Do-Over's

I went back to work today, for part of the day anyway, before I began to shake and on the verge of tears wondered why I was there and left. I had a minor surgery Sunday afternoon to correct what they thought at first was kidney stones but then while in discovered that my plumbing so-to-speak had a kink in the hose. I'm all better with the exception of feeling like I have a UTI 24-7 now. I guess if I pee on myself at work now I'll actually have a good excuse. I was answering emails this morning and responded to a girlfriend's 'lets go to lunch this week' email, telling her about my weekend of hell and morphine. She and I have known each other for a long time and she later called to check on me I said "I want "do-overs" my insides are defective - I think I got jipped". She laughed and agreed that indeed I did get jipped. But when I really thought about that I realize I'm fairly lucky. It could be A LOT worse. and in the end my body screams at me when I should be paying attention. I have to pay attention because it just plain STOPS working.

In reality my body is a full time job on it's own, and has been since I was 8 when I began having serious asthma attacks. My mom stayed up with me all night when I couldn't breathe, my dad took me to the emergency room, I had shots, I took 12 pills a day to keep me functioning. As I grew out of that, I was suffering from severe back pain and discovered scolosis at 20. At 21 I had 4 titanium screws placed in my spine. The metal didn't talk to me for a long time but about age 35 they began to scream. I see doctors all the time now to keep me mobile. I see a chiropracter 1-3 times a week, an acupuncturist, and a massage therapist to make the other two thing stick. Then, I have my western doctors to prescribe pain killers when the others don't work. I pay cash for everything but the pain killers. Insurance believes in vicodin but they don't believe in massage - how f*ed up is that?

So back in April when I began having these "episodes" of kidney pain that they thought were stones, it was one more thing to add to my list. Another battle. What did you do Saturday Night? "oh, my boyfriend drove me to the ER then I barfed into a plastic bag because I was in so much pain". It's just another day in my life.

Lucky for me they found what they think is the remedy, adding a little tube to keep the kink in the hose from being a kink again. I've had two people ask me what happens when they take it out, if it doesn't work? Hell if I know, I'm not thinking along those lines at the moment. I'm just trying not to pee on myself when I stand up.

Concidently, Oprah today had the guy from "The Last Lecture" about how living life even in your final days is about moving forward. I'll be honest I was a little grumpy this morning that I had to think about going pee every 15 min. I still kinda am. It's a pain in the ass. But I'm doing pretty good in the long run and so grateful for all the great things and people in my life. My boyfriend reminded me of all of my friends that came forward in a moments notice to help me if I wanted it this weekend. I do have a very rich life. I am blessed.

So here I am making art like I want to, trying not to pee on myself. I'm glad for this day I hope that my body supports me for many more years. I'll listen to it I promise, not that I can avoid the back pain when it strikes, or the kidney pain that makes me barf [who knew pain could make you barf!]. lets hope these two things are the most serious of them all I would be so lucky.


Photo: Just because...pink peony's that i bought myself recently because they're one of my favorite flowers.