Post office

Facing surgery has made me think about writing letters to my husband, son, and daughter. I discussed this idea with my rabbi when we met last week. I asked if it was morbid to deal with my fears this way. It’s not that I need anyone’s permission to write to my loved ones, it just feels like sitting down to write these letters could be part of a cheesy montage in a bad movie. I’m afraid of letting myself get caught up in overly dramatizing this thing. My rabbi thought the letters were a good idea, a way to make a positive ritual from the experience.

The next difficult thing, after deciding it’s okay to write the letters at all, is figuring out which one to write first. I never considered writing a group letter. One of the things I love about these three people is the distinct, separate, and unique relationships I have with each of them. I don’t interact with them as a unit, and I get out of the way so they can interact which each other without my intrusion. I don’t know if this is unusual or not, I just know this is not the way I grew up. I was part of a family that didn’t have time to deal with me as a distinct individual. The most important way I have found to heal from being subsumed into various configurations of my family is by insisting on having one-to-one relationships with the people I love. But, this means I cannot avoid deciding which letter to write first. It doesn’t help that they never need to know the order.

Forced Flux

I met with the Rabbi this morning. I had business to discuss with her concerning a program I am chairing. Then we talked about my "bump" and facing surgery. I've also talked about it with most of my good friends. Talking helps. The more people I tell, the better I feel. Of course, that might have something to do with the people I've been telling. I've managed to surround myself with thoughtful, caring people who know how to listen. This is not an accident, but it is still a bit of a surprise.

I'm in a state of flux. I can't jump whole hog into my new career yet. I'm busy with lots of little stuff, but I'm also slowing down. It's like I'm about to change lanes. First I have to slow down until I see my opening. Then I can slide into place one lane over. But changing careers and launching my son off to college and having this surgery is like crossing several lanes at once, so I gotta time it just right. I'm not usually comfortable in a state of flux, but this feels right and necessary.

More on the "bad patch"

So the bump turned out to be benign. That was the good news. The bad news is it still has to come out. A benign cyst in my salivary gland. How hard can that be to remove? Pretty hard, it turns out. The surgery is tricky because my facial nerve runs right underneath the cyst. The doctor says he has to trace the various branches of the nerve before removing the cyst to make sure nothing gets damaged. Damage to the facial nerve could mean I wouldn't be able to smile, or wink maybe. So it's general anesthesia and about 5 hours of surgery. I have to stay overnight and I don't get to eat anything. My son tells me the anesthesia part is fine - he had foot surgery recently - but no food! I don't like to be hungry. I'm mean when I'm hungry. Okay, I SHOULD be counting my blessings that the bump is benign. Instead I'm worried about missing a few meals. So here's something else - no Pilates! The doctor says I won't be doing any vigorous exercise for a couple weeks. The bright side is I'll have a good reason to go into the studio and do observations, which I need for my certification anyway. So it's all good, as they say. Spin, it's all about spin.

Is it a sign?

Within days of giving notice at my job I started to experience a "bad patch". I'd had an unexplained lump on my jaw - just south of my right ear - for a couple weeks. My GP thought it was swollen glands from a virus. When it got worse over the week following this diagnosis, he decided it was probably TMJ. I asked to see a specialist who took a fine needle biopsy. I had to wait a week to see what sort of cells were populating the lump. Waiting to hear if the lump was something other than a malignant cancer was not pleasant. Then my doctor finally called to say the test was inconclusive because the culture had failed to grow. Now he wanted a CT scan. Fine. But I had to have a blood test first to make sure I didn't have too much or too little of something in my blood that could cause problems when combined with the dye they planned to inject to create "contrast" on the scan. Crap. The whole business was getting tedious. The next day I ran a quick errand to Whole Foods. While exiting the parking lot my car died. I was blocking at least nine cars. Later, after getting my car towed to the shop, I borrowed my husband's car to do some grocery shopping. When I got home with a trunk full of food I discovered I had locked myself out of the house. That night I had to unplug my computer from our home network when it got a virus that, among other nasty things, replaced all my Internet bookmarks with bogus sites. The only good news is our computer guy came over that very evening and took it away for tests. So here's my question; should I reconsider making major changes in my life?