Why I want to give my trainer a big, wet kiss on the mouth, or, Yes, it was cancer

Can you believe it? All these years of blogging, and I still don't have a solid technique for leading into a story. So I'll remind you of where we left off last time.

When we last spoke, I was about to head into the hospital for laparoscopic surgery on my right kidney. It was a modern day update of the old nursery rhyme:

Because she was trying to fit into smaller jeans, Poppy did hundreds of crunches.
Because of the hundreds of crunches, she developed lower abdominal pain.
Because of the pain, she got a CT scan.
Because of the CT scan, they discovered a mass.
Because of the mass, she had surgery.
Because of the surgery, she kicked cancer's ass.

I went into the hospital last Thursday at 11:00 in the morning, and went into the operating room at 12:30, floating on a white cloud of twilight sleep, with nary a care in the world. After two days, (the first of which was rather uncomfortable, the second much less so) I left the hospital. My insurance would have covered a third day, and if it hadn't been for my surgeon's dire warnings to escape the hospital's germiness as quickly as possible, I'd have hung out longer, basking in the attentions of the nursing staff and a seemingly limitless supply of red Jell-O.

I mean, what wasn't to like? I had had a perfectly lovely time with twilight sleep and general anesthesia. I remembered my nurses' names and everything everyone told me to do. I had two new audiobooks on my iPhone.

I also had two completely delightful new hardcovers to dive into: Jen Lancaster's latest novel, Here I Go Again, and Simon Doonan's Gay Men Don't Get Fat. My bed was comfortable, and I could adjust it to suit me and my incisions. The room was small, but exquisitely clean and decked with masses of flowers.

Most importantly (and this is key) nobody's emotional well-being or self-esteem would be affected by anything I'd say or do. The nurses and doctors and orderlies didn't mind that I was there; it didn't hurt them at their hearts to see me stretched out on a hospital bed. I didn't have to be brave for them or console them or act all siff-upper-lippy. Really, it was lovely. All I had to do was lie in bed, eat and drink, read my books, and fill up my Foley bag. (Catheter, to the uninitiated.) And I was up to the task.

But I went home a day early. To a much less tidy room and a dearth of red Jell-O.

Currently, I'm spending a lot of time propped up in bed so as to adequately communicate the message that I'm not, at present, the go-to person for clean blue jeans or hairdo assistance or homework help or really, much of anything at all.

Here's the thing. I have limited theatrical experience, but I realize with teenagers and husbands, it is all about the staging. If this means that I move around normally after everyone leaves, and only start reclining in bed when my children and husband reappear on the scene, so be it. If it means that I continue to wear pajamas and bathrobes long after I can get back into my clothes, so be it. I have to communicate the message that this is the time to be kind to one's mother or the wife of one's bosom.

So yeah, I'm acting a little drama queeny. Let this be our little secret, internet.

OK, then. Now for my surgeon's report. They removed a 2 cm tumor from my right kidney. Apparently, my surgery was a model of deft, elegant minimalism. The tumor was removed in its entirety, with a nice clean margin all around it, indicating that They Got It All.

When art historians start blathering about "negative space," is this what they mean? (Don't answer that--my pain meds are starting to kick in. If you couldn't tell.)

Anyway, the survival rate for very small, encapsulated tumors like mine is about 99 percent. My surgeon tells me that there's a pretty good chance that I'll live for another 50 years. (OK, I think he was flattering me, or maybe my colorist is doing an even better job than I thought. I don't really think it's reasonable to suppose that I'll still be here when I'm 106 years old. I'm thinking of sticking around for another 40, and even that's pushing it.)

In the meantime, I'm starting to think of myself as Poppy Buxom, Cancer Survivor! With all the kick-assery that that entails.

Vanity can save your life

Vanity gets a bad rap most of the time. Not around here, where it's all lipstick, all the time--but amongst other, less frivolous people. But vanity has its good points. For one thing, it can save your life.

You may remember that I spent last November blathering away about working out and dieting. I mentioned heading to the gym enough to have fully cemented my reputation as a fitness freak, or at least, a dedicated wannabe.

So along comes December, and in addition to the usual holiday travel and craziness, I'm trying to continue to work out. But I notice that after prolonged periods of standing, such as washing dishes or attending cocktail parties (or decorating the Christmas tree all by myself because my family is a bunch of heathen Grinches,) I was experiencing some pain in the lower left side of my abdomen. Sitting down made it feel better, but then I'd go to the gym, and it would start up again.

I tend to have a "shut up and quit whining" attitude about physical problems, but my husband does a lot of weight lifting, and he thought it might be a hernia. So I made an appointment with my doctor to have it checked out. He didn't notice anything conclusive, so he advised me to get a CT scan. What with Christmas traveling and the facility being pretty booked up, the first appointment I could get was two weeks away. And during those two weeks of traveling and not going to the gym, the pain disappeared. Naturally, I dithered around, and debated canceling the CT scan. Because I hate going to the doctor. But my husband and son told me to go in and have it done.

Have you ever had a CT scan? It's not fun. And after drinking iodine-flavored water for a few hours and having more injected into my arm and lying on a table passing through a pale green doughnut, I was determined never to complain about anything ever again.

And of course, it turns out that I don't have a hernia.

On the other hand, they discovered a small mass on my right kidney. (Which was not where I was feeling pain, and so was completely unrelated to what brought me to the doctor's office in the first place.) So I went to a urologist who advised me to have it out. Apparently, even if they're benign, these things just keep growing and eventually, it's a problem. And of course, if it isn't benign, it needs to come out pronto. (And chances are it's not benign. But it's very treatable with an excellent cure rate! Really.)

Apparently, the vast majority of kidney tumors are discovered while they're looking for something else. In fact, according to Wikipedia, medical professionals call them "accidentalomas." 

So anyway, tomorrow I'll be at the hospital under general anesthesia (YIKES!) having a robot-assisted (COOL!) partial nephrectomy.

Which is really kind of astonishing, when you realize that if I hadn't been trying to fit into size 12 jeans, I'd be happily asymptomatic ... until I wouldn't be.

Which just goes to show you--to appropriate from that slimeball Gordon Gecko, "Vanity is good!"

So anyway, that's why I haven't been blogging. It's just hard to get excited about lipstick and such when you have surgery scheduled.

Not that I won't be bringing a ton of products to the hospital. Because of course I will.