make sure bloody pouches are neatly tucked into sweat pants so that other folk walking in don't look at you, look down and then practically gag before politely looking away...

As I was saying....the Doc took the sticky bandages off the revoltingly lumpy excuses for tits and inspected the tragic fading blackened nipple that may or may not survive---his eyes GLUED THE ENTIRE TIME TO LOLA'S lovely FACE. He then started to ignore me as if I really was a disfigured old mother and grill the stunning Lola. Before long they were discussing Lola's life in detail, her college, her interests, living conditions. boyfriend etc.....
and as Lola says "He was giving me the eye and it was definitely the sex eye..." He finally got a grip and turned his attention back to sad old mum sitting there half fucking naked...and to really cheer me up he told me grisly details of what he found in my chest cavity...NO muscle for a start--it had been cut out by previous butcher/plastic tit guy and he ‘fessed up to fact that I have dead people's skin in my chest now to support forthcoming tits...Lola claims she told me after the surgery but I told her I wish she wasn't a liar..

I then asked him if he thought Dr Peg used airbrush makeup cos her skin is so flawless and whether he thought she has used Botox but Lola, deciding we WERE ALL on drugs, very promptly tried to refocus the discussion to healing, bandage changing and when the next procedure will be.

Okaaaay---enough rambling for now--time for more sweet, kind pills....Decide I love both my surgeons and it's off to sleep and dreams of running in fields bare breasted...or something.....about to have sex maybe ???
One Week Later

The initial buzz of popping Vicodin, Xanax, Ambien CR and Ativan--guilt-free ('take what you like--it was a 7 hour surgery' they told me) whilst lolling in bed 24 hours a day has worn off! Besides--failed to find the combo that would prevent the searing pain of even turning over in bed or opening a tamper-proof pill bottle and I now feel vile beyond belief.
A toxic antibiotic-filled wreck. (And let's not even discuss how the codeine in pills like Vicodin slow the digestive system down -grinding it to a hideous halt. Memo to Self-stock up on Fibre Pills!)
I do believe that some people enjoy having a perfectly genius excuse to stay in bed, read, sleep and do nothing ! I am NOT that person. I'm restless, agitated, loathe my own company and by about 1pm as dust motes drift lazily in the light that only comes in the AFTERnoon (reminding me of the same dusty particles I encountered in the Southern hemisphere as I tended my darling old dad for four years in Melbourne as he struggled to stay alive ), you realize with perfect DISGUST that only pathetic, sad, TRULY ILL folk are STILL in bed at this hour.

And besides, I ask you...how fantastically relaxing is it to lie there feeling as if two heavy, scalding HOT rocks have been freshly scooped from an active volcano and roughly sewn into your bosom cavities by A VERY HEAVY-HANDED GOBLIN who doesn't like you very much??
So up I stagger, swapping the Vicodin for three healthy Advil and a frantic search ensues amongst the dozens of pills and supplements for my son's ADDERALL (doctor-prescribed, as is the way in the USA) and I quickly swallow one of the little blue beauties for some sorely-needed pep.
Unfortunately the resulting burst of energy means I have the courage to finally turn on the overhead light in the bathroom and inspect the post-chemo growth of hair on head. (When I first went bald, I popped a ridiculously low-wattage lamp into my bathroom deciding that without eyebrows, lashes or hair, mental health could be best maintained in complete gloom.)

Like a mole up for air, I blinked repeatedly in the foul ugly light but as my eyes finally adjust and I get a good gander, I nearly faint on the spot. It wasn't just the mousy brown fuzz- patchy, thin and dull - (let's be frank girls twenty years of dyeing one's hair blond can make one's TRUE hair color seem alien and QUITE hostile) --no, it was the healthier thick patches of grayish white hair glistening gaily and practically shrieking at me, in some heinous sing-song..
"You're old, you're old, a cancer victim and OLD !"
I was not mistaken. My temples and sideburn areas were sprouting healthy tufts of GRAY HAIR.
Just like my dear old dad.
On him ? "Heavenly--sooo distinguished!"
On me ? "Foul--ageing lesbian!" (And I love lesbians)
Okay, I admit it. Am SHALLOW, VAIN BITCH - what can I tell you?
But when even the doctor tells you not to look at your own tits -"It's best " he explained cryptically, surely to goodness your hair, in sympathy, could at least refrain from overnight graying!
I collapse in tears on the bathroom floor and then, realizing that Advil don't cut it, hit the hard stuff and crawl back into bed, leaving the TV on MSNBC...When I wake up many hours later, programming has dwindled into some marathon of shows about prisoners and their lives. I weep again--why do I always feel sorry for prisoners- and wish most of them were not in prison. Possibly because America has the highest per-capita number of prisoners in the world and many just come out crankier than before. Okay---moving right along. I successfully ignore the healthy kale and broccolini salad in the fridge my daughter has brought me and devour almost an entire block of Green and Black dark chocolate. Full of anti-oxidants. And fall into Ambien-induced coma at 3 and dream I am in prison....

Next Day...
Wake up and along with my daily regime of pills, take another Adderall--but soon, I fear the Adderall effects are being dulled by the antibiotic/painkiller cocktail and so, feeling like my head might explode if I don't get out of suffocating apartment where walls are closing in on me, I struggle into sweats and baggy old shirt (arms cannot move above shoulder level) to make my second big escape...
I purchase a LARGE Mocha Ice Blended--only about 900 calories. WHATEVER!! Yes indeedy---that tastes good.

Well, one reckless act leads to another and just moments later I'm skulking down the Men's Grooming aisle at Rite Aid- quickly grabbing what seems like a cunning product before slipping out with my purchase.
I smile graciously at the parking inspector as I calmly approach my car at a long-expired meter- no fear of a ticket whatsoever and yet dreading the day when the small cancer-sanctioned mercy of a 9 month DISABLED Parking Tag ends! (Disabled means never having to feed a meter.)

My calm is shattered though as a small child points at me and then shrieks at it's mother - "Is that a man or a woman?"
I realize, to my horror, that it's been a hatless sortie!
' You're lucky I'm not topless,' I want to shriek back 'then you'd have something to holler about.'

Get home and marvel at how my chemo-addled brain thought it was appropriate to go to the MEN'S section for hair coloring products. After all, am a woman. So, doesn't really make sense. Did breast tissue removal make me subconsciously think I am man now? Interesting...
And am especially livid to find that JUST FOR MEN'S Touch of Gray actually promises to NOT ( I repeat NOT) get rid of all the gray so that whilst enhancing your vitality, "your experience will still shine through."

Hello!! We're in Hollywood ! Since when did experience count for anything? Youth RULES baby---don't even get me started..
Collapse back into rumpled old bed. A day before a friend has very sweetly offered to come by at 6.30 with a "gorgeous healthy, surprise dinner " for me. I have sent three emails thanking her for such generosity and thoughtfulness.

At 9.10 I check my texts, email and calls. Nada. And it's clear I've been stood up. ("Surprise! I forgot!")
and actually feeling faint with hunger, I decide on a mad dash to the IN 'N OUT on Sunset.
By about 10pm, after a 25 minute wait in the car line, I'm eating my cheese burger in my car in the good ol' Disabled Spot. I have a great view of the jolly families and couples inside chowing down with gusto. I search but can't find a single fellow loner in the place.
Suddenly I realize there's a huge wet patch on my thigh. Checking my drain I realize to my horror that for the third time this week, I have not replaced cap properly and it has emptied it's witty, bloody contents onto my nice clean sweat pants.
The fun just never stops...
Silent tears spontaneously fall onto the waiting fries in my lap. I try to quickly find the humor in the ‘Tragically Alone on Saturday Night at In 'N Out ‘ episode- but come up empty.

As Bette Davis might have said---"Having cancer, without a partner, ain't for sissies".

Hmmmm...a new way to go

Can it really be this easy to set up a blog??