Chop chop...chop chop...and the axe falls today

Actually it is the scalpel that will fall today. When I was growing up and studying history, I wondered how Marie Antoinette felt just before she was separated from her head. Now I think I know how she felt-only I'm being separated from two other parts of my anatomy!!

I was so happy yesterday to be able to actually get online-so everyone knows I haven't either died or been arrested. And at the end of the ward there is a room that is always filled with policemen-I think I told you that the Whittington is the nearest hospital to Holloway (the women's prison) and Pentonville (the men's nick), so people come in and out of here in their lovely, sexy (ewwww) orange uniforms, with the addition of the latest style of handcuffs and leg chains. One of the men is on the ward, and police are constantly there, guarding him.

Scary. But-some of the coppers are rather cute, in a creepy kind of cop way. Mostly creepy.

I had people coming in and out every ten minutes yesterday-or, it felt like every ten minutes. This is a chest ward, and nobody knows anything about CVID here (except my doctor, and she doesn't come on the ward), so it is a shiny, brand new experience for them all. Plus I have breast cancer. They are accustomed to people with bad chests, not people who are going to have no breasts. I'm a curiosity.

The sister, or head nurse, or head honcho, if you will, came in yesterday to have a quick chat, and to tell me that I'm allowed only water after 2am. I reassured her that I won't be going out for a Domino's Pizza, so nobody has to worry at all. By 2am I am tucked up in bed, anxiously awaiting the whole thing to be over. I said that, once I heal up, I will at least have a flat area to rest my laptop so I don't have to squint when I use it. She just burst out laughing...and said that I will probably go to a surgical unit after surgery, and then be back on this ward tomorrow (Friday). She said that most of the staff are looking forward to my return, because of my very dark, warped, dry sense of humor. I make them laugh-I try to make myself laugh. I guess you have to laugh.

I had a wobble last night. I finally got rid of everyone asking me how I am (what do they think I'm going to do? Jump out the window? The windows don't open that far. And I wouldn't do that anyway...geez, I haven't come this far to jack it all in now!!), and took a shower and washed my hair. All of a sudden I started to cry...and the whole surgery, cancer, de-boobing thing hit me.

So, I sat and cried for a little while, and then I was okay. I shook, even...just began to tremble. I thought I was going to vomit. So I stayed in my room, and closed the door, and didn't really speak to anyone except to be polite (always polite. Mostly. Usually).

So, this morning I will go to the nuclear medicine department and have an injection of some noxious substance into my breast, and I will be irradiated for a week. The lymph nodes around the body will be highlighted, and Mr. Tan will be able to see if there are any sneaky little cancer cells where there shouldn't be cancer cells. I will have a blue right side for a week, a grey face to match the hospital broccoli (think I'm kidding? I should photo it and put it on YouTube. Nobody would ever eat broccoli again), blue urine and green feces. I will look just too, too sexy. Add flat-chested to that, and I will just be so attractive it isn't true (and it isn't true, but one can only dream).

I will be back on this blog over the weekend-and I will let you know if my consultant, Mr. Tan, lied about me not being in terrible pain afterward, and not being very swollen under the armpits, and being able to lift my arms (he said that he has patients who left the hospital the same day they had a double and went on holiday. I'll know if he lied. I just want to be able to lift my arm high enough to slap him if he's lying).

I might be cracking jokes all the way to the operating theatre; it's my coping mechanism, and we will see how I feel. At least I don't have to look at grey broccoli! And-you know what? I never got the extra cream cheese on my bagel, either (I didn't ask. If I had to play the cancer card, I would do it for something more important than cream cheese. Starbuck's, maybe).

See everyone on Saturday or Sunday. Anyone want me to give one of the coppers a kick, just for-whatever, fun. payback, because they're coppers? I can get away with it; I've got a walking stick. And cancer.