So Much Fun, So Little Time to Blog

I've been so busy busy busy again, I just haven't taken the time to keep you updated.  I'm really sorry about that.  I so need to get a new laptop or tablet so I can do some of this blogging from my house.

I don't really have the time or the energy to do full reports on everything I've seen, so I'll just put some photos and commentary below and hope that I can get back into the groove.  AGAIN.  SOON.  Think good thoughts, please...

photo credit: Rosalie O'Connor

photo credit: Erin Baiano

photo credit: Gene Schiavone

I went to ABT's fall season with my IHBB and had a grand time, as usual.  We saw a new ballet, Garden Blue, by choreographer Jessica Lang. It was very pleasant, with lovely shapes and movement through space (and I enjoyed the Dvorak piano trio), but I'll need to see it again because I was a bit confused by it; Other Dances by Jerome Robbins (lovely and lyrical), and Twyla Tharp's In the Upper Room, which was spectacularly exciting.  It was a very lovely evening and the cotes du rhone at both Epicerie Boulud (pre-show) and Cafe Luxembourg (post-show) was excellent.

I went to see my friend Max Vernon's cabaret show, Existential Life Crisis Lullaby, at Joe's Pub.  I love Max and I think he's supremely talented, so it's hard to be objective, but this cabaret was wonderful (and the burrata appetizer was amazing)!  He and some incredible guest stars (including my old chum Alice Ripley, whose photo is above) sang pieces from his musical The View Upstairs.  I laughed a whole lot, cried a whole lot, and just had the best time.  His songs are equal part fun, whimsy, pain and power.  I love him.  This is one of the most exciting hours of music you're going to see, so you should check out Max's next cabaret show in November.  

I went to the National Alliance for Musical Theatre's festival of new musicals last week.  I saw material from I think fifteen new musicals.  It was a lot.  All I'll say is that I loved some and didn't love some, but I hope they all get attention.  How's that?  After that, I went to see two OTHER musicals:

photo credit: Carol Rosegg

photo credit: Carol Rosegg

The authors of both of these new musicals (Ordinary Days by Adam Gwon; Midnight at the Never Get by Mark Sonnenblick) are also friends and I am also predisposed to love them and not be objective.  But I don't think I'm being prejudiced when I say that both musicals are beautifully crafted, beautifully performed, and have terrific songs!  I truly enjoyed seeing them both and I think everyone else will, too.  Ordinary Days captures the everyday struggles of a life in New York and finding who you are and where you fit in the world.  It's really specific yet really universal and I loved getting to know these characters.  Midnight at the Never Get was really unexpected and moving and ended up somewhere I never dreamed.  And I was truly blown away by the songs; they were pastiche, yet not, and so well done.  Obviously I give a huge thumbs-up to both shows (and you can get discount tickets if you try).  I have another busy week coming up, but hopefully I can get my ducks in a row and tell you more about all of this wonderful new work I've been fortunate enough to see...

Review - The Ferryman

I don't know how it happened, but for the very first time in my blogging life, I was offered press tickets for a Broadway show (I have been offered tickets to off- and off-off-Broadway shows before).  I was happy and grateful to accept them (and take a darling handsome friend!) because they were for a show I was dying to see - Jez Butterworth's The Ferryman.  I believe I've mentioned before how much I adored his play Jerusalem (I was less keen on The River, but it was still enjoyable); once I heard The Ferryman was another three-plus hour epic, I was hopeful I would be in for another night as fantastic as the night I saw Jerusalem.  So as not to bury the lede, I will say...I WAS.  I thought The Ferryman was fantastic.  I was so profoundly moved by it that I may find it hard to put words to paper.  I could barely speak when it was over and my heart was just racing.  I love when that happens.  I should also mention that our seats were INCREDIBLE.  So, thank you, generous giver of press tickets!

Being me, I again stayed away from publicity before seeing the show, because I wanted to experience it in real time with no expectations (other than that I wanted to love it).  All I knew was that the show was a big epic, with over 20 characters on stage (and live rabbits and a live goose).  I am glad, however, I read the tiny time/place box in the Playbill, so I would at least know where and when the action was taking place (Northern Ireland, 1981, a time and a place I sadly know little about).  We begin the show with a brief, ominous prologue featuring a priest and a few shadowy figures, then the action moves into a sprawling farmhouse where we meet three generations of the Carney family.  The three-plus hours I spent in their company simply flew by. I'll try not to tread in spoilers as I describe what I saw. 

photo credit: Joan Marcus

Where Jerusalem was mythic and almost otherworldly, The Ferryman is more realistic, almost everyday, yet vital.  Everyone, including the children, is foul-mouthed, deeply humane, and three-dimensional; I fell in love with each and every one.  Well, ok, not with the villains of the piece, but they were also expertly drawn and performed.  The play takes place ten years after Seamus Carney disappeared - his body has been found (and discussed in the prologue) and the action of the show is what happens after his widow and the rest of his family discover the truth.

photo credit: Joan Marcus

Everything is not what it seems in The Ferryman - Quinn Carney (Seamus' brother) seems to be a jolly fun-loving father-figure, but he's incredibly more complex and turns out to have many secrets, from his wife, his family, and even himself.  The family is preparing for the harvest, and yet they seem to be waiting for something, as well.  At least that's how it felt to me, though that could've been the function of the ominous prologue; I was waiting for something, too.  I found the play to be totally compelling, completely unexpected, and thrillingly heartstopping.  I was enjoying the lived-in quality of the story and felt as if I was just watching lives unfurl naturally onstage, with incredibly realistic dialogue, when suddenly I was thrust into a dark and dangerous place that made complete and total sense after I thought about it.  But when the ending happened?  I was totally thrown off-kilter.

photo credit: Joan Marcus

The acting company was superlative, really, each and every one was fantastic.  The kids were simply amazing - even the infant carried onstage now and again had amazing stage presence!  It was a thrill for me to see Fionnula Flanagan onstage - I've admired her tv and film work for years and she is just magic in this show.  Her monologue in the second act is worth the price of admission and she is so real, I could feel her terror of the banshees myself.  I just can't say enough about how the writing and the acting and the directing worked together to create theatrical magic.  There were scenes of raucous humor, and also scenes of deep pain and humanity.  I laughed and cried a lot and had my heart broken several times.  You all know how much I love a big, messy play and The Ferryman certainly applies, though it's perhaps not really messy as much as crowded.  I actually want to go back to see it again and take a closer look at the play's construction, to see how the clues are given and how the structure is set to get to the devastating finale.   It was shocking to me who actually set the ending of the play in motion (and seriously, there's a scene near the end that's as scary as anything I've ever seen and it didn't even have any actual violence in it), but again, as I think back, it wasn't shocking at all.  And seeing this show after seeing What the Constitution Means to Me the night before just emphasized what toxic masculinity is doing to our world (even the world of 1981).

There's so much I could say about The Ferryman, but I really want you to experience it the way I did - with an open heart and mind - and let it draw you in, because it will.  Honestly, you won't notice the three-plus hour run time because every character and every situation and every piece of dialogue is so rich and absorbing, you'll be on the edge of your seat throughout.  GO.

Review - What the Constitution Means to Me

Everyone has been telling me that I needed to see Heidi Schreck's new play at New York Theatre Workshop, so I finally buckled down to get a ticket.  I'm embarrassed to admit I've never seen one of Heidi's plays before, but after the amazing experience of seeing What the Constitution Means to Me, I will be seeing every darn one of her plays from now on.

I didn't really know what to expect, because I hadn't read much of the advance press on the show.  I knew that Schreck performed the piece herself and I knew it was based on her life (in a way), but that's about it.  So when I say I was completely taken aback by the power and quality of the storytelling and the story, believe me.  At one point, Schreck charmingly says something like "It may seem like I'm rambling, but I'm not.  Contrary to popular belief, this piece has been very carefully constructed."  It got a HUGE laugh and was another terrific meta moment in a show full of them.

photo credit: Sara Krulwich

The show's conceit is that Schreck, when she was a teenager, used to travel to American Legion halls to compete in forensic competitions about the US Constitution in order to win prize money for college.  Apparently, she won so many of these competitions that she completely paid for her undergraduate degree.  In the years since, she has thought more about the Constitution and is coming back to it as an adult to try to figure out where and how it fits into her life, especially now in these times of political upheaval.  The first part of the show is a sort-of reenactment of those competitions - she doesn't actually play herself as a fifteen-year-old, but things start out as a good representation of those years.  Also in the cast is Mike Iveson, representing all the American Legion men who ran these competitions over the years.  We'll see more of him later, but at the top of the show, he explains the rules of the competitions to us, as well as the procedures that will take place.  He's our timekeeper and lowkey master of ceremonies.

Eventually, as Schreck gets further and further into talking about the Constitution and how it has affected generations of her family, the artifice of the teenage competitions falls away and we're now seeing an adult woman struggle with how this document has let her, and generations of women, continually down.  We hear about the Equal Protection Clause and the Castle Rock v Gonzalez Supreme Court trial.  We hear about Schreck's great-great-grandmother, who was shipped to Washington State after her great-great-grandfather ordered her from a catalog and who subsequently died at 36 in a mental hospital, diagnosis 'melancholia.'  We hear about years of cycles of abuse that the women in her family has suffered and how she has used these personal stories to realize that the Constitution isn't really designed to protect women (or people of color, or immigrants, or LGBTQ folks) at all.  We also hear from Mike Iveson and his story is just as heartbreaking.

photo credit: Joan Marcus

You would think a show that parses out the Constitution and several of its amendments would be dry and theoretical.  And it is so not.  The storytelling is genius, Schreck is a delightful storyteller, and I was so moved throughout the piece.  She has charm and wit and the pacing of the show is fantastic - she uses pauses and silence to very striking effect.  I was forced to think about this document, and our country, in a whole new way.  Each of her stories about women who had been let down by either the Constitution or the government in some way was so specific and yet so universal.  I was holding back tears many times throughout, but maybe most especially during the three bits of actual recorded conversations of Supreme Court justices.  You hear men talk so dryly and heartlessly about women's rights and women's bodies and how the word 'shall' doesn't necessarily mean 'shall', but they never talk about the women as people.  It was shocking to me.  The way the men kept clearing their throats, or coughing, when talking about birth control was completely telling.  Of course, the third bit of recording is of the glorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her famous quote about how many women should be on the Supreme Court, which was like a balm to the spirit.

The last part of the show is also genius - Schreck brings out a teenaged girl, about the same age as she was when she was winning these competitions, to do a live debate over whether or not we should abolish the Constitution and start over with a new one.  There are two girls that alternate in this role; I saw Rosdely Ciprian, who was whip-smart, funny, adorable, and I would vote for her for anything in a minute.  The debate was fascinating and I could see either side winning - we even got our own pocket copies of the Constitution so we could follow along and then take them home!  I could say a whole lot more about the show, or about my seat neighbors, who were millennial manspreading armrest hogs, but I think I'll err on the side of letting you experience the show for yourself.

Everything about the show, from the pre-show music, to the direction, to the set that was hysterically and horrifyingly accurate (how long can we look at rows and rows of photos of white men?!?!), to the sound design, was terrifically done.  What the Constitution Means to Me is a wonderfully enjoyable evening of theater and it's also an incredibly powerful piece of political resistance.  YOU SHOULD GO.  A woman telling her story and the story of other women is what we need right now.  We all need to tell our stories until finally someone hears us.  Until finally this country, our government, and the documents there to protect us, actually consider us one of 'we the people.'  The fact that this message is embedded inside a play written by a woman makes me incredibly proud.  Please go.  The run has just been extended, so there's no excuse to miss it.

When Menopause Won't Come

TMI ALERT:  This will be a very long, roundabout post and will contain extreme TMI about lady parts and other such things.  You have been warned!  Seriously, if you're at all squeamish about the female anatomy (there might be drawings!  and pictures of needles!), you should just close this post now.  I mean it.  I'm just looking to complain, explain, share, and get stuff out of my brain again...  :)

LCIS cells - pretty in pink

My particular health sagas began in 2008 - after many years of routine, nothing-to-see-here visits, I had my first suspicious mammogram, then biopsies and surgical procedures.  Because my results showed LCIS, lobular carcinoma in situ (non-cancerous cells, but with areas of abnormal cell growth that increases a person's risk of developing invasive breast cancer later on in life), I was recommended to see a breast surgeon (Dr. Julie Halston) and an oncologist (Dr. Pay-in-Advance) to monitor me frequently.  I would see them every three months or so. 

Dr. Pay-in-Advance was always particularly aggressive in her ideas for my treatment.  It was her idea that I start on Tamoxifen, which is an estrogen-modulating drug, usually used by people already with breast cancer.  She thought I should take it for three years and it would significantly reduce my risk of developing breast cancer myself.  (She also thought I should give up caffeine and eat a vegan diet.  I tried, I promise.)  Tamoxifen has some mighty strong side effects, like extreme night sweats and sudden-onset menopause.  Actually, I wasn't too sad about the menopause thing.  I figured it was time.  After many years of unhappy times of the month, I was glad to be free.

NOT FUN

Fast-forward to 2011:  I have yet another suspicious mammogram, biopsy, and surgical procedure, only this time the diagnosis was DCIS, which is ductal carcinoma in situ, meaning those abnormal cells became cancerous, but hadn't invaded the rest of my breast tissue yet.  This is when I decided to have the double mastectomy (you can remind yourself of that saga HERE).  When I had that surgery, it was decided I should stop taking the Tamoxifen, since it obviously wasn't working on me.  And of course, after I did that, my happy menopause was over and my unhappy times of the month were back.  (Of course, I also decided to stop being a vegan and drink caffeine again, because hello.  They didn't work either.  Why suffer?)

Every year, I see my gynecologist (Dr. Disco, so named because of her choices in attire) and I tell her that my unhappy times of the month are getting worse.  Every year since 2011, she has been telling me to hang on 'one more year' and surely I would be starting menopause soon.  Yes, I had a hot flash here, and a longer cycle there, but basically, nothing was stopping.  Last year, it got to the point where I was basically in some part of my cycle every day of the month - extreme exhaustion (seriously extreme - some days, I couldn't get out of bed) during the first few days; extremely heavy flow for seven to ten days (I have to sleep sitting up to avoid accidents), then two or three days of vertigo (I was so dizzy, I couldn't get out of bed).  Once that was over, it would all start up again, with no break.  It got to the point where I would start to cry every time I saw that it was 'that time' again.  I was getting depressed, I was missing at least one day of work a month, I was anemic and on iron (which is gross) and I was experiencing what I called 'crime scene' moments, where the flow was so heavy, it would just pour out of me onto the floor of my bathroom, so the red on the black and white tiles looked like a Law and Order episode.  I know there are women who have it way worse than me, but I felt like my life was just seeping out of me.

yuck, right?

I've known for years that I've had fibroids, benign tumors in my uterus, which of course are a big part of all my problems.  All of the excess estrogen has wreaked havoc.  I've had a couple of sonograms over the years to monitor their growth.  With the ever-worsening of my cycle, I finally convinced Dr. Disco that something needed to be done.  I'm over 50 and I just can't do it anymore - her asking me to hang on 'one more year' was not working.  She gave me the names of a few doctors to talk to to discuss having my fibroids either embolized or removed.  All of the names on her list were men.  I said, "Can't you recommend any women doctors?"  She said, "You prefer a woman doctor?"  I thought, uh, duh.  My whole team is wonderful women doctors and why would I add a male doctor now?  It's pretty much always been my experience that male doctors are harder to convince that there's a problem (the last male doctor I had actually asked me if I was in therapy because he couldn't find anything wrong with me; this was in January).  Anyway, I did call one of the doctors on the list and he had retired.  A WOMAN had taken his place - woo hoo!  So off I went for a consultation with another doctor inside my current health network - it makes everything so much easier when all of my appointments can be tracked on that network's website.  

NOT me

First I met with that doctor's lab assistant, who was, conservatively, twelve years old.  And a boy.  Sigh.  I will never forget the experience of trying to describe to him the different levels of feminine protection and what each color generally means.  He was looking at me as if I were telling him a short story instead of my symptoms.  I guess I'm a compelling storyteller.  Anyway, he did a couple of little tests to see if the embolization procedure was even a good fit for me.  Since it was, he went to get the doctor.  Who was, conservatively, fourteen years old.  But a girl.  I have dubbed her Dr. Mary Ingalls.  She came in and said I was a good candidate for the procedure, I just needed to get a pelvic MRI first, to confirm my problems were only fibroids and not something worse.  She also was telling me the potential risks or complications, one of which is menopause.  I just looked at her and gave her a thumbs up.  I mean, hello, that's the side effect I'm looking for!  The MRI, which I had a few days later, was a piece of cake and showed that yes, indeed, I needed the procedure.

not completely size-accurate, but still!

That ugly picture up there is of what fibroids apparently look like - I have nine and they are like that yellow one, intramural.  That means they're in my uterine wall, towards the back.  The largest one is 5 x 7 x 6 centimeters, which seems pretty huge to me!  No wonder they're giving me such problems!  My bathroom issues, my flow issues, are all explained.  So after discussing the results with Dr. Mary Ingalls and Dr. Disco, we set up the appointment for UFE, uterine fibroid embolization.  I was hoping to have the procedure during Tennis Week, since my mom would be here and I wouldn't have to take extra time off work, but we couldn't get our schedules to sync.  So I made the appointment for the Friday before Columbus Day, figuring I'd at least have one free day to play with.  Dr. Mary Ingalls told me that the recovery was around a week, so I planned to be back at work in six days because I was cocky and thought I could recover quickly.  Oh how wrong I was.  I ended up needing ten days to recuperate and I'm still a little achy, but at least it's getting better.

NOT me

My appointment was set up as the first of the day, which was nice, because the nurses all let my mom tag along to the tests and pre-op stuff.  I went into a room to have a major IV put into my hand - it needed to be able to deliver antibiotics, pain meds and a sedative.  So that was an ordeal, since it's historically a problem getting an IV into any of my veins, but the girl seemed to do ok.  This will come into play later.  My mom and I sat in the pre-op room for quite a while - suddenly, another nurse blew into the room, saying she couldn't find any saline bags for my IV.  She looked around and didn't find anything, then blew back out.  My mom and I exchanged looks.  She seemed a little excitable, but ok.  This will come into play later, too.  Finally, the time came to lead me into the operating room (my mom was taken back upstairs to the waiting room).

According to one of the websites about this procedure, "In a UFE procedure, physicians use an x-ray camera called a fluoroscope to guide the delivery of small particles to the uterus and fibroids. The small particles are injected through a thin, flexible tube called a catheter. These block the arteries that provide blood flow, causing the fibroids to shrink. Nearly 90 percent of women with fibroids experience relief of their symptoms.  The equipment typically used for this examination consists of a radiographic table, one or two x-ray tubes and a television-like monitor that is located in the examining room. Fluoroscopy, which converts x-rays into video images, is used to watch and guide progress of the procedure. The video is produced by the x-ray machine and a detector that is suspended over a table on which the patient lies."  Ahhhhhh, science.

radial artery catheter.  fun.  again, not me.

So, basically, I felt like I was in the middle of a video game for a couple of hours.  The radiologist, who had pink hair and many tattoos, was very pleasant and took her time setting everything up.  She briefly warned me that there would be some 'discomfort' during the nerve block, but I should be fine throughout.  Oh, and I warned them that I had a cold and they said it was no problem, if I had to blow my nose, just let them know.  Considering that one hand was attached to IVs with painkillers and the other hand was attached to the catheter thing that was inserted into my radial artery, there was no way I was going to be able to blow my nose.  Thankfully, my head stayed pretty clear.  The overly-excitable nurse put an oxygen thing in my nose, then came back and said "I'm not getting a reading."  I'm like, yeah, I have a cold, not breathing through my nose, thanks.  So she put another oxygen thing in my nose.  Same thing, no reading.  So then she put an oxygen mask OVER the nose thing.  That wasn't the most comfortable and it took her a few minutes to figure out that I only needed the mask, but whatever.  I was feeling drowsy, but not asleep, so I was awake for the whole procedure.

Even if I had been asleep, the injection of the nerve block would've awakened me.  I consider myself a person with a pretty high pain threshold, but holy mother of hell.  That was the most painful thing I've ever experienced.  It was supposedly going to be a 'prick' just below my belly button, but it was agonizingly painful.  I don't know if it was because it was directly into a fibroid, or what, but oh my god.  I kept moaning in my stupid oxygen mask and the Tattooed Tech kept saying "I know, I'm sorry, I'm almost done," but then she would press it again, like some crazy button that needed to be pressed, or like pumping air into a flat tire.  I almost passed out from that, but thankfully it finally ended.  Then I could notice and marvel at the fact that it seemed like Dr. Mary Ingalls was playing Space Invaders.  See that picture up there on the left with the big video screen?  Apparently, as the Tattooed Tech was pumping the nerve block, Dr. Mary Ingalls was nuking my fibroids!  She kept moving things around, hitting buttons, moving things around, hitting buttons.  The sound of it just reminded me of my nephew playing video games.  So that's what I imaged was happening.

About this time, though, the overly-excitable nurse exclaimed that my hand IV wasn't working.  Uh, wait, what??  Did that mean my pain killer and my buzz were going to wear off too soon?  I don't know, but she had to come over and give me another IV into my wrist instead.  By now, I had so many needles and bruises, I looked like an addict.  The overly-excitable nurse was also quite disturbed by the fact that she had to keep monitoring me instead of writing things down on the chart.  She was flustered that she was getting behind and she needed help.  It was a bit nerve-wracking for me.  I'm just lying there, but I felt like it was somehow my fault she couldn't get her work done.  When the procedure was finally over and they took the radial artery catheter out, the Tattooed Tech tried to calm the overly-excitable nurse down.  She finally called in another nurse, Mallory, who just wasn't having it.  She and the Tattooed Tech kept rolling their eyes at each other every time the overly-excitable nurse complained that she didn't have time to do anything.  So Mallory wheeled me into recovery, to get me away from the overly-excitable one, who I never saw again.  It was like a video game AND a performance of Mean Girls!  What a trip!

I was freezing in the recovery room, so Mallory brought me one of those wonderful heated blankets.  That helped me doze off.  Though I kept feeling as if I had to go to the bathroom.  Mallory said it was pain from the nerve block, but I finally convinced her that if I went to the bathroom, my brain would stop telling me that I needed to if I really didn't.  So I gingerly got up - yay, pretty easy!  Then I went to the bathroom and proceeded to use that bathroom sort of like that scene in A League of Their Own.  You know, when Tom Hanks comes into the dugout and uses the bathroom so long, they time him?  Yeah, like that.  When I came out, I said to Mallory "Told you I had to go!"  Thankfully, she laughed.  Dr. Mary Ingalls dropped by to tell me that everything went fine and that I might be in a lot of discomfort the next day, after all the drugs wore off, but I was a little too cocky, remember, and I'm like, oh it's fine.  I have cramps, but they're ok.  I would be sorry about that later.

They had put a huge pressurized cuff on my radial artery and every few minutes, Mallory would come to release some of the pressure.  That probably lasted about an hour in total.  And then everyone forgot about me.  I was just lying there, dozing, but no one came to speak to me for quite some time.  After everyone around me was released, and then I started to get cramps in my legs and back, I finally stopped someone and said "Can you get bed sores after only a few hours?"  She sent Mallory over.  "You think you're ready to go?"  Uh, yes.  I know I was lying there for at least two hours, if not more, and I'm sure my mom was going nuts upstairs!  I would rather have been lying on my couch than in that freezing recovery room.  Mallory asked me about my pain and I SHOULD'VE SAID IT WAS A 7.  That way, she would've given me something and I would've been ok until I got home and it was time for another dose.  But, no.  I said it was a four.  I am dumb.  Everyone always says, "Don't be a martyr, if you're in pain, do something about it," but I didn't really understand that until now.

Oh, and I forgot to mention:  while I was lying in recovery, there was a contretemps happening between another nurse (not my Mallory) and doctor (not Dr. Mary Ingalls) about the patient next to me.  From what I could overhear (and, of course, I was on drugs at the time), the gent in the bed next to me had something removed from his arm, or around his arm, or something, and he needed to keep his arm flat and still.  It was making the gent uncomfortable, so the young-sounding (male) doctor said he'd give him a little something to relax him.  After a while, the doctor came back and asked if the medication had helped.  The patient said he hadn't received any medication yet.  The doctor then proceeded to yell at the nurse, "Why hasn't he received the medication?!"  The nurse calmly replied, "Because you didn't order it."  The doctor said, "You heard me talk about it."  The nurse replied, "If you don't order it, I can't give it."  The doctor retorted, "Yes, I did order it!"  The nurse replied, "Please show me where you ordered it, because it's not in the chart or the computer."  The doctor stomped away.  I heard all the nurses whispering and then I'm pretty sure I heard the nurse in question say, "He said he's going to report me."  If that contretemps wasn't a microcosm of what's happening in the world right now, I don't know what was.  Of course, I WAS on drugs at the time.  But still.

Anyway.  Mom and I slowly walked outside after getting all my discharge papers and information and found a cab.  Of course, this was the worst cab and cabbie in NY.  He drove way too fast and the car had no shocks.  At least it didn't feel like there were any shocks - we bumped and shook all the way to Queens.  This ride did not help my cramps in any way, shape, or form.  I was feeling very unhappy by the time we got to my apartment and I was so ready for a pain pill, but I had to wait for my mom to go get the prescription filled.  By the time she got back, I was really agitated - in pain and nauseated, so I was afraid to take a pill (even the one for nausea).  I finally started taking pills right after I threw up, figuring I had a few minutes grace time before something else would happen.  

My paranoia about taking opiates is real.  The pain pills would wear off well before it was time to take the next one and I would be in real agony.  My mom kept telling me to just take the pill, but I was afraid to take them off-schedule.  I kept saying "I DON'T WANT TO GET ADDICTED OR BE LIKE KAREN ANN QUINLAN!"  I can be a little over-dramatic.  But the first few days were bad - the pain was much worse than I expected; it wasn't just the cramps, but there was a strong, searing, continual pain in my side that extended into my leg that made me nervous.  After my sister's blood clot misadventures, that fear is always on my mind.  Two days after the procedure, when I thought the pain should be tapering, that strong pain in my side was still going strong, so I called the after-hours doctor for a little advice.  In the three hours it took someone to call me back, I had already taken another pain pill, but I was glad to finally be reassured that the pain in my side and leg was normal with the nerve block wearing off.  Even if the (male) doctor on the phone seemed less than interested in speaking with me.   

So my recovery was much rougher than I thought it would be.  After my surgeries in 2011, I stopped taking pain pills really quickly, but that didn't happen this time.  I guess I'm older and less able to handle pain.  I had thought I would be back to work in under a week, but ha ha, I ended up being off ten days.  I wanted to wait until I had stopped the pain pills completely, even overnight.  I finally just had to tell myself to get over it, I wasn't going to become addicted to opiates.  My mom was a trouper throughout, even when my internet and cable went out.  I guess I should be glad that the water was never turned off while she was there.  But we had fun regardless - we played Golden Girls Trivial Pursuit, I made her listen to The Band's Visit cast album, and then I suddenly remembered that you don't need cable to watch DVDs.  So we watched quite a few of my rather neglected DVDs (gosh, The French Lieutenant's Woman holds up beautifully!) and I just reclined and took it easy for those ten days.  Sitting up was uncomfortable, but reclining on my couch and bed was fine.  As long as I kept up with my medications.

My first day back at work was also rough - of course, there was a subway problem and I had to stand for about an hour while we were trapped in the tunnel.  I started to panic that I needed a pain pill and I didn't bring any (yes, I left some in the bottle, it helps with my paranoia), then I started to feel really nauseated.  But by the time I finally got to work, I felt ok and made it through the day, though I felt pretty week and wobbly.  I've been feeling incrementally better the last few days.  I have a follow-up with Dr. Mary Ingalls in a couple of weeks, but it will probably take four to six months before I know if the procedure worked in the way I wanted it to - I'll keep you posted, though I'm sure everyone has been grossed out enough by this post that you don't need to hear anything else.  But I'm hoping it might be time for me to have a little women's-health-good-fortune.  Fingers crossed!  I don't want to have to tell any more of these stories!