So Anyway...

I can't do it. This is waaaaay too much pressure. I feel you sitting there waiting to see my first post op blog and waiting for it to be brilliant and witty and I feel SO MUCH responsibility that I CAN'T DO IT! I am completely paralyzed! You have to understand that I have been lying in a hospital bed for two weeks with nothing but my thoughts and from the moment that I pushed the morphine button for the first time those thoughts went straight to...THE BLOG...

I lay there for two weeks thinking of what to write. Five in the morning, noon, four a.m....Lying there thinking about the damn blog. In my mind I wrote a million beginning sentences and then things got all blurry and I realized I was writing Play It As It Lays and maybe with only half a stomach I will lose half my brain power and I won't be able to connect my thoughts anymore and since I have to eat so little what is left of my brain is almost completely occupied with thoughts of food. I watched the food channel endlessly and I learned to cook the most fabulous Mediterranean burger and a peach cobbler to die for but see...That's rambling. Who cares about that? Don't I have any original thoughts anymore? I need food! And you would think at this point that I would be thin as a rail but what is up with that? I'm not! Barely lost a pound. But I tell myself that that is a good thing even though it is counter intuitive to everything I knew pre op.

Oh my mind, my mind. Where is that morphine button when you really need it? Okay, I will give you one example of my surreal visit to St. Johns (or as you know what we Jews call it...Sir Johns) You've heard about the THE TUBE. The one that ran into my nose and down my throat to my stomach. The one that was in for eight days!! Well, they pull that thing OUT THROUGH YOUR NOSE! OH MY GOD. Please don't tell me that you're going to do THAT. But she did. Very calmly. OH MY GOD. There's a very long thing coming out of my nose. That's when you know that you are really just a slab of beef. A piece of meat. (Thank you Michael McClure.) They can pull things out of your entire body and it's not sexy and it's not fun. Just plain weird.

But I did have a thought about what to write and it goes something like this...

AND THE AWARD THIS YEAR FOR BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN INVALID GOES TO...

"Oh my God it's me. It's me. I can't believe it! (kiss kiss) Oh my God. (applause. runs up to the stage. takes the statue of a man with an I.V.) Thank you! Thank you! (audience keeps applauding.) Please. Sit. Oh my gosh. This is just unreal. First I would like to say how humbled I am to be in a catagory with all of those other fabulous invalids. The coughing, the spewing, the farting...What can I say? First, I would like to thank God for giving me this cancer. Without Him...or Her...I wouldn't be up here right now. Second, I would like to thank a few special people who helped me become the invalid that I am today. Dennis, Dierdre, Katey...Your pictures, your love, your company...You are beautiful and amazing and I am so lucky to know you. To look up in my stupor and see your smiling faces made me feel like I was home.

Andy...What can I say? I knew you would be the perfect stand in blogger but I didn't know you would be there to help me figure out how to get to the bathroom attached to all the crap I was attached to. I didn't know you would go get me peanut butter and a banana. I didn't know what a truly beautiful person you were until the last two weeks. Thank you is not strong enough an expression but since my brain is a bit addled...Thank you.

(Now stay off my blog! And don't give away the password!)

And lastly...My son...A Prince among men. He was there, every minute of every day. He reached up into the Universe and grabbed the star that said Young Man and he took hold of it and he rode the emotional roller coaster with so much calm and intelligence that I am beyond proud. I love you Will. More than you can ever know."

(exit music plays)

"And there are more people. You know who you are. I love y..................(and they drag her off the stage and she is so wearing the wrong shoes.)

So anyway, that's one of thoughts that went through my tiny mind.