Lunch Lady Land

I finally am sliced and diced for everything, ready to get my chemo schedule next Friday! This week was rough... I was in the hospital 3 times. I think I am over the I.V. pricks and even the blood being drawn, ok so maybe we won't go that far... but I just keep hearing my Grandpop Schmitty (with his stylin' Velcro sneaks) saying toughen up girl, and I turn my big swollen head and take it. Let's discuss the port placement... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR5XATvLWvw&feature=g-hist This was a trip, hence the no-drug/awareness SNL skit link I have posted. Now this is a surgery... one where they will be placing a small device into my chest, then placing a catheter up and around my right jugular (yes I said JUGULAR!) I am informed in pre-surgery that i will be put under... they call it twilight, explaining I may hear voices but I won't be coherent. This is fine I say because I usually go out easily, and I doubt I will be even remotely awake. So my appointment is for 7 AM, early I know, but I figure mind as well just get it over with. My first biggest obstacle is getting that I.V. in, thanks Schmitty (wink), by 7:25 its in. Erin is my nurse anesthesiologist, a natural beauty which of course I would notice, she reminded me of my friend Hannah. Like Hi you wake up in the morning looking like that, I can always appreciate a beautiful women. Moving on from the lesbo stuff she is super sweet and begins to inform me that I will not, I repeat NOT be put under!I quickly begin to panic..... and by panic I mean cry. I said what happened to twilight????? My mind is racing and my thoughts disheveled... was someone referring to Robert Patterson and Kristen Stewart or are we talking about my surgery? Erin says calmly that as long as my vitals are steady she will keep pumping me with this "twilight", but i will be awake and hear whats going on, feel "pressure". Wooo Wooo Wooo unless Taylor Lautner himself is coming out shirtless to push something in that I.V. i know what "pressure" means.. code for pain. When I had my son I had a C-section and they said "pressure" I felt pain. The tears are now just streaming and Erin is trying to calm me down. "You have to do what you have to do," I say, "just get it over with." She gives me something to calm me down first and I wait, "shut your eyes and relax." RELAX??????? I can see her pumping different tubes of things into my I.V. as they put up a sheet on my right side so I can't see. I'm left to simply look at Erin,who is sincerely telling me it will be ok, pumping yet another tube into my I.V. The surgeon tells me he is going to give me a series of needles in the right side of my neck and chest to numb the area, ouch! I wince at Erin who strokes the tears of my cheeks. I succumb to the natural habit of Heather Maloney and I tell Erin I'm gonna just have to talk to you.It's what I do when I'm nervous. Chat your ear off if I am forced to be awake for this, did you say the medicine would make me chatty? OOOOOOOhhhhhh Erin you have met your match! It's actually a sin for her, she had no idea what she was in for. The surgery last about 35 mins, As she kept pumping me with her "twilight vampire drugs" my mouth was off like a racehorse. I honestly don't even know the Variety of stories I told, I do however remember talking about my Aunt Cindy. Who has been a lunch lady for several years and has perfected her job! I hear at her school they call her "Sandwich Cindy because she has the perfect meat to bread ratio!" That is truly a talent, I tell Erin. "And not to relate in any way my Aunt to Chris Farley but I know I am drugged up now when I start singing this ...  http://www.songspeak.com/sloppy-joe-slop-sloppy-joe/.  Yes .... Yes I did.SMH.(Grandmom Pat that means Shaking My Head) (the audio in the beginning is bad but it gets better, it's the only original I could find) The surgeon even gave a chuckle... he was surprised I knew it word for word... I said."me too!" Then we were done!Erin says," I gave you everything but the kitchen sink,and I believe you sang the Sloppy Joe song, that was a first for us especially at 7:30 AM." I like to keep it original what can I say." To add one last detail to my tale I hear the Surgeon say in a far off distance,"I can't find my wedding band...." Now I had heard a story of a women whose port got infected because they only took 9 out of 10 gauze out, not where I had got mine done, but my eyes quickly dart in panic thinking this man's wedding band is dangling from the port in my chest! Before I can hyperventilate they find it. He said he doesn't wear it during surgery any way, but I could rest assured that all day they would all be singing about Sloppy Joe thanks to me.