Good News and Back in the Box in Everyday Ramblings

Well, so much for leaving notes while I was on my patient advocacy sojourn up north.

There were excessive stimulus and information streams, and decisions and logistics involved in what looked like me sitting quietly around waiting, that my brain fogged up for anything other than all that and reading police procedurals and didn’t leave much space for comprehension of basically anything else.

The good news, and it is excellent, is that the surgery went well, there were no complications other than a slow and uncomfortable absorption of the anesthesia. I liked her surgeon, and he called to tell me he didn’t see evidence that the cancer had spread. They did take some lymph nodes and pathology will take another week or so. During the follow up appointment in a couple of weeks she will find out if additional treatment is warranted but obviously, she will be monitored quite closely for recurrence.

She is doing well. I sent her off late yesterday morning on her favorite ferry ride back to Bainbridge island where she is in the process of moving from. Most of her daily living stuff is there.

Books, records, bookcases, my mother’s Elna sewing machine, her mother’s Alexander dolls, one chair and her bed, two cans of tuna, and a cup singular, were moved over to the new place before the surgery.

No soap, food, silverware, dish towels, etc. were in the apartment when we got there late in the day of her surgery. She did have a plastic spoon and fork.

While she was in recovery and sort of dressed, we talked about what kind of nourishment appealed to her. I got a list, I admit, heavily influenced by my own recent experience with multiple dental surgeries. The very light crackers, cubed Muenster cheese, apple juice and apple sauce were winners after I got her into her own bed and went shopping.

I got a text back at the hotel late the second night that she had broken said plastic spoon eating the double vanilla ice cream I also picked up for her.

She mentioned something that was a helpful revelation for me when I was putting on her socks in recovery. We were talking about her so deep blue toenail polish that looked almost black to me, and she was telling me about the wonderful independent nail salon she goes to and how accommodating the provider is and doesn’t play loud pop music, which is a problem for a neurodivergent person like herself. (BTW, she has a very flattering haircut as well, someone is advising her on these things.)

If she is self-identifying as neurodivergent than I figure I can identify her that way as well.

This makes it so much easier to manage my feelings around what is sometimes inexplicable willful behavior. She has been a fabulous mother to Miss E. but an odd one at times. Miss E. has had these extraordinary opportunities and support because of her mother and grandmother. But there has been nothing particularly “normal” about it.

Before she went into surgery, she showed me a sweet well-wishing text from Miss E’s new(ish) Italian boyfriend who is getting a Phd. in something like Comparative Linguistics at a university in Pizza while Miss E. is getting her Masters in Comparative Literature in Dublin. (And is staying there for Christmas this year while her mother finishes the move.)

She also got a “thinking of you” text later from the old boyfriend of her daughter who is traveling in France right now. I teased her that if Miss E. keeps this up in 10 years there will be a whole slew of previous paramours of her daughter checking in with her.

Anyway, to say I found this whole enterprise stressful, and exhausting is a bit of an understatement. It was more like having a four-day panic attack. I could not get my stomach to unclench for more than a few hours at a time and then something else would need to be negotiated, figured out and decided. By the time I was on my way home I felt positively ill.

The surgeon wandered off with my contact info and my (newly dubbed) neurodivergent niece did not have my telephone number in her phone. In the end her amazing recovery nurse, all the nurses were amazing, paged me by my first name out through the whole ground floor of the hospital. Wow. Nurses rule. I cannot say that enough.

A bunch of League stuff came up while I was gone. I will start managing that later today or tomorrow. In the meantime, Carlo and I are communing, and I am settling back into the structure of my regular life until the next big thing comes along.

Mr. Sherlock came home from the hospital Monday night. Mrs. Sherlock said that he was thrilled as he would get confused and think he was in jail. She says his confusion has increased quite a bit. We don’t know if this is going to be chronic. She’s still in the middle of moving. She says this is her world now, him and the move. She was kind enough to pick me up at the train station last night.

Okay then. For those of you celebrating American Thanksgiving this week, may the run up be festive and bright. Me, I can’t wait until it is over and I have plenty of stuff to distract me in the meantime.