Dr. Brigance is the guy who sawed some bone from my right calf and transplanted it into my jaw in March of 2013. He's the guy who is the go-to for closing the hole in my throat. He is the fellow who, in my worst moments, I curse, and the one who--upon reflection--I thank for saving my life. My feelings about him are as conflicted as any I have toward any one person. Goat or king, it depends upon my mood and how I'm feeling that day.
We don't see one another often. The last time I encountered him was in April, early, when I was shivering, weighing 125 pounds, wondering what the heck I was going to do with my life, myself. Now our August rendezvous is approaching, I'm 152 pounds, and still shivering in air conditioning. Yes, my internal temperature controls are not what they used to be, and the layer of fat on my ass and tummy, while welcome, have done precious little to insulate me.
This August meeting has become fraught with deferrals. I've recently been attending wound care sessions with the IU Health Wound Care specialists--Dr. Wilkins, the wonderfully arcane doctor with the longest grey-haired braid I've ever seen in my life. Normally, this would worry me: I would ponder why someone wouldn't cut their hair. Religion? Denial? Cult? But she makes me laugh, I need her expertise, and ultimately, who cares? I haven't cut my crazy hair lately either, but of course it doesn't hang down to my butt, either.
Dr. Wilkins believes I'm a great candidate for hyperbaric treatment, wherein one sits in a chamber filled with 100% oxygen for a couple of hours at a stretch, daily, for a series of, say, 20 treatments, sometimes as much as 40. The oxygen, the pressurized environment, this is pushed into the body to regenerate blood flow to radiation-damaged tissue, which I definitely have. In the meantime my wound care friends are also taking care of Krakatoa, the newly re-emerged tumor on my chest. Krakatoa likes to bleed at off times, and its caldera is slowly growing. It fronts a small area of exposed sub-dermal tissue that has never healed properly--another great indication that hyperbarics may be of help.
Dr. Dayton is in favor, Dr. Wilkins is in favor--but what of Dr. Brigance? We await, all of us, an opinion that bashes or elevates the option. As a surgeon, we have to suspect that improved blood flow would be helpful to his plan. Or not. Myself, I don't know. I'd suspect that he'll be in favor, but it will further put off surgery 2; something he may be in no hurry for, anyway. Or perhaps he will be, considering I've made a prime comeback in the past months. Or maybe not, considering a tumor has redeveloped. Or maybe yes, because at this point, throwing anything at the wall is simply a way to see what will stick.
These may be the hidden emotions of Dorothy on her way into Oz, trailed by those co-dependent creatures she acquired. Wondering how the wizard will react, wondering what a wizard looks like, hoping only for positivity and wisdom. I find myself wondering, similarly, about returning home, which to me is code for recovering normalcies, clawing toward and hanging onto small acts that I used to perform without thinking: blowing my nose, clearing my throat, eating. It seems like I don't want much but each of those normals are surgeries, reconditioning, readjusting, relearning, away.
I put a lot upon Brigance, of course, and so does the system we engage in. The surgeon sits at the apex of the specialist pyramid in some cases, this being one. To answer some of my return to normal, to address some of the infections I get, to allow me more control, and more comfort, over my destiny, Surgery 2 is necessary. Thus Brigance has a serious power of veto over how the next step happens, when, if I will sit in a pressurized chamber for a couple of hours a day breathing pure oxygen, and hoping nothing explodes. If I'll sit there thinking of National Enquirer cover photos from the 80's showing Michael Jackson, his chimp, and the hyperbaric chamber he was said to sleep in.
I have another week to find out, or being to unravel what the next few months will look like--either a boot camp for improvement, or an extended wait for an operating table, or a combination of both. I suspect if hyperbarics are approved, and my insurance company agrees, that pushes Surgery 2 into November. A birthday gift, a happy 54th, here is your neck, patched up. Frankly, nothing would please me more, even if it will take my right side out of commision for a bit, and require those awful surgical staples, and worse, keep me in University Hospital for a week...only ok if they put me in surgical ICU. I love those nurses.
In the meantime, there's life. Rally burrows ever deeper into my heart, I am awakened most mornings with a face full of grey fur that has just landed with an unceremonious thump on the bed. For 16 pounds, he has the force of conviction behind his leaps. He's discovered that being carried about is pleasant as it assures that hands must be placed upon your body, which is the logical outcome he seeks for 99.9% of his waking experience. This is a dog that takes physical contact seriously and pursues it single-mindedly. He applies a level of manipulation to its achievement that, while crude, is admirably effective.
The tomatoes are ripening in the front yard, some of the cosmos are five feet tall, and this has been one of the best summers I've experienced in the Midwest. Wet enough, rarely too hot, often not even humid as one expects--is this global warming? If so, we are in the sweet spot, in the sweet season of it.
If there is a theme, it's waiting, just as it's been from the beginning of this blog. Always, a horizon just a bit off focus, but out there, a beacon light. I'm on a ship awaiting harbor clearnace, bobbing as if shifting foot to foot. I know the place I'm going to, I've been there before. I used to live in it, complaining of it, never satisfied with it. Now, it's the drug I most crave.
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