Geisha School Dropout

Smell Ya Later, Granuloma

So I finally had surgery on my hand on Tuesday!  I reported at the surgery ward at 5 freaking 30 in the morning, since I was the first one scheduled for the day.  They set up an IV drip, and into it went some delicious Versed (for my NERVES, Loca) and Zofran for nausea.  They wheeled me into the OR, squirted some Fentanyl into my drip, and the next thing I know I'm back to my little curtained corner, putting my clothes back on with one hand (my right hand was totally numb) and asking the recovery nurse if my granuloma bled all over the place.  "Uh, I wasn't in the room, hon, but I don't think so."  "But but but I thought it would bleed."  I told myself to shut up before I started scaring people.  Fifteen minutes later, Tim picked me up and we headed home.

How First World in the 21st Century was that experience?????  No pain, seamless transitions, hardly any waiting.  Oy vey, thinking about how I had to suffer through 18th-century silver nitrate sessions in order to get there, my brain gets stuck between indignation and relief.  But I'll just stick to relief for now.  One bad thing, though, is that I have no idea what they did to my finger or what it even looks like.  I think they might have shown me while I was under anesthesia.  Hopefully it's happy in its packaging, which will be removed in 10 days.

Oh wait, there's one other bad thing:

 

They bandaged my finger to look like a small penis.

(If you're wondering about the significance of AL, those are my surgeon's initials.  He marked the finger to be operated on, as if the parasite-ridden pustule wasn't enough indication.)

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Update 2/6/2010:

People have written to me asking to see what my finger looked like.  So, here you go!  Middle finger with pyogenic granuloma on right, my other unaffected middle finger on left for comparison.  Ouch!

 

A Few of my Favorite Things

Despite Little Miss Emimoo desperately trying to ruin my nights and dampen my good spirits through flying food and supersonic screechiness, a blood-filled tumor causing my middle finger to swell up and blush in various shades of purple, and a slew of other responsibilities competing for control of my sanity, I shall now share with you a few reasons why I am still relatively happy and giddy.

1. March Madness and the WBC

A little unknown fact about me: I love college basketball.  I especially love The Big Dance every March, and I participate in an NCAA men's basketball tournament bracket pool every year.  And every year I lose really badly.  But this year will be different!  I really feel like I have it in the bag this time.  Click through to see it full-size and please ignore all the red already:

From Bracket 2009

If your bracket does not look like mine, then you are going to lose.  To ME.

And to put the icing on the professional sports spectator cake, part of this year's World Baseball Classic is being held in southern California!  Last night I got to watch Korea vs. Japan at my parents' house.  Let's just say that I was screaming and throwing dried squid at a Sony television when a Japanese pitcher hurled a fastball into the brain stem of one of our players.  Then I got mad at my parents for buying a Sony instead of a Samsung.  I get really, really, REALLY jingoistic when it comes to Korea vs. Japan on anything, and to a lesser extent, Korea vs. USA.  I trash-talk and spew racist epithets like the Occupation and the Korean War are simultaneously still happening.  Take it from my poor husband, who unfortunately is both Japanese and American, whose face gets all scratched up during World Cup, WBC, and Olympic years.

DAE HAN MIN GUK MAN SAE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. Fruit Punch

I have recently rediscovered this magical elixir.  Now they have all-juice varieties which aren't nearly as sketchy as the powdered Red Drink of my youth.  But let's face it, all-natural crack is still crack.  Lots of last-minute shit on your plate and you feel like you're going to cry, explode, or beat a bitch?  Go to the fridge and take a hit.  Instant sunshine and happiness.  Don't give it to your kids, though, I think the shit causes cancer.

3. Unbelievably cute baby shoes, I HAZ DEM

If Emily is going to be a bratty 2-year-old, might as well have the shoes to match, right?

4. Spring Blossoms

All around the city, stone fruit trees are beginning to blossom.  From the bright magenta of the peach trees to the whisper pink of the almond trees, petals are bursting from lifeless branches.  Mother Nature absolutely pwns any human technology every spring.  I can barely suppress my urges to burst out in song, like "SAKURA! SAKURA!  YAYOI NO SORA WAAAAAAA!" but then I remember that I hate Japan right now.

5. Vicodin in Bed

Mommy's Little Helpers.  The best thing about having a pyogenic granuloma on your finger is that it hurts so bad, doctors give you Vicodin.  I don't go to sleep anymore without popping one.  And it makes the nighttime Emily care so much more manageable.  She wakes up about 4 times a night complaining about too much blanket, not enough blanket, too much snuggling, not enough snuggling, too much fluff in the pillow, you get the picture.  I used to get mad, now I smile like the Virgen de Guadalupe and can honestly tell her she's such a good, beautiful, flower of a girl and Mama loves her, even as she kicks me in the face.  Ah, the precious little moments of motherhood!

I Forgive You, Boy, I Will Prevail

(Title poached from my favoritist Stone Roses song EVER IN A MILLION YEARS, video below)

I stand before you today triumphant, a new woman.  After a lifetime of spreading my asscheeks for the Fates to do as they please, today I actually manipulated a situation to go my way.  It is like a drug, this new power, and I am soarin'. 

I shuffled over to the Orthopedics department for my second silver nitrate torture session.  In the waiting room were people of all ages, shapes, and sizes with messed up knees, ankles, and arms.  I felt like a total wimp, whining about this thing coming out of my finger that now looks like a shriveled embryo.  But I'm telling you all, I've given birth both naturally and via caesarean, and this overgrown pimple is bothering me a whole lot more than the postnatal recovery did.  It's insane.

So my name was finally called, and I shuffled in and they took my vital signs.  My heart was semi-racing, 110 bpm, my blood pressure was really high (137/94 or something like that) and I was obviously nervous.  The PA looked at me very sympathetically, and asked me if I'm ready.  "I think so," I whimpered.  He took one look at my finger and he said "Holy moly, it's growing!" 

"Yes!" I whimpered, opening my eyes really really wide to emphasize.  "And it hurt so much over the weekend!"

"Aw, Julie, you should have called me over the weekend then.  I would have definitely given you something to take care of the pain."

I batted my eyelashes and whispered "I would have liked that very much, but I thought you were closed.  I just don't understand why it hasn't gone away already."  My lower lip trembled.  I was hoping I looked like those sad bug-eyed anime girls:

 

It hit him deep in his heart, I could tell.  He winced and looked injured.  Then he looked again at my finger and I could tell it was starting to anger him for causing me to suffer so.  "I have half a mind to take the whole thing out right now.  Hey Fred, can you take a look at this granuloma for me?"  Another PA walks through the curtain and he blanches.

"Joe, that needs to go to surgery.  Dr. Leoni would definitely want to take that out himself."

My original PA smiles sheepishly and a little apologetically.  "Well, you're off the hook then, Julie.  Instead of silver nitrate, you'll be getting hand surgery with a relaxing general anesthetic and a numbed arm.  Wait a few days and Dr. Leoni's nurse will call to schedule an appointment."

"Can you give me a Vicodin prescription anyway?  Please?"

"Definitely."

I strutted out of that clinic like a rooster on his wedding day.  The Stone Roses were blaring in my head, cocaine-induced rock and roll flowed in my veins, and all was well in the world again.

Truly Disappointed. Truly, Truly, Truly, Woooooe...

(Title bummed from one of my favorite Morrissey songs)

I headed over the Harbor City Kaiser this morning to hopefully get my pyogenic granuloma (henceforth referred to as "my tumor") surgically removed for good.  But nope.  My tumor is still here.  And I am feeling incredibly sorry for myself.

Basically the tumor is too "alive" to just cut off because it will grow back.  So we'll have to kill it first...by fire.  Es loca!

Here is what I have to do: basically I have to drive over to the hospital everyday for 2-4 weeks to get my middle finger burned with silver nitrate (which is applied via a wooden stick that looks exactly like those big barbecue matches).  If I don’t want to drive, then I’ll have to burn myself at home which is not a physically possible option for me for now, since I don’t really feel like burning myself on purpose, plus my hand automatically pulls away from the heat source IMAGINE THAT!

The procedure hurts really bad, kinda like burning yourself, IMAGINE THAT!  But for 30 minutes straight.  I cried like a baby.  I drove home crying, I collapsed into Tim's arms crying, and couldn't stop crying until Tim brought me a bagel.

My self-pity level is through the roof.  Woe is me.

When All Else Fails

Man, I am in a funk today!  I have this crazy tinnitus, a fever, and that stupid pyogenic granuloma motherfucker on my middle finger grew back to twice its original size. 

So I scoured my old blog archive for this video of Emily laughing for the first time:

It never fails to put a smile on my face. Hopefully it will put a smile on yours as well.

Pyogenic Granuloma? I hardly know her!

Goddamn, heaven forbid any of you receiving a shot of Lidocaine in an already-swollen fingertip.  The sensation was not pleasant.  In fact, it forced a noise from deep within my diaphragm, akin to a 10-year-old PeeWee Herman who just got kicked in the balls.  It even made me do a half-sit-up, and honey, you KNOW that takes some effort.

Luckily, the pain only lasted a few seconds and once things got nice and numb down there, the doctor (who was the world's perkiest, blondest dermatologist ever) took a medical device that looked almost exactly like a proto-staple-remover and plucked out my unsightly bump.  Blood squirted everywhere, since these things are overgrown blood vessels after all, and then she took a steel stick and scraped out a bunch of dead-looking tissue from inside my finger.  I love anaesthesia, because you can look at this and totally forget that this is actually happening to you.  "Wow, that's gotta hurt!" I thought, but nope, it didn't.

Then came time for the burning!  "Igor, can you please set the cauterer to 9 volts?"  "Yeheheheheeessssss, master..."  Then BZZZT!  BZZZZT!  and the smell of barbecue filled the exam room.  Oh wait, that's my finger!  And oh man, I can really feel that!  YOOOOOOW!  Apparently, the Lidocaine was wearing off and I could start to feel the burning and melting of my skin.  Awesome.

Where an unsightly bump once was, now was a smoking black crater.  Miss Perkytits congratulated me on being a star patient and the nurse bandaged me up and told me to take some Tylenol once I got home.  Oh, and a small detail: they're going to send it over to get biopsied, so that will be an extra $10 copay.  Business is business.

I saved the crying until I got to the car and the Queen of Feeling Sorry for Herself, Beth Gibbons of Portishead, started wailing on "Mysterons" ("All for nothiiiiiiiiing, did you really waaaaaaaaaaant...") and I was like "Stupid Portishead, how can you be SOOOOO miserable when no one just burned your finger ON PURPOSE and told you to take some Tylenol???" But I started singing along anyway, and upon hearing my own frog-in-the-throat caterwauling, the tears came.

But actually, the Tylenol (washed down with orange Gatorade, THAT IS KEY) helped and now I'm pretty much fine, except I can't get my bandage wet for the rest of today (never mind that I accidentally dunked it in gravy while serving dinner yesterday...the rest of the night the dogs were ever-so-concerned with Mama's injury, harrumph).

So hooray!  Smell ya later, innocuous tumor thing!  And hello, eating chocolate pie for breakfast because nothing says "I'm healin'!" like a big ol' slice of self-indugence.

Oh, in case you need a refresher on "Mysterons":

Middle Finger Blues

These people are repulsed!

I have to admit I haven't been fully honest on my blog.  I've been living with a shameful secret for 2 months, and like a coward I hid behind cute pictures of the kids and a trip to Hong Kong.

So here is the naked truth: I have had a nasty-looking abscess-thing on my middle finger for weeks, and I just went to the doctor yesterday for it.

At first I thought it was a wart, although I wasn't quite sure what a wart was or looked like.  And it would occasionally pop open and bleed profusely, then heal about 90% of the way, then pop again, etc.  But now my entire middle fingertip is swollen and it's become quite painful, so off to the doctor I went.

The doctor took a look at it, squeezed my finger (and actually smiled when I yawped in pain!), and diagnosed me with a "pyogenic granuloma."  It's a type of fibrohemangioma, and although technically a tumor, isn't one of those scary-type tumors.

What actually is scary, though, is that some dermatologist will have to cut it off!  Like, with a knife!  And all I will get is a huge shot of novocaine beforehand!  Have they no mercy? 

And after freaking me out with that, she asked me if what I do for my job involves my middle finger.  Apparently heavy use brings these things out.  And I told her not really, I type all day, but I have noticed that that it really impedes my ability to lift heavy objects or use chopsticks.  She had the look of "Eureka!" when I mentioned chopsticks, like THAT EXPLAINED EVERYTHING.  You know, because I'm Asiastani Asianese.  If my middle finger didn't hurt so damn much, I would have used it on her right then and there.

So please think of me on the afternoon of the 16th, as I will have this thing removed then.  Until then, if you want to lose your lunch, come on over and I'll show it to you.  I have an 8-year-old's fascination with gross body oddities; maybe you do too.