Thursday, February 3, 2011

gift of the grapefruit

hi. i've been absent recently. absent not just from posting, but from all of it.

here is my shoddy attempt at getting back on track, or at least weeding the path so i can see where the hell i'm going.

to say november and december were busy months for me would be an understatement. anyone working retail during the holiday season should be given the Oprah Final Season hookup: the continent of Australia,  John Travolta, free booze, spiritual renewal at Uluru, and a handshake. to give you a glimpse into my world around mid november - please read the following excerpt from a previous post i was working on, but never found its' way out of the cyclone of crazy....


"it seems the more energy i shovel into not being so electron at the office - and a little bit more proton at antrho - my grave just gets dug cheaper and faster. necessary-ness suffers: the writing. pilates. painting. lotion. reading. vitamins. photos. my obsession with your facebook status. prayers and exfoliation. no ladies, its not diamonds and pearls that keeps this girl in check, it's surfing for ghetto-youtube-yoga time and soft skin. don't be jealous.

it's this everything that keeps me from being on the 5 o'clock news. i am one away people. one away, from the sales girl who - instead of breezily throwing away the customer's half full venti caffeine-binge whilst chirping of course not a problem:) - suddenly SNAPS - and in front of the anthro gods, guzzles the remaining boiling beverage. the lava ole spills onto her face and clothes - permanently disfiguring her upper body. eyes are enveloped in a fiery blaze. the tired angry dragon is awake... scalding froth shoots from her nose, melting the cash register. she roars into an eruption of obscenities and bellows can you please tell me why you think OATMEAL is a good color for you??? can YOU for F*$!# sake?????!!. mothers and children evacuate, and the lip glossed dragon monster queen is left amongst piles of indian imported duvet covers and eternity scarves. finally she left alone to enjoy blissful silence and calm. with the dragon monster queen alone with no one to bother her, she transforms again into a pirate with the sea weathered mane of penelope cruz and swagger of captain jack sparrow. she then grabs a bottle of drink, and with her feet up on the sweater table begins to count her gold teeth in the reflection of her dagger. mandir music still playing overhead, she randomly screams aaaaarrrrrr, just belt it ya landlubber!!! "

hmmmm. just like crapping fire, nervous breakdowns are preventable and should be avoided.

though not a bad idea, this entry isn't concerning angry dragon vindication projections, gold teeth, or incredible penelope coiffe fantasies. this entry tells a story far more delicious....

if we can please reach into our memory banks for a moment, you may recall the post from india in 2009 titled baldy and a bag of bones go to the hospital. It was in this post where i was told my bladder decided to store 250ccs of urine, translating into my 'tuma', which i ended up taking drugs for. problem solved. long story short, it actually wasn't urine and wasn't my bladder. fast forward to november 2010, a routine pelvic exam followed by an ultrasound showed my tuma was not only still very much alive - but was actually now a grapefruit sized cyst in between my two ovaries, holding around 700ccs (1/2 a liter) of fluid. at the age of 30 some people are growing babies. i grow grapefruits.

#indiayousucksomuchass

after reluctantly scheduling surgery i couldn't help but still deny the grapefruit's existence, and so i made a humiliating but necessary phone call to my doctor to discuss the possibility of being misdiagnosed. i explained how i felt the need for a third ultrasound, since i felt that maybe the gynecologic oncologist, two radiologists, my lower back and her sweet self included were all confused and mislead. could this have been a mistake? could the ultrasound machine tech been misinformed? could my bladder just be peacocking? i thought i once read in some medical journal how organs can become jealous of other organs. for instance, it's possible the bladder was in like with the uterus, but because the uterus knows she can do better than the bladder, ended up saying screw you and fell for the right kidney who has job security. so in my bladder's attempt for attention and fueled by jealousy from mr. kidney, he fluffed and puffed to be noticed, and then things somehow spun out of control. or maybe this perpetuated his current identity crisis where he convinced himself he was the bad ass liver. purify this mother f#$*@!

.........in a world where everyday people misuse leggings as pants - i thought my confusion was justified. (and if you don't retain anything else from this post, please know - LEGGINGS ARE NOT PANTS. stop it.)

dr. wang explained to me in the nicest possible way that i am a complete idiot, and if i wanted to ensure the baby makers could one day fulfill their purpose, surgery was best. awesome. so cindy flew in, i had the surgery, grapefruit was benign and everything fine.

the recuperation period post surgery has been far from boring. many things have happened, i just wish i could remember all the details. after this experience i can wholeheartedly say that i would make the worst drug user in the world. recreational or hardcore, it doesn't matter.  if i didn't learn my lesson from my brief yet memorable (or was it?) encounter with tylenol pm a couple years back, this reaction to anesthesia confirmed it. elizabeth needs to say no to drugs. the seamless same day surgery experience turned into how low can your blood pressure go fail...which turned into let's spend the night in the hospital since we can't sit up... which turned into who can dodge the projectile vomit...which began the sad game of catch the catheter.

hospital.

besides the awkward catheter fun, im pretty sure the award for my fave hospital moment goes to me being left alone on the toilet by a random lazy wicked evil nurse robot (long story). in order to call my real life super nurse (vanetta) to save me, i attempted to locate the emergency string.

attention: outrageous oxymoron sighting.

the search for the emergency string sent me into a silent panic of desperation. one of those moments where the intensely sluggish focus of your eyes is clouded by your body's purposeful yet drawn out movement...all of which are seemingly useless. experiencing absolute depletion while reaching for a flimsy cream colored string blending into a white tiled wall is the cruelest of jokes. whatever asshole medical professional thought this would save lives thought wrong. i would have had difficulty locating a giant clown face slot machine, sporting a bulls-eye nose, spitting out silver dollars. hospitals are not places to goof around. what they should have had was a big thick red rope. a strong rope. a serious knotted rope. a rope ready for the adventures of The Deadliest Catch. i am quite positive eagle scouts aren't running around packing dental floss to survive in the wilderness, or throwing twine to someone drowning in the ocean. no, they use helpful large brightly colored floaty thingys of quality and strength. i am the only one left taking these things seriously.

after my last steady pull on the string of life, vanetta ran in the bathroom and commanded me to not faint. she immediately propped my head up with her bosom (it was definitely a bosom), began splashing cold water in my face - slapping my cheeks  - and rocking me back and forth - all while humming church hymns and chanting baby you stay awake, you say with me. while my mind was pondering there's a first time for everythingmy mouth could only answer mmmmmhmmmmmmmmmm.  she called for a second nurse and a wheel chair, which i can remember thinking didn't come as quickly as it would have if we were on grey's anatomy. once in the chair i slumped over to one side, looked at vanetta and said i think im going to throw up. and then i did. e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e.

vanetta never stopped humming. she never raised her voice above a calm butterfly whisper. two minutes after complete chaos ensued, she had swiftly cleaned me up, gotten me into bed, turned on the tv for distraction, and made a little pillow fortress to protect me. because that's what people do after you vomit at them. they immediately build pillow fortresses so you feel better. she congratulated me every time i called her to pee, each time my bp improved, and every two hour vital check until her shift ended at 7 am. vanetta has been a nurse for 30 years, and i am certain she was the angel answer to prayer. i pray she has someone in her life taking care of her so beautifully as she takes care of everyone else.



 home.

once home, i took a shower and crawled oh.so.carefully. into bed, things began to improve.
though recovery was slow, and i had some pain, the grapefruit surgery ultimately did open my eyes to a few things worth mentioning.

numero uno. i love old people. deal with it.


since i was young(er) i've always had this strange desire to be like an old woman. (i know i know i know, what's the rush).  for instance, i have always thought can i eat pomegranates when i have no teeth? what if i winter in san antonio instead of 'flarida'? i think i should wear dresses, they are more comfortable. continuing on. in elementary school instead of wanting to be ariel the little mermaid, i was fixated on ursula the evil overweight silver haired octopus. in middle school, when my friend juliette paraded around in cute sundresses i would pretend to be an old tootheless widow with dementia puttering about the kitchen calling out where did everybody go?! after highschool i had a brief intense obsession with jewish sun-glass-wearing bubbies (who doesn't), and for halloween last year i decided to go to work as myself. but 80.


basically, if you are old i will love you forever. and if you are old with an accent, just move on in. i want to study how you dress, and stay warm, and hold all the secrets...and how you tell your stories. i begin to fantasize about how if i were you, i would comb my hair to the side, and get a deal on good  fabric with a nice weight, and tell you i ate the sweetest melon of my life last sunday. my friend and i play a type of game where we discuss the old days back in our homeland...where we lived through ze koldest weenter en russia - where we khad no choyce but to burrn de stof eetself fur kheet..eet was so kold eye could not blink...

young people make me nervous. we are too flaky too often, and handle ourselves and others with unease.

also, in comparison, we have boring sucky stories.

after the defruitation, i was delighted to find how walking in public enabled me to live out a part of my fantasy. me with my comfortable loose fitted clothes and orthopedic shoes, hair out of my face in a clean bun, wheezy shallow breaths, hunched over with a slow yet committed waddle. right when i was congratulating myself for doin' good, things suddenly took a turn for the worse. as i passed the south side of the macy's shoe section a gang of cracked out beliebers stampeded in front of me - knocking over shoe box towers in my path. they were running and jumping, giggling and high-fiving. snorting happiness and idealism off each other's flat tummies. terrified i would trip, fall over, or be mugged of my seething pessimism, i instinctively froze into the position of geriatric opossum - but upright - and waited for the leaders of tomorrow to scram. my anesthesia bloated brain reciting... young people. how i am completely offended by their blatant disregard for the whole world. how can it be no one looks where they are going anymore?? someone could. have. been. killed. when i was their age i would have never... i blame the shitty parents of this generation. even with my eyes shooting daggers, the girls were unaffected and skipped into wet seal...unbeliebably happy.



dos. i lost my mojo and memory for a minute, but i did manage to remember that you love me.

fyi: i have a deep affection for accents. listening to them, learning them, doing them. this affection is like a normal person's healthy love for shoes. you are smitten, you study, polish, honor and treasure their intended purposes. each day you pick out the pair specific to fit your current mood (or the mood you wish to be in by the time you get to where you are going). shoes are reliable, they easy on the eyes, and they give the gift of confidence. ever in a shitty mood? go to the store. walk around in a pair of pretty shoes. worries gone. accents are no different. i covet all of them.

talking on the phone one week into recuperation, i attempted to joke around in an indian accent. normally this would have been no problemo, but somehow, my brain short circuited and i suddenly lost my ability. hm. dumbfounded and in denial i chucked it up to lack of sleep and a couple days later i attempted again....nothing. nada. zip. around this same time i grew bored of life in my apartment. sleeping. eating. sleeping. eating. walking. sleeeeping. so, i tried to begin writing again. in emails to friends i attempted to not sound sick, but witty and refreshed (as if i was recovering in the hamptons), but alas even simple sentences were no match for my big no good drug soaked brain. even my speech became ridiculously inadequate. memory was gone. words failed me. the ability to do anything else but sleep all day - vaporized. cheney said it best, i had swiss cheese brain. its as if the christopher columbus crew had come and conquered my thoughts by injecting me with cognitive smallpox. or whooping cough. or polio. or whatever other swag they were giving out. in a brief -or not so brief - moment of freak out, i wrote an email of panic to my friend, hypothesizing how it may have been possible that my grapefruit was in fact my hatch of mojo, my hive of imaginative production. all the elizabeth, her humor and accents and stupid compulsions, oddities, and ridiculous sarcastic jaded everythingness had now been removed. and in its place, painful moments of kathy lee and hoda would have to suffice. i would be ruined. forever.

in the words of my friend emily slow down crazy. slow down.

i am grateful to report that this was not the case, still forgetful and flaky, but what else is new. i do feel that my hive of compulsion is on the up and up, and if that means i am doing much better - then i am doing much better. but even with my crappy memory, it wouldn't be possible to forget those of you who took the time to include me in their thoughts. those of you who called, wrote, stopped by and laughed at and/or with me, please know your outpourings of love completely exceeded my embarrassing assumptions and i am so immensely blessed to call you my friends and family. god has given me many great gifts, and you are one of them.

i now have to go to sleep to charge my brain for tomorrow. i am looking forward to it.

3 comments:

  1. 1. i love you.
    2. dev is an old person in the making. he even lotions his feet.
    3. the end.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ohmygod, you are hysterically funny! but, you already know that.
    so, i'll tell you some things you might not know: for every evil nurse that leaves you in a bed full of pee (my own story seeping in here), there is one that will give you a back rub and hold the juice can for you while you slurp.

    and, i, too, have an obsession with old people, accents, and who i may be when i'm old that perhaps is at the same exact level of obsession that yours is.
    hello, welcome, and where's the bathroom?

    ReplyDelete
  3. molly! these are very wise words to remember - thank you. and it's nice to meet someone who gets it;) the bathroom is our numero uno of concern.

    ReplyDelete

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