Evisceration

Five-gallon bucket with motivational message.

Last Saturday our house had an emergency colonoscopy.  Dr Roto-rooter determined that the house needs a full intestinal replacement.  Disembowelment.  Evisceration. 

Nasty house abdominal symptom, found
in our basement last Saturday. This is
Not Good.

During the past two weeks some things have happened that make me feel that I and my loved ones have been spiritually eviscerated.  Basically, it’s been a truly shitty two weeks.  I’m devastated, angry, perplexed, and appalled. But I am not going to say anything more about that, because:

"I've been dying to tell you what I thought of you!
And now... well, being a Christian woman, I can't say it!

After we handed over large suitcases full of money to the plumbers, the process of disemboweling our only abode began on Tuesday with the jack hammering of large portions of the garage floor.  It took the workers all day.  I discovered that jack hammering affects things in other rooms.

This is what I found in the basement, which
shares a wall with the jackhammered room.
This is where I store extra food, which just
 leapt off the shelves!  Fortunately nothing broke.

Our jack-hammered garage floor

I am really glad I didn't waste any time sweeping
 the garage floor this spring, because they just turned it into this.

The project has proceeded apace.  It seems if you pay people enough money, they will do the job quickly, using space-age techniques where possible.  It’s Friday morning, and we have all new sewer lines in the garage.  We did not find any interesting things, such as casks of Amontillado, beating hearts, or cats, under the floor of the garage.

New sewer line in this direction

And new sewer line in that direction

A photo showing how thick the garage floor is,
with (given the week I have had) what might become
 my new morning beverage, included for size comparison.

Also, there is a new sewer line running from the powder room to this main sewer line.  That job was done without digging, using a technique involving a cloth sleeve impregnated with alien sinews.  The sleeve is inserted in the existing pipe, inflated and then some alien juice is added at which point the alien sinews become as strong and as solid as iron or PVC pipe.  This new pipe can never be destroyed because it is from outer space.  Or maybe it lasts exactly five years, which is what the length of the warranty is.

Today, they are doing a similar alien material procedure on the sewer line leading from the house to the municipal sewer.  I will bet that in five years we will be looking for Sigourney Weaver to help us fight the aliens that will be born in this sewer line. 

I left the house this morning before the plumbers arrived, but came home while they were working on this.   The process apparently requires that the cloth pipe be ironed before being installed.  This is the first time in six years that an iron has been used on our property.  The length of cloth pipe they need ran the entire length of the driveway. 

The neighbors are all highly amused by all this
drama.  Just wait 'til it's their turn!

Dalek in our basement.
Run, before it exterminates you!

The procedure also required them to bring in this Dalek, which I found sitting in front of the clothes washer.  Since Dr. Who is unlikely to show up anytime soon to protect me, I am clearing out and taking myself to a place where I can finally get a cup of hot tea, a mark of civilization which, for me, requires the presence of another mark of civilization, that is, a working bathroom.

Dr Roto-rooter called the substance “resins”.  But I am pretty sure the material is alien.

Skin Deep

Part 2 of my Gripping Story

(Part 1 can be found here.)

This is a Public Service Announcement.  If you are a member of the League of Very White People, then hie you hence to a dermatologist and get the Once-Over. 

Slick to embiggen to see just how very white we are.

When my skin doctor, Dr Albert Mark Einstein Twain, retired, I found a new doctor.  I feel fortunate to have found a highly competent and personable doc, although to my knowledge he does not frequent the theatre.  Once a year I go for the once-over.  Usually I point out the latest scary-ugly thing on my skin, and he says, “Oh, that’s just a [insert medical term ending in –osis].  That’s nothing to worry about.” 

I went for my annual this January, and for the first time, he looked concerned about a spot – something practically invisible on my face just below my eye.  He had to look through his magnifying-glass thingy three times.  Then, biopsy.  Boom, basal cell carcinoma was confirmed.  This is not a surprise, as it has appeared in members of our family going back generations.  It’s not a kind of cancer that spreads easily, and as long as you get it removed right away, it’s not likely to cause problems. 

The doctor’s office said I should have a procedure called Mohs surgery.  My brother said, “Well, at least he was the most competent of the Three Stooges.”   Leading up to the surgery, I mostly forgot that it was coming up, except for moments of total panic that someone would be slicing my face while I was wide awake. 

I had the surgery on Tuesday, and Dr Moe was indeed very competent.  While he was taking the pound of flesh (okay, more like a microscopic layer of flesh) he distracted me by asking about my children, a topic on which I am willing to go on at length, even when under the knife.  The initial procedure was over in five minutes, so I will have to go back next week and tell him all the rest about my kids.  

After the slicing, before the stitching.

The second part of the procedure was the stitching up.  This was more lengthy (a whopping ten minutes) but quite a bit more disconcerting.  Despite excellent topical anesthetics, I was in no mood for chatting, even about my kids.  I got through it thanks to the prayers of others for me, and by reciting snippets of St Patrick’s prayer over and over.  I also spent some of that ten minutes praying for other people I know who were going through things much more difficult. 

Then the highly competent nurses Larry and Curly bandaged me up, told me my eye might swell shut, instructed me to keep the bandage dry for a week, to keep my head elevated, and to take it easy.  Then they sent me on my way. 

As we were waiting for the elevator to the parking garage, a very good friend from church just happened to walk through the door.  She works in the adjacent building, but I hadn’t realized that until we had arrived that morning.  How wonderful it was to see a caring friend just at that moment!

On the way home, I told my husband that I didn’t think I could eat crunchy food, because chewing might turn out to be painful.  Also, I was supposed to sleep with my head elevated, and therefore, we should go up to, say, a mountaintop.  To sleep in a resort hotel.  With room service.  He said, no, but he would stop off at the grocery store and pick up some mashed potatoes.

Now I can tell you from experience that it is well nigh impossible (hello, Suburban Correspondent!) to keep a bandage on your face dry while taking a shower. I expect to look odd for a while, but hey, my eye did not swell shut. My son says I should wear a mask across that half of my face and go around as The Phantom of the Common Household.

Not too bad a result.  I'm so happy my eye did not swell shut!
I dread the moment when they will pull off the bandage next week.

Skin Doctors I Have Known and Loved

Part 1 of My Story

Because I am a member of the League of Very White People, it is wise for me to see a dermatologist on a regular basis.  Or, more accurately, for the dermatologist to look at me.

Very White People at the Beach.
From left to right: my grandmother, my older brother, and
then me, looking fashionable.
Approximately 1965 or so.

When we first moved to Western PA, I needed to find a new dermatologist.  At my first appointment, I waited in the exam room, shivering in my paper “gown” (a ridiculous misnomer for this garment).  Soon, a member of the Borg Collective barged in the room, with a weird oculus where human eyes should have been. 

It turns out it was the doctor himself, who didn’t think it was important to look the patient in the eye the first time he met her.  He told me some things about my skin, but I was so terrified that I couldn’t take in what he was telling me.  I decided to switch doctors, which is not easy with dermatologists because they are harder to find than a Ravens fan in Pittsburgh.

My switch was serendipitous.  The next dermatologist, who bore a passing resemblance to Albert Einstein, greeted me like a normal human being, before putting on the weird oculus, which, it turns out, is a dermatologist’s magnifying glass thingy, the better to see skin cancers with, my dear. 

In another universe, Einstein could have
been a dermatologist.

While waiting in my paper gown, I happened to be reading a book by Mark Twain, and the doc volunteered that he periodically performed the role of Mark Twain on stage.  He also divulged that, at that moment, he was getting ready to perform the role of Albert Einstein in the theater.  He saw no threatening skin growths, gave me a kindly lecture on how I should stay out of the sun and wear SPF 500 sunscreen, and sent me on my way. 

I was star-struck.  In the next few years, I was able to see him on stage, once in a very moving performance in the role of Otto Frank (father of Anne Frank), and then again in a one-man show as Mark Twain.  In turn, once a year he saw all of me in the exam room at his dermatologist office. 

Then (sob) he retired from medical practice and I had to find a new skin doctor.

In the next post you will find Part 2 of My Story.  It has a happy ending.