surgery consult

So, my new journal format has a comments field. Really. Right down at the bottom of the entry, you can now entertain yourselves by leaving pithy, crushing little remarks about the latest and greatest entry. Comments. Who would've ever thought it possible? Oh frabjous day, calloo, callay!

Knock yourselves out.

I spent most of the Labor Day weekend struggling to make some sense of this new format and port over the archives of previous years. 2003 is done -- it has been an uninspired year -- but 2002 is three times as much, and 2001 isn't much better. It will likely take the better part of next week to finish with the porting, after which I will be entertaining myself with the joys of editing. Never mind. It's all for you, really. You'll be thankful when I'm done, because then I can start changing the way it looks.

Plastic surgery for the soul, that's what this is. Nose job for the web. If I had the money to afford it, I'd graft some epicanthic folds as well. Can't have everything.

I haven't had the surgery yet to remove the face nipple yet, and already the scar -- no, sorry, the SCAR -- is haunting me. It sort of hangs out there a couple of inches from my face, eyeing its new home with an eagerness I can only describe as obscene. The SCAR is Benny Hill.

The Santa Clara hospital is a broad, sprawling complex that consists of an actual multi-storied hospital surrounded by a good dozen satellite buildings that have sprung up like corns around the mother bunion. The bunion was intimidating. I parked as far away as possible, through some obscure disassociative desire to be unobtrusive. Two minutes left to my appointment, discovering I had actually parked on the wrong side of the hospital and that there wasn't actually an entrance on my side, I sprinted for it. I showed up at the reception desk wheezing like a 90-year old asthmatic finishing the last mile of the Boston Marathon. I'm sure that must've been very comforting to the nurses.

Side note: not enough horror films take place in hospitals. There's a wealth of potential terror inherent in any clinic; shiny instruments, antiseptic, and lab results. How can Freddy or Jason compare with the anonymous annihilation locked up in an impersonal lab result? With Freddy and Jason, you end up dead, it's a foregone conclusion. But a lab result? Weeks, months, years of terror, depression and pain, and no guarantee of anything at the end.

Plus, they feed you jello. Screw Elm Street. Hand me a hospital cafeteria tray if you really want my movie money.

A surgery consult is basically an exercise in self-induced terror, all in the convenience of a sterilized, generic exam room. It turns out that ignorance really is bliss, which is irritating because that just means Mom was right all along, damn her black little Fraggle heart. A consult isn't so much a consult as it is an instruction class. We're going to do this, and this, and let's check that, and okay, sign this paper. Have any questions? Is that a nod or a quake? Scared you speechless? Great! See you Friday.

They're not going to hoe it out. They're going to -- I don't think I like this word -- excise it.

"It'll be a long ellipse about three centimeters long," the medico explained, sketching it out on the tissue that covered the exam table. Sometime soon, another patient's going to lay her buttock on a drawing of my face nipple. "We'll excise the tissue and send it to the lab for analysis. If they find something wrong, we'll have to go in again and make a deeper incision to get the remainder of the tissue."

The word "excise" instantly makes me think of taxes, right before it makes me think of scalpels, which instantly makes me think of pain. It's Three for the Price of One. It's a remarkably unbloody word, which is probably why they chose it. The word "excise" suggests sharp, shiny metal instruments, latex-gloved doctors, bloodless surgery. And, okay, that pain again. Lots and lots of pain.

And the SCAR. It hovered greedily over my cheek while I clutched the face nipple with possessive fingers. "Three centimeters?" I echoed, bewildered. Metric system. Damn you, metric system. One centimeter is . . . uh, an inch is . . . . uh. "Is that big? Will it . . ."

"Oh, you'll definitely scar," the medico said cheerfully. "But it'll be beautiful. We'll have you smile right before and mark out the lines. We'll make it look like a smile crease, although," she added with the first hint of doubt, "your skin is so smooth . . . we'll find a way. It'll be lovely."

She was enthusiastic about the scarring. At home later I would stare in the mirror and experiment with a huge grin, only to discover that the cheek nipple added insult to injury by being at the apex of a smooth mound of dislocated cheek fat. Smile crease, my ass.

The SCAR trailed us to the surgery schedulers, large, jovial women who noticed that my pupils were dilating and upped the geniality. "Shall we schedule you for 2:00, then?" they suggested, after we haggled over the time. "No food from midnight the night before, just water. No aspirin for seven days before. No--"

"No food?" I interrupted. I was having a hard time grasping this concept. "None?"

"Just water," the scheduler repeated firmly.

"Yes, but when you say no food, do Doritos count? I mean, they're not technically food, are they?"

"I'll see you Friday!" the medico carolled happily, and trotted off.

"Friday?" I echoed, blankly. "This Friday?"

The SCAR cackled.

They're plastic surgeons. They're not just going to hoe it out and leave it. Really. It'll be beautiful. Really. But.

You know, face nipple. I'm used to the face nipple. I have a history with the face nipple. I don't know how to feel about the SCAR. It's not even born yet, and I'm already feeling self-conscious about it, like a 4'9" pregnant woman in her ninth month with triplets. I find my hand creeping up to my cheek to say good-bye to the nipple, hello to the-- how do I know what it'll be like? What if it's a bad roommate? What if it spills things, or breaks things, or swears? Swears more than I do? If I were lean and grim-looking or Goth, it'd fit in just fine, but in my more honest moments I have to admit the fact that I look like a reject from the Sanrio factory.

How does a Sanrio toy explain a scar? "Hewwo. I'm Hippity Hoppity Peanut Bunny. This? Oh, itty bitty accident wif a pwice tag--"