My Big Fat Healing Ego

Hello, everyone… this post is for YOU!

While I was recuperating from metastatic bone cancer/hip replacement surgery at Cedars-Sinai, I began working on a blog post titled, “Losing Your Big Fat Ego… One Enema at a Time.”

Hospitals DO impose a million assaults on one’s dignity. But hey, that’s over. I’m home now, well on the way to recovery, and a philosophical treatise on the link between self-esteem and control of one’s bodily functions is the last thing I want to write. (I can hear all of you sighing with relief!)

Oh, wait. Let me share just one TMI moment. Kudos to a male nursing aid aptly named Angel, whose matter-of-fact bedpan technique helped me survive my hospital indignities without killing a nurse. (Laurie, I am SO glad you didn’t bring me that loaded gun I requested.)

Moving on… it will take about six months of physical therapy for complete recovery, and I will probably spend July and August learning how to look sexy while using a walker. (Forgive me, God, for once thinking that motorized chairs were for… squares.) As I return to normal, though some might say I’ve never even approached that condition, I will use my newly acquired sense of mortality to:

Bow down and chant, “I’m not worthy” to my niece Heather, who saved my ass by producing my client newsletters while I was hospitalized; to my niece Nikki, who made the Smart Mom decision to stay in a hotel instead of with me during her visit here, avoiding the risk that her 3-year old and 4 1/2-year old sons might take flying leaps at Aunt Pat’s exotic new wheelchair; to my friend Anna, who knows my tastes so well that she selected and arranged for the purchase and delivery of a new couch and new bedding, so I could return to a more comfortable home environment; to my niece Stacy and my Dad and Sister and so many friends, who called the hospital twenty times a day to check on my progress (OK, maybe 15 times); to Victoria, and she'll know why; to the wonderful circle of friends I met through Laurie’s blog, who sent me funny, fantastic and supportive emails; and finally, to my soul-of-generosity sister-in-law, who left crops in the ground at her Kentucky farm AND a paying job to care for me during my first two weeks at home, and who is not only a great companion but a gourmet cook.

I may not be worthy, but I sure am lucky. And all of YOU are too wonderful for words from this writer who has exhausted her superlatives.