Not So Rose-Colored Glasses

I’m not sure now if I was so much blessed with perfect vision as I was blessed with a mother who wouldn’t allow her children to have anything less than perfect vision. Regardless, I didn’t wear glasses until my mid-forties.

The way my self-delusion came crashing home is recounted in my story, “Dare to Enter” in the hilarious book, Your Glasses Are on Top of Your Head: Tales of Life, Longevity, and Laughter, now available.

The good news is I have developed such a smooth routine with my glasses that I no longer give them—or my aging vision—a second thought. That is, until the other day when I pulled them from their customary storage place (the unused cup holder), put them on...and they just didn’t improve my vision any. As in at all.

My doctor always asks me if I’ve experienced any sudden vision changes. I’d never given it much thought before, but now I did. What do sudden vision changes mean? I ran down the whole list—at least the list within my knowledge. Diabetes? Glaucoma? Retinal detachment? Probably a whole bunch of other horrible ones I don't even know about! My breathing grew more rapid with each one.

I’m Facebook friends with a woman who seems to have all sorts of weird medical disasters befalling her. One of them was when she experienced sudden detachment of her retinas. The way she told it, she was just hanging out and her retinas suddenly decided to depart, introducing for me the alarming possibility that body parts can just randomly flee. She always describes all of her health issues in detail, complete with pictures. It seems to me she was left in the hospital for the longest time, suspended facedown and immobile, in order to help preserve her vision.

It was so horrifying, hundreds of people “liked” it.

So I started to panic there in my car. I can’t afford a night in the hospital, let alone weeks! And dangling face-down! What would I do?! And worse—my vision was not only blurred, but dimmed! What did dimmed vision mean? I thought of movies where dying people coughed and whispered melodramatically, “It’s…it’s getting dark.” It was almost like….

Oh. I said it aloud in my car because I also talk to myself these days. Then I started laughing—something I’m afraid I also do by myself sometimes these days. Sunglasses, is what it was like. Non-prescription ones. The ones I’d accidentally put into my cupholder where the driving glasses go. So technically the glasses were on my face and everything, but they were just the wrong ones.

Who knew old age was so entertaining? Don’t forget: Your Glasses Are on Top of Your Head, edited by Brenda Elsagher. You might even find yourself randomly laughing for a long time afterward.

I learned at fifty I had joined the army of unwanted men. ~Ray Brandbury, Farewell Summer

More Dithering About Scars

Last year I was a little freaked out when I needed to schedule surgery to remove a stage one melanoma on my leg, and the doctor started talking about plastic surgeons and skin grafts.

According to my dermatologist, the leg—especially the ankle—is the worst place on the body when it comes to healing with the possible exception of the lip. I guess it’s a circulation thing. (Leg is also the most common place for women to have melanoma. For men, it’s the back.)

But what made it harder to make a decision was not really knowing what to expect. I automatically turned to the Internet, which was an additional challenge thanks to the six months of computer crashes I was gifted with at the time. I had Googled “melanoma scar on leg” and was scared witless by the most severe cases that popped up—and none of them on the ankle, like mine. I was genuinely afraid I’d end up looking like Frankenstein. Still, I decided to forgo the really special specialists and just had the dermatologist remove it in her office. When I left my surgery, I was bandaged from ankle to knee. All for something that was about the size of a grape seed.

What I discovered under all that mummy wrap was really no big deal. So forgive me if you feel it’s tacky of me to flash my nasty legs at the world, but I am going to post pictures of the scar for those people who may be doing an image search for “melanoma scar on leg” or “melanoma scar on the ankle” like I was.

It should be noted that I required another biopsy in October which turned out to be benign. So the newest photo includes a scar that’s about 16 months old with a punch biopsy at the bottom (the darker, rounder part of the scar) that’s about nine months old. Again, I skipped the plastic surgeons and grafts and just had a wide excision (with 1 cm. margins for a .03 mm. stage 1 melanoma with no migration, no mitosis per visual field and no ulceration) in my dermatologist’s office. I can easily cover the scar with cosmetics if necessary, but at this point I usually don’t bother.  

About two weeks after wide excision of stage 1 melanoma

About a year later with punch biopsy on bottom

As always, reduce UV radiation. Wear sunscreen. And remember that you know your body better than anyone; don’t take take a doctor’s word for it (or four, in my case) if something doesn’t look right to you. Demand, don’t request, a biopsy.

The good news is that the best of your life can be ahead of you no matter what your age or circumstances—if you choose to make it so—because 90 percent of your potential is not only untapped and unused, but also undiscovered.  That’s not just good news it’s incredible news! ~Tim Hansel

Take That in Your Traveling Tupperware and Stuff It

Hooray for this time of year, when in true holiday fashion I can take something reasonably healthy, like oat cereal, and corrupt it until it retains virtually none of its nutritive elements, and like a culinary alchemist, change it into tasty, cholesterol-and cheese-laden gold. Here are

10 Things I Feel Like After Too Much Holiday Food:

1. A humongous, slightly mobile appetizer made of cream cheese, semi-sweet chocolate morsels, bacon bits, Cheeze Whiz, mayonnaise, and mini-marshmallows on top
2. Gurgling cheese ball
3. Chocolate-engorged food tick
4. Over-moussed moose
5. Raw, overstuffed poultry
6. Ginormous, un-popped cheesecake zit
7. Big glob of extremely well-marbled, past-its-prime rib
8. Giant, bloated gravy truffle
9. Piggy-food-bank
10. Baked couch potato loaded with sour cream, bacon, chives, and Cheeze Whiz

Shouldn’t there be a list of acknowledgments for detractors, naysayers, underminers?  All the people who did not believe in you.  The people who got in your way or who tried to bring you down.  These people deserve to be acknowledged, too.  They should be on lists titled F*** You and Special F*** You and Very Special F*** You.  ~Cynthia Kaplan, Leave the Building Quicikly

Still Held High

Several years ago, I posted here about a female Family and Consumer Science teacher who proudly sported a head that was bald as a bowling ball—presumably from cancer treatments.  In honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, this is an update.

I recently saw her walking through the halls.  She now has a nice, thick head of hair.  I remember hearing once that post-chemotherapy hair can be even thicker and better than before, and it certainly seemed true in this case.  I’m pleased to report that she looked healthy and rosy and ready to take on the next adventure that life has to offer. 

And even more than ever, she walked like a winner.

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished.  That will be the beginning. ~Louis L’Amour

The Fault, Dear Brutus, is Not in Our Scars

I was recently at a singles’ function, and a man I know was talking about surgery. He commented that women shouldn’t ever have surgery because “it scars them.” I just stared at this man, as I frequently find myself doing, wondering if it’s worthwhile to say what I’m thinking. I always decide it would be pointless. More and more with some people I find myself thinking you just have to appreciate the good in them and ignore the idiotic unless it’s clobbering you over the head, which idiocy is wont to do. This particular man can be nice in ways, even though he was at this point showing a disturbing lack of concern for the health, comfort and well-being of slightly over half the population, because apparently women are purely decorative objects who have no value if we are marred.

 Shortly after this conversation, I learned that I have melanoma, a highly metastatic cancer which I will be writing about more in the future only because The Big C has a way of sort of steamrolling all over everything else in your life. So I apologize in advance. People always ask the size, and this was so tiny, it’s hard to find something to compare it to. You know in birdseed, there’s always a ton of that little tan seed that seems to be in there only for flinging purposes? No animal actually seems to eat it. In fact, as a former hamster owner, I’ve noticed it’s in hamster food, too, and hamsters fling it with just as much disgust and hostility as birds do, if distance is an indicator. I just looked it up: millet. It was roughly the size of a grain of millet.

Mine was thought to be a stage one, which means no radiation or chemotherapy, but they do remove a chunk of flesh that will leave a sizable scar. In fact, I just got home from surgery and am simultaneously administering writing and chocolate therapy. I haven’t seen the actual scar yet, but I think it’s two or three inches long, though some of that is because of the way they have to cut a circular incision for stitching purposes—as an ellipsis.

I am such a dork that I actually took a picture of my pre-surgery legs because suddenly they were more beautiful than they’ve ever been. Oh, they were never anything to look at really. I’ve never had those thoroughbred legs that some women have. In fact, they tend to bring to my mind uncooked poultry, especially chicken wings—you know, the chunky, rounded ends. But this is just up from my ankle, so there will be no hiding the scar, and this makes me ache to wear dresses the way I ached to wear a belt in the advanced stages of pregnancy even though I rarely wear dresses these days because the shoes are uncomfortable. I nonetheless dressed up my library-paste-colored legs, biopsy and all, in an old pair of red heels that I can hardly walk in anymore. I wonder—would picturing other body parts severely scarred improve those as well? Maybe. Maybe I will employ this technique and become gorgeous.

The truth, of course, is that I’m already plenty scarred as it is—we all are. That’s life, and living is serious business. It’s not always pretty; that’s why some of us seek out the arts. Maybe I’m only trying to comfort myself, but I don't think so. Even before the steamroller hit, I've found myself gravitating more and more to people with the most battle scars. I like to think the best part of us is our scars. They show that we’ve survived.

And I intend to do that.

Alice: From the moment I fell down that rabbit hole I’ve been told what I must do and who I must be. I’ve been shrunk, stretched, scratched, and stuffed into a teapot. I’ve been accused of being Alice and not being Alice, but this is MY dream. I’ll decide where it goes from here.
Dog: If you diverge from the path—
Alice: I make the path!   

~2010 Alice in Wonderland

Don’t Eat Rubber Grapes and Other Vital Warnings

When I was about ten years old, my mother bought some rubber grapes and put them in a bowl on the dining room table as a decoration. Then she delivered the very dire warning: Don’t eat the grapes! They are rubber. Don’t eat them! They may look real, but they are not. Not real! They will poison you or lodge in your throat and choke you to death!

I was ten—why on earth did she seem to think I’d want to eat rubber grapes? To me, the implication was that I went around indiscriminately vacuuming up objects into my mouth, like a giant goldfish, in case they might remotely resemble food. Worse than a goldfish, even, to inhale with such force that they would lodge in my windpipe.

Besides, this was in our formal dining room, which was not a place I associated with eating, anyway. It was for homework and jigsaw puzzles and class projects. But the main thing was, the grapes were rubber. They looked rubber. And even if they had looked that real, wouldn’t I have figured it out when I tried to pick one? And even if a rubber grape made it to my mouth, would I swallow it for lack of knowing what else to do with it?

So I was pretty insulted by that warning.

But then came the time I was grown and trying to germinate poisonous Morning Glory seeds in a little container in my kitchen. Being apparently more passive aggressive than my mother, I made a little Post It note that said, “Don’t eat! Poisonous seeds!” And I drew a little skull and crossbones for good measure. My daughter was then about twelve. She looked into the little cup at the brownish water with a few little black things floating in it, looked up at me, and said merely, “yum.”

She was right—they didn’t appear very appetizing. But still, I was a mother and couldn’t take any chances.

Then the other day I discovered a jar in the kitchen that looked like a science experiment. Both of my children are into science, so I wasn’t surprised. It was a jar of water with colorful chunks in it. Turned out she’d found some old “Magic Rocks” in the basement that she’d missed as a child, and she and her friends had mixed them up. Under the jar was a note: DO NOT DRINK GROWING ROCKS!

I am so proud.

Also, our caretaker, Mr. Filch, has asked me to remind you that the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a most painful death. ~Albus Dumbledore from Harry Potter and the Socerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Improper Poll: Way Past Prime Numbers

 

My daughter is a renowned expert on expiration dates. So when she isn’t here, I am defenseless against those little stamped numbers which are often hard for me to read even if I can distinguish them from mysterious product codes. Does 022012 mean February 20th of 2012 or just February in general? Usually I only remember to check during canned food drives, because I wouldn’t want to give someone else expired food.

Here is a confession: The other day I knowingly drank expired coffee. It was a powdered instant mix, and really, how much could powder degrade? Still, I was worried enough that I warned my daughter ahead of time in case that special, relaxing “me” time from the commercial became non-relaxing rush-me-to-the-hospital-time and she needed to know what to tell the paramedics. It smelled and tasted fine, though. And I lived. Oh, and the expiration date was a year ago.

I was going to have a contest to see who could locate the Most Expired Food Item in their pantry, but I was afraid no one would want to participate.

Or that I would lose.

You’ll be pleased to know I’m not going to tell you what’s in the back of my refrigerator. In fact, I am not even going to look! Instead, I’ll ask this: do you have expired food, or am I the only one?

Improper Poll: Out of Sight, Not of Mind

So last week when I mentioned Halloween candy, some people responded that they freeze their candy or end up throwing it out when it gets stale. I can’t quite grasp the concept of having chocolate long enough for it to get stale. The exception was the healthy chocolate that was almost 100% pure cocoa. As in, they’d barely added any sugar or creamy stuff to it, so it was lean and black and dense and bitter. Mean-bitter. Chocolate should never be something you have to fight. It was so wrong.

So anyway, to get rid of my remaining Halloween candy, I resorted to standing at the end of my driveway (in bedroom slippers) and hollering at passers-by, “Does anybody want the rest of this bowl of candy?!” Which, under any other circumstances, would have made me the Lady-You-Run-From. As it was, one adult politely took a piece the way you would do with a crazy person you were trying to humor.

Usually at that time of night, all that’s left is teenagers. And sure enough, I eventually stalked a gang of them and practically forced it on a large but slightly scared-looking mouse.

Then I had some birthday cake last week that I tried to foist off onto friends. “Just freeze it,” they said. People always say that, and I don’t get it. What is the point of freezing? Do some people not know how to open a freezer door? Because I do. It’s almost as easy as opening a refrigerator door. And frozen cake is still cake. In fact, it’s sort of good frozen. I’ll even try setting up obstacles for myself by double-wrapping with the really clingy stuff and then sealing it in various containers so that I have to really want it to get through all of the barriers. Problem is, I usually do want it that badly.

Do you have a food you just can’t resist?