two posts in two days

Here's why; I am a very squeamish person.

If you are too, best stop here.  Bob and I just returned from seeing the surgeon who will remove that pesky goiter.  I know; goiter, goiter, goiter.  Either I'm blogging about that darn goiter or NaNo.  But they are tied together, in a novelistic or hummingbird type of manner.  Because I wasn't quite done writing today, but was going to return to it after we came home from making the surgery date.  I was just hoping it would be after Thanksgiving, wanting to spend that holiday with all my family.  Well, surgery probably will commence after Thanksgiving, but the personable, knowledgeable chap we met today might not do it.  Not if that goiter is compressing Bob's chest, which would send him to Stanford Hospital.

That's not the squeamish part.  If you are squeamish, please stop here.

If you're not and aren't bored to tears about this whole goiter issue, keep reading.  The doc we saw today will do the surgery if Bob doesn't need to have his chest cracked open.  If he does, it will be done by someone else up the peninsula at Stanford.  As in Stanford University, blah blah blah.  This doc stopped working up there four years ago, too tired of the hassle, he smiled.  But I was already feeling sick before he said that.  I was feeling faint, my ears buzzing and my face flush when he mentioned calling in a cardiac surgeon to deal with Bob's sternum.

Dude...  I think that's what he said, because really he lost me when he examined my husband, noting on Bob's left side he couldn't get his thumb between the clavicle and the bottom of this enormous goiter.  That's when I first started getting fuzzy.

I am squeamish, I freely admit that.  I've put on a stoic face during all these procedures and chats.  I didn't sit in on Bob's two biopsies, but haven't felt this unhinged since...  I can't recall.  Not when Thea was being prodded two years ago, not during any other time, except maybe when I was pregnant.  I can do external bodily fluids, no problem. Poo or vomit don't phase me; I'm a mother, been there done that.  Just don't bleed.  Don't bleed, don't talk about bleeding, don't talk about thumbs inserted (or unable to be inserted) between goiters and clavicle bones and REALLY don't talk about cutting apart my husband's chest then intubating him overnight because his trachea is too weakened to do its job properly.  That's when I lost it.

The IRONIC part is that I can write about this stuff till the cows come home!  I'm sitting here now, aren't I?  Sitting in my safe little workspace, tea in a mug, Blossom Dearie crooning, Bob lamenting his bad turn at Blast-Through.  I can note how his goiter is basically strangling his windpipe, and on the left side could be pressing on his lungs, was that was the affable doctor said?  My ears were buzzing so loudly that I finally stood from the low stool, grasping a notebook and pen (A writer always has a notebook handy, even in the doctor's office!).  Then I grabbed my purse, making my excuses.  If I stayed in there any longer, I might have passed out.

Reaching the waiting room a few short steps away, I sat, closed my eyes, wondering if I was going to puke.  Or faint or maybe, just maybe, return to the land of the living.  Just don't talk about cracking any one's chest open, thank you very much, much less that of my beloved!

We can talk about biopsies and CT scans, what will happen next so this really lovely and wonderful doc will know if he'll be in charge, or someone else.  We can consider these issues, I can write about them, but actually hearing them?  Or witnessing the illustration marking the important so-and-so nerves just under that mass of thyroid while sitting on a low seat in an office charmingly circa 1975, good grief no!  No, and why that is, I have no idea.  Bob met me in the lobby, ushered me outside where I leaned against a post, taking in the fresh air.  Then to the car, which I drove there.  He said he was fine to drive home, a small joke.  Small because he had been worried the doc would want an MRI, but no, just a CT scan.  Bob was fine, I was a mess.  We sat, windows down, while I apologized for being such a wreck when this is happening to him, but when the body rebels, whatcha gonna do?

I threw my hands up in full surrender.  So many plans for this afternoon, finishing a chapter of For God And Country, then reading over the morning's task, a chapter of Penny Angel.  All that will occur is this post, then some quiet time.  Bud made pizza for lunch and when I feel like eating again, I'll have a slice, comfort food.  Solace and calm and breathing in and out, what's so hard for Bob because there's an anvil squeezing his trachea.  Easy for me now that I'm home, in my little cocoon.  I can look out at the spider plants, a hummingbird feeder, blue autumnal sky and green leaves on trees.  It's November, it's NaNo, but that means different things right now.

It means being glad for a competent doctor, a steady husband, a cup of tea.  Writing will commence again tomorrow....