Entrails become extrails

Okay not really. Just an update on my surgically removed lump.

After a drug-induced blackout and a hazy awakening, I found myself in one of those hospital rooms. Yep. One of those. All clean and white.

Clean. Or so you think. Everything has a pristine smell. But beyond the pristine is a reeking chemical smell. Medicines, Clorhexydine, bleach, starch. Leaves a weird taste in everyone's mouth. Beeping, wires, iv catheters, all the weird hospital things.

There's a difference between hospital clean and home clean.

Home clean has a warmth and coziness. Soaps smell of pretty and flowers. All sorts of loveliness makes the home clean like citrus smells, mint smells, lavender smells, even comet has a nice friendly home smell.

Hospital clean isn't warm or cold, it's very detached and isolated. No friendliness in this clean. If not for the nurses and their kindness it would be a grim experience.

Nurses are angels. No doubt about it. Forgoing their own comfort to constantly ensure the comfort and satisfaction of their wards.

If not for the effects of Insanity and P90X workouts and regular running, my recovery would be longer-lasting. With a foundation of abs of steel (insert a small amount of sarcasm...just a small amount though, my doctor said I was the healthiest patient he'd had and he could tell I took care of my body because my muscles were well toned...insert some pride here at this moment...) I am on a fast track to recovery. I think my inability to be an invalid for long and my stubbornness to do things on my own will contribute as well. My main thing now is to NOT overdo it.  Easier said than done.

In which case my entrails would become my extrails...

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A word on being cut open

6 am. That's when I have to be there. 

NOT when I have to open my eye lids to a dark world.

NOT when I have to awake myself and arouse my faculties. 

NOT when I have to take a shower to scrub the special antibiotic soap all over my bacteria-ridden body. 

NOT when I have to prepare myself for my doom.

NOT when I have to leave my home to get to the hospital. 

I'm the first 'case.' That's right. The lucky girl that arrives at 6 am. 

6 am. Oh how I haven't missed you. Lucky for me, I get to be knocked out for a couple of hours to make up for it. That's when they cut me open. Yup. Like in the child's game, Operation. 

Tools needed...true story

Only for real. 

Due to many hilarious stories of delirious post-anesthetic behaviors, I'm leaving my phone in the care of my beloved mother who will be sane and drug-free at all times. She will be in possession of the device whilst I am in a drug-induced craziness. Until such a time that I can coherently converse with you lovely peoples.

SO nothing too scandalous if you please. It's my mother who'll be reading them. Just sayin.

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I feel like

Wind streaking across the open sky, through the bare tree limbs. Funneling between buildings and canyons, racing toward me, the ill-prepared student walking up to campus. 

 Not that walking up the hill presents its own problems for breathing well...the wind blew directly at my face taking my breath with it as it flew past me. Every part of my body whether exposed to the freezing elements or not, was numb within seconds of leaving my warmish abode.

"My tail's froze, and my nose is froze, and my ears are froze and my toes are froze."

Seriously felt like a little puppy trekking across frozen England

On the other hand the wind made me look even hotter than I usually do. 

If only I looked as good as her

Okay maybe not that great but pretty great...let's be honest.

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I grow 'monsters'

Christmas break wasn't as fun as it should've been. Poinsettas, twinkling lights, candy up the wazoo, stockings, Christmas tree all decorated in balls and bamboozles, homemade food and all around good cheer.

Nope. I had to visit the ER.

Poop.

Doctors and nurses poking me, making me pee in a cup, and all sorts of uncomfortable, painful hospital activities. I think they were mad that I took up their time on Christmas Eve. Not my fault. They should've blamed it on my monster, not me.

If not at the insistence of my parental units that it could be appendicitis and potentially hazardous to my life, I wouldn't have even bothered going. I would've assumed the debilitating, monstrous pain in my lower right abdomen was going to end up being a sore muscle or something else entirely non life-threatening. Instead they found my 7.1cm x 5.71cm lump, affectionately known as my monster. This sweet little thing I have grown in my body isn't very sweet.

In fact, it's dross. It needs to leave my body. It keeps causing me further uncomfortabilities.

Luckily for me they want to get it out too. BUT. The catch is, is that this fascinating mass is quite decidedly attached to my right ovary. Due to the size of my monster they have to take my ovary out with it. No worries all will continue on normally as I was fortunate enough to be born with two of them. Future child-bearing will be a little more difficult but completely possible. So you can all breathe easy...there will be plenty of adorable little Ashley's running around in the future for your enjoyment.
 
The next few months are going to be the best of my life (insert sarcasm). 

After what my Doctor called an 'exploratory laparotomy' I will have a nice LONG incision to deal with all decked out in stitches and soreness. This being because they need to check my other ovary, who's been sitting there innocently doing nothing so out of the ordinary as growing a monster, for anything suspicious.

This means that the 6-pack abs I have been working on the past little while will most likely deteriorate and I will no longer have a beach body as I do now (joke). Not to mention doing essentially anything with my body will be painful as every movement I may do whether it be walking, vegetating, laughing, rolling over in bed, asking politely for a bowl of ice cream, jumping jacks, or simply going skydiving, will require the use of my abdominal muscles. My now sweetly toned tummy muscles will have cuts through them and nasty little stitches pulling them back together. There will be no using of my abs for some time.

Let's just say I might have had it coming to me.

I found excessive amounts of delight in watching my sister try not to laugh while recovering from the removal of her wisdom teeth...I might've gone out of my way to make her laugh.

There's the story of my 'monster.'

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Readjustments

Sigh. A nice weekend. Family get togethers full of laughter, music, games, and fun.

My happy tummy is full. Has been all weekend. Yummy food stuffs in well-stocked cupboards and grand dinners for the holiday season have seen to that.

But...lurking in the back of my brain, a whisper. A grating reminder.

Bare cupboards. Cold empty fridges. 

Grumpy belly gnomes. Grumbling and gnashing of teeth.

Food. A foreign dream for a college kid like me.

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Eating snow babies

Oh snow. How you and I have battled through the years. You win some. I win more.

The cold time of year has begun and you had a win today. I slipped and took a tumble. But... I won more. I ate your babies.

Yes. I ate them.

I caught them with my tongue as they fell happily to the ground. They are screaming and wailing inside my body. Melted and suffering in my warm belly. 

You must have a short memory because this is my only revenge and yet you keep coming back for more. I could do this all day.

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Charcoal on the outside

Undergraduate studies. Roasting a pig over a pit. I've heard it both ways.

My allotted time has come and gone. But I'm still over the fire. I am well done through and through. They keep the skewer in my body. The heat cooks my soul away.

They mush prefer ash and charcoal.

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