Playing for Time

March — it’s what time DOES.  Snow fell all day yesterday and the ground is white, but spring is, even as we speak, gathering up little robins and crocii and dandelions, wheee, and it will all be showing up here any minute now!

The passage of time is so very relative, and that effect seems to be accentuated when your brain is on the fritz.  The day of the initial biopsy my surgeon said, “If it’s malignant we’ll do an excision, and if necessary a skin graft ….. you’ll come back in five to six weeks, we’ll remove the stitches, and you should be good to go.”  Crap, what did I know from what he actually said, I don’t hear for beans!

The day before my six-week check-up we figured out that I’d misunderstood parts of the process, but it was not yet clear just how delusional I was.  And then the appointment took all of ten minutes, not counting iPad time in the waiting room.  I’m not complaining, let the record show, my doctor and his assistants are lovely people who excel at what they do and I adore them.  But it was quickly apparent that no stitch-release stuff would be happening at that present time.  Ninety-degree turn in the Expectations Hallway.

THE GOOD NEWS:  The graft site is healing beautifully and we’re right on schedule (the correct one). After the next six weeks there’s an appointment to see how much longer the graft needs to cure.  I was indeed self-deluded, but now I know and all is well. Most important, this is neither fatal nor permanent. And life goes on.

So it’s at least a year-long process to reach total healing — I have friends who will deal with health issues for life.  One lost an eye at age two … and I’m whining about stitches holding an eyelid down for a few months.

NOTE TO SELF:  You are not allowed, for the duration, to apologize for looking demented, not to anybody, even if you happen to bump into President Obama on Mass Street next week.  {Sorry, deal’s off for the president.}  But you’ll get to walk away from this at some point, maybe even by summer, and that’s almost not even fair.  Your friends who’ve had to actually give up body parts are hoping nobody notices, too, and they don’t get a pass, so own your I’ve-been-drunk-for-a-week eye and live your life.

So yeah, “March is the month that God designed to show those who don’t drink what a hangover is like.”  –Garrison Keillor

ENJOY!