"Remember Those Six Months I Had Cancer?"

"Come in here quick, and be quiet about it," she said as she pulled me into the closet she and Ed used to share. She handed me a thingie, smirking like a prepubescent boy.

"What...what is this?"

With far more enthusiasm I'd ever imagine this sentence coming, she squealed, "It's REDACTED! Your audience will never know!"

And suddenly, I was an equally awkward blogger, changing an anecdote without a real plan.

"I thought you could sell it, or something."

"The anecdote?"

"Don't be ridiculous. You can come up with a different opener to your post, you know."

"Ugh, but clever is le difficult."

"I know, you're blogging from Trenton."

There was supposed to be something that was redacted, but I, uh..forgot. 

Things have slowly improved, now that we're almost four weeks out of surgery. Aside from a few horrendous days of narcotic-related nightmares ("I dreamed there was a jihadist on Batchelder Street!"), and typical pain and puffiness at her surgical site, I'd say she's recovering like a boss.

But, there is the belching. For such a high-class lady, the residual nausea and gas makes her both physically and psychically uncomfortable. It had reached the point where there was really no need for her to even say, "Excuse me."

According to cholangiocarcinoma.org (yes, there's a site for this cancer! It even has its own livestrong-esque rubber bracelet, which my mother forbade me from purchasing), this side effect is common in abdominal surgery, and is nothing to panic over ("Should we go to the ER?", I asked on evening, panicked over every grimace and the lack of color in her face, "What if you have cancer somewhere else?" "Could you..not..say that right now?")

 

"I'll take the burping over the pain; have you heard that I don't have cancer anymore?"

I felt like I was abandoning her by needing to get home, to my "normal" life for at least a couple of weeks ("It's a big family, hon, you don't have to do everything"). Between returning to the stage, preparing to start classes, and maintaining the general welfare of my vagina, I could also sense a growing sense of burnout. Plus, she had gone back to folding towels the "correct" way and doing small, insane tasks, like using a toothbrush on the toaster's drip pan.

I didn't set this shot up. I woke up, and this was in the kitchen.

Between her gleeful meeting with her general physician ("Thank you for saving my life," she exclaimed before he stepped entirely into the room, "If you hadn't sent me for that first ultrasound, I'd be a goner!"), a man who is clearly not a hugger but still gently wrapped his arms around his patient; and a follow-up with her surgeon, who didn't mind me documenting her staple removal ("It's for my blog, it's kind of a big deal," I said as I pretended to flip my hair over my right shoulder), it's been a process full of pain and tension, but with much support.

Let's be honest, this is not the grossest thing you've looked at today.

She thinks she'll calm down a little more once she has the results of her first "cancer-free-we-hope" CT scan at the end of the month. I told her she has clearance for anxiety for the first five years. After that, she's just milking it.