truth in advertising

have you seen the new cleveland clinic spots?

you know, today? today is friday, today is the day, today, today, today.
and yes, i think about you, mr hudock, every time i see them. “today, is the day, get your t-shirts today.” :)

being in advertising, you’d think that i would be particularly jaded with it. but i want to believe. i believe oil of olay will help me with my under eye wrinkles and make me look younger in just 4 weeks. and i have been CRAVING egg mcmuffins lately. but the clinic? ehhh. i wasn’t very impressed. i guess expected something a bit more from them advertising-wise.

until...

friday afternoon at 4...i get a call from bri.
can i meet him downtown at the clinic for emergency eye surgery?
this moment being the first time i knew anything had been wrong. apparently, it had been bothering him for like 3 weeks. (2 of those weeks out of town) when he got back into town he made an appointment. (still didn’t tell me.) he called on monday and got in on friday. he said he thought it would be nothing...maybe he just needed some eye drops.

well, not nothing. a detached retina.

and at 4 on friday, when he said to meet him downtown for emergency surgery i had know idea what that was. so no, the kids weren’t scared, cause i couldn’t even tell them what was wrong. in’t know. got a call from his doctor at the clinic as i was driving down there. omar. wanted to call brian on his cell phone. (hahahahahahah!) wanted to know what time brian had left the eye doctors and wanted to start filling out his paperwork for him. i told him as much as i could...all the while feeling dumb that didn’t even know this had been going on. i wish bri was telling this part of the story...but i guess as soon as he got to cole...before he even checked in at the desk...omar and rishi (the surgeon) came out, got him and whisked him through various back doors, outside and such to the main building. it sounded as if it wasn’t until he was prepped and ready for surgery that someone realized he wasn’t in the system. when i got there...he still wasn’t. the concierge made 4 calls before she found him. brian said the whole thing was so surreal...he thought maybe someone was doing an intervention...or he was on punk’d. he went into surgery at 6:23. not even 4 hours from his appointment. couple of hours later, i get a call on my cell phone, not the pager. his nurse telling me he was ready to go home. this time, i was whisked thru back doors to his room surprising both bri and his doctors. we received instructions, left, and were home by 9:45. everyone we met that crazy afternoon couldn’t have been more awesome. from the concierge...who even with people standing behind me was determined to find my husband...to the nurses in the pacu who had held bri’s clothes behind the desk because he wasn’t officially admitted...to omar who saw us saturday morning in an empty eye center to make sure bri was ok. was this an emergency? well, omar said it fell between urgent and an emergency. and when it’s someone you love, well, you know the answer.

but i just wanted to say, this time? when it came to the clinic? i am pretty impressed.

finally...almost.

my headlights.
as our best friend, charlie, so diplomatically refers to them.
if you haven’t read any older posts...long story short.
got an implant, didn’t work. who knew?
(I bought a car. It turned out to be an alien robot. Who knew?)
problem around the incision > infection > implant out > grotesque hole in my chest
took FOREVER to heal...even a little...because of the radiation i had 6 years ago.
so, fast forward to monday...when i will be having surgery again.
latissimus dorsi tissue flap breast reconstruction.
in other words...they take skin and muscle from my back and somehow move it to my front.
they’ll put an expander in...which will eventually be filled to the point where ill have the next surgery. whew.
but my mantra...it’s not cancer...and it doesn’t hurt...has worked.
bri is, and has been, with me every step of the way...and the kids are totally ready to help out (olivia even went with me to the grocery store this morning to help pick out stuff she wants to make)
ill keep you posted...until then...shine on.
(see what i did there...headlight, shine on. where are you, jenny, when i need you!)

daily ritual :: summer edition

so. this post definitely falls in the category of too much information. so be forewarned. i a little while back in updates i posted that there might be a problem with my incision. well, that turned out to be a large understatement. because of the radiation that i had 5 years back (well, thats what i keep telling myself so i stop putting the blame on me) the incision not only didn’t heal, but got hugely infected. fortunately, it waited till i got home from vacation...but 2 dys later i was in my doctors office watching brian turn pale as the doctor cut open my chest and pulled out my inplant. (i have very little feeling there...so it didn’t hurt me...except for wanting to throw up cause i knew what was happening) anyway...enough back story and on to the daily ritual part. every day...twice a day...the saint known as brian roach has to pack my open wound...wearing rubber gloves....with saline soaked gauze until the wound heals up from the inside. you cant just sew it up cause there is now way of making sure all the bacteria is out of it. it’s why puncture wounds are so dangerous. now, some of you know...brian is a guy who learned how to give a shot into a box turtles leg. so he’s perfectly suited for this job. and as i have said to myself for the umpteenth-gazillioneth time...i don’t know what i would do without him.