Better living through plastic surgery - part II

In a very literal sense I have been fog bound. In the metaphysical sense I am fog bound. I cry easily and yet I am mostly peaceable, me and my scars are moving forward on some great tide of my own making, I surf the crest with my newly gravity defying breasts, in search of a great, soft sandy dune to crash into.

I drove to my parents two mondays ago for phase II of my remodel, in which the girls get redone.... And then my mother called as I was crawling across the super heated floor of the Sacramento Valley - well, I called Dr. Boob and he says he can do your eyes too. Me, stupefied. She - well it makes sense since you are going to be in recovery, also, economically. Me, still stupefied. She - so see him on your way up, are you there? Me, jeebus, mother!!

(I have had deep bags under my eyes since I was twelve, I get that congenital puffiness and permanent purpling about my eyes - so yes, it's true I was strong-armed to having a lower eye lift by mother, and no, I won't be sorry)

Same drill, wake up the following morning just before the break of dawn, wind up late anyway, look forward to the narcotic, skeeved out by the chill of the IV, getting marked up, the nurse fiddling with the music, mmmm more narco......

..... it's seven hours later, when they jolt my system out of it's ether, I get tugged at wrassled with, no idea which end is up, and they shoot me full of demerol, I will wake up 36 hours later.
I will think I need to pee, I will think I should be hungry, but I am nothing but inert and will remain so for awhile. And for awhile I freaked out silently, but good and hard, because I was fairly certain that a vital part of me hadn't returned and was forever lost to anesthesia.

This was hard, I am not in unbearable pain, but my pain gauge is such that I trudge though it, the only thing that truly wracks me is a migraine. But three surgeries and the evil anesthesia and the equally evil and constipating vicodin, really knocked my way off my axis, and thoroughly ravaged all of my short term recall. I can hardly remember what I had for dinner.

Let us not speak of my physical state, when I was finally able to focus my gaze on my reflection. Monstrous, truly, horribly monstrous, had I been capable of expressing anything but half a grunt and half a moan, I would have surely wailed and shattered every mirror in the house.... Two blackened, swollen shiners, two drains, filling with brackish, bloody pinned to my bandages, and the horror of knowing that beneath the gauze, I'd been cut and sewn, and I'd done it gladly and paid many, many dollars for the priviledge of being mutilated, and I was pissed, and sullen and freely blamed my mother. Oh yes I did. I blamed her for my black eyes and my loss of sense of self, I blamed her for being a poor nurse to my sullen patient, I blamed her for my inability to read or concentrate on the television, I blamed her for the damn bird that died at my feet. And I spent a good amount of time sitting by the pool, under the umbrella, no sunshine for me, what with all the antibiotic coursing through my veins, fending off infection, I blamed her for not being able to tan, too, but I sat under the umbrella and had pleasant hallucinations watching the wind in the trees and slowly I came back to myself. I ate a lot of tomatoes. And drank a lot of water, and slept dreamlessly, at great lengths.

To her credit, she washed my hair in the sink, and shouldered my ill will with as much grace as she could muster. Neither I or my mother are nursey types, we don't puke at fluids or effluvia, but we aren't huggy and we don't croon, we tend to be businesslike about the business of healing, which means I was left to my solitude for the most part, which generally suits me just fine, I withdrew, and have remained withdrawn to the fronts where I am healing, concentrating on cells and tissue, and I am plum fucking worn out. Fighting on three fronts, I get back from work and nap.

I got back on Tuesday and by Thursday I took my and my new girls and my black eyes out to dinner at Ame, I figured I could hide or I could own it, if anyone looked askance I would tell them the dude lost.

As of tomorrow it will have been two weeks, I still have a long way to go to be right and I am trying to be patient.

The bruising is mostly gone from my eyes and I think they are going to be great, as for the girls, well.... honestly, I couldn't be more pleased, they are going to be pretty fucking righteous and perky. I can see that my tennis serve will be served well, I will be able to go out into the night with the scantest of panties and no bra...... the scarring is mostly hidden, I should have done this years ago..... And good lord, I close my eyes and start dreaming of sex and all is well is good until my new breasts fall off and I awake with a jolt - what the fuck is that about?

Oh yeah - I lost count at two hundred when the sutures came out -- pretty crazy, I drove home across the still super heated valley floor into the freezing fog feeling pretty glib and calling myself frankenboob, it's been murky, foggy ever since, I miss the sun, even if I can't be in it, it's fucking August, end of summer after all.