Under Construction

Do you ever have those moments where you stop, slap your hand to your fore­head, and real­ize that you had the PERFECT Hal­loween cos­tume, and you did­n’t even know it?

(No? Hmm…maybe it’s just me…awkward…)

Peo­ple. I was dressed up as a Jack-o-lantern on Hal­loween, and I had no idea! I was so busy adjust­ing to my state of per­ma­nent robot, that I did­n’t take advan­tage of the fact that I had a giant hole in the cen­ter of my abdomen!

Quite sad. I could have stuffed it with pump­kin seeds, or paint­ed myself orange, or some­thing fabulous!

Because clear­ly an adult in her 30’s paint­ed orange with her arm in a sling, a robot­ic heart named Pene­lope, and an abdom­i­nal hole full of pump­kin seeds is total­ly normal…

So I have a hole. In fan­cy-schman­cy words, it’s called a gas­tric fis­tu­la, and if we are being more spe­cif­ic, I have essen­tial­ly cre­at­ed my very own per­ma­nent high­way from my stom­ach to the out­er world. I can put my din­ner on my abdomen, with­out ever using my hands!

I know, I know! My resume just got a whole lot cool­er! I mean, when was the last time you could say that you grew your own highway?

Auto­graph sign­ing will resume tomor­row. Be kind, I tire easily.

It goes with­out say­ing that this is not exact­ly “the norm.” In fact, the med­ical com­mu­ni­ty has gone out of their way to make sure I real­ly under­stood the 2% fac­tor over the past 3 weeks:

“Ma’am…this is the radi­ol­o­gy clin­ic. I’ve been the head tech­ni­cian here for 11 years, but, um, I’ve nev­er heard of this test, nev­er done this test, and don’t have the mate­ri­als to DO this test…uh…sorry?”

“Wait…what body part are we doing this test on again? Is it a rec­tal fistula?”

[Insert mild silent freak out over the phone. Um NO very kind sir, it is thank­ful­ly NOT.]

“Ok so it looks like you are swal­low­ing this bar­i­um to test for a gas­tric fistula…where is that again?”

“So we usu­al­ly give our patients a pack­et of infor­ma­tion about the procedure…but…uh…for this we don’t actu­al­ly have one…”

I think I need a new busi­ness card that I can hand out every time I meet a new med­ical professional:

“Lydia Buschen­feldt: Sur­pris­ing the world with the rare and unusu­al since 1983. High main­te­nance, with a side of green juice, and a splash of glitter.”

(Clear­ly writ­ten in spark­ly font. With bedaz­zled adorn­ments. And maybe a giraffe.)

Keep­ing that busi­ness card in mind, I’m hav­ing surgery.

Again.

On Wednes­day.

All of the tis­sue that has cre­at­ed the fis­tu­la will be removed, and then they will sew me up from the inside out, stom­ach to skin.

Any­one want to join?

Pene­lope and I did an excel­lent job of con­fus­ing every­one in the sur­geon’s office, when I showed up 5 days post pace­mak­er surgery in a sling, mov­ing a bit more like the tor­toise than the hare, and request­ing to see a sur­geon about the hole in my…abdomen.

This real­ly is excel­lent prep for the hol­i­days, right? I’m los­ing a por­tion of my stom­ach, get­ting a bit of a tum­my tuck, and recov­er­ing on a clear liq­uids diet…bring on the stuff­ing! Bring on the pie!

Or…broth?

So while some peo­ple recov­er from pace­mak­er surgery with, say, rest­ing or watch­ing movies. Oth­ers may be so pro­duc­tive as to take up knit­ting or read­ing an entire series. I, on the oth­er hand, recov­er by cre­at­ing anoth­er sit­u­a­tion from which to recov­er. What can I say, my dad did­n’t refer to itty-bit­ty me as “Boo-Boo” (in ref­er­ence to the mas­sive con­sump­tion of bandaids) for nothing.

Under con­struc­tion, my friends. Restart­ing my hard dri­ve, one body part at a time.

(And some twice. Or maybe three times.)

It may not be what I planned, and it may not be what I had hoped for, but I’m ready to find smoother roads to trav­el. Ladies and gen­tle­men, it’s time for this high­way to be per­ma­nent­ly closed.

Grab your hard hat Pene­lope, we’re going in.