Resolution and Move On

Twitter Thursday:  Gotta love doctors when they make money off of referrals.  Instead of sending me to the correct doctor to start with, I wait until Monday.

Amen.

I was speechless over the weekend as the bump turned into a “wait until we can get you into a Surgeon specializing in breast malignancy’s.  I put my faith in God.  I really did.  I also read the heck out of any online website discussing lumps in breasts and the chances that I’m going to be one of those people requesting donations from my network on Facebook.  Really, is it just me, or does fund raising in our social network seem to be getting out of hand?  I’ve got 217 friends at last count, since I last unfriended Daddy Dumb and at any one time, 21 of them are shaving their heads, armpits, or walking their neighborhood for money….and giving me a link to contribute.

I digress.

Dr. Marvel couldn’t do anything about the lump in my boob at this office, because as an OB/GYN he really just concerns himself with the plumbing below, so he was not able to calm my nerves and tell me what the lump was…sent me to a surgeon who was out playing golf until Monday.  So, I just drank my liver toxic with Firefly, spent the day in bed Sunday recovering from my over-consumption, and Monday took a shower and felt confused about the latest Bill passing in Congress.  I wasn’t going to worry about me.  I was going to be just fine.  I knew it.  This isn’t how I’m going out, I’ve seen Terms of Endearment and it’s too sweet.

So, I arrive at the surgeon’s office with a splitting knot on the back of my head (I passed out during one of my afternoon heaves and found myself in my panties covered in vomit on the bathroom floor on Sunday – remember, I don’t do vomit, especially my own.) and sat there and read about the cocaine industry of the 1990s in one of his outdated magazines covered with germs.  As far as a surgeon’s office decor goes, it was pathetic.  The only thing I noted was that instead of leather visitor chairs, he had several benches lining the walls – ahh hah…for the lap band types that are too wide to fit in the chair.  I sat there, quietly, and listened to the old patients bicker amongst themselves about the Medicare impact of the bill and how their prescription drug coverage isn’t going to be great any longer.  I think to myself, you Medicare kids are freaking crazy.  I don’t have any prescription drug coverage, I’m paying social security for you, my health insurance is only going to increase after this freaking visit gives me a pre-existing condition that Obamacare is going to make it illegal not to cover, and this plan is going to bankrupt Medicare so there won’t be any benefits left for me.  Plus, I freaking need a Xanax and I can’t find a soul to prescribe it to me.  What about a bill to make Xanax available over the counter?

Maybe I should go to medical school.

An hour after I arrive, Dr. Cutme arrives from his three martini lunch and I see him check me out as I am lead into an outdated exam room with a machine that looks like it will be the same image quality as those that show the astronauts on the Moon.  He’s shorter than me, so my hopes of McSteamy are quashed.  He begins to talk, but I start to black out again, my nerves are getting the best of me, and I remember that I forgot to eat, that I didn’t have anything in my stomach, and I was really parched.  As he speaks, I remember why I never married a doctor.  Yawn.  My head hurts still.  I must be dehydrated.

So, he starts drawing pictures of my boob that look too graphic for me, and then eventually says, “okay, let’s get a look.  I remember that I really did like Spencer, but he didn’t talk.  His roommate that was in medical school with him had a super crush on him and it got in the way, plus there was his best friend Fred that was aggressively pursuing me.  Then there was Roland, but he was a little stalkerish for me, especially since he was on to me about the fact that I was seeing someone else, which was John, but I was covering it up with my accomplice in all things fun, Drew.  Roland caught me with Drew, but I swear, it was totally innocent!  Drew was asleep on the red couch, but there was no way I was letting Roland in the door.  Pull my head out of my foggy memory, I’ve got three beautiful children and a husband that adores me.  I made the right decision not marrying a doctor, but at this point I have no freaking clue what Dr. Cutme just said.

The machine shows a bunch of black spots – turns out the black spots are just cysts, filled with fluid…I’ve got lots of them.  Next thing I know, he’s pulling out a needle, sticking it in my boob and then “POP”.  The black spot disappears.  It looked like he was performing in-vitro fertilization of my boob.  Since he was already in there, he said he’d go ahead an prick a few more so they wouldn’t become troublesome next year.  Now, these I can feel, but my head is throbbing, and I am looking away from him and concentrating on the alien space machine that now has a needle prodding its way through my left boob.

I’m going to live.  I’ve got fibrocystic disease.  Thank God.  I don’t think I’m a quality candidate for a breast job.  With regular needles in my boob, I’m not really sure that I want to pop anything that I’ve paid for.  I’m going to focus on the tummy tuck gut suck.

John had his appointment today as well for his Thyroid.  We’re going to go ahead and do the radioactive iodine to kill the Thyroid tissue, so he’ll be quarantined next Thursday/Friday in the basement.  The kids and I will have a pizza/movie night.  John will be out of quarantine in time for our Spring Break to start.  We have no idea what we are doing, where we are going, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out.  I’m happy to just sleep in at home and play with the kids, see movies, and go to a museum.

My mother in law comes this weekend, and then my favorite family member of all time comes on Monday to see ME.

This reminds me, I need to clean off the back porch.  Spring has sprung and it’s about time to relocate to my favorite spot and plot the destruction and disappearance of Mohammad’s weeds.  If I won the lottery, I’d just buy his house and move there…pool, tennis court.

Finding a golf ball in my boob

Twitter Yesterday:  The rain has just made my weekend even busier.  Can I get any busier?  I think not.  Just peed for the first time today.  I need Green Beer.

Dear Jesus.  It’s nothing right?  It’s just your way of giving me some more cushion in my bra?  I get it, but I really don’t have time for this right now.  I’ve got tennis matches to reschedule for Jack, I’ve got allergy shots to go to today for the last time twice a week for Jack, I’ve got bills to pay, taxes to finish, clients to collect from…Really, why are you testing me to see how much I can multi-task and accomplish in one week?  I’m great at it.  But, neither Jack nor John have hit their out of pocket for their medical issues, so this surprise is going to cost me.  What is the lesson here?  I already dye my hair myself, I haven’t gone shopping in quite some time, I really need to get to a psychiatrist because if this lump doesn’t drive my insanity level over the edge, I’m not sure what will.

Deem and Pass.  Does that mean when I try to get new health insurance they can’t reject me because I’m crazy?

Okay, so this is what is going on.  Last night it rained.  Jack had both his tennis clinic and tennis match later on cancelled, so I served up spaghetti early and was in my pajamas by 6:30, and the sisters were hanging free.  This isn’t typically the case, they are usually encased in my bra until I fall into bed at 10:14 each night.  So John leaves around 7:30 to go and play basketball at Church and I settle in on the chaise lounge to watch American Idol.  I somehow touched my boob because it itched, and it felt funny.  There was a knot right above my left breast.  What the F?  Um, when was the last time I did a self breast exam?  I don’t remember, but it wasn’t THAT long ago…I think I’m going to puke.

I lay on my back, completely flat, put my left arm over my head and felt some more.  The knot is about the size of a golf ball (I know this because this morning I used a Crayola marker to outline it).  It’s right above my nipple area and then goes into the aureola area.  It’s hard, it doesn’t move, and it’s ridgy/bumpy.  I know this because I had John feel me up this morning.  He did it with such determination and he wasn’t even getting sex out of it.

I called the doctor @8:31 this morning and have an appointment @11:20.  It’s nothing right?  Jesus, you are just seeing that I can accomplish just one more thing today, and your humor says that I can go through that mammogram machine since you have some wicked sense of humor.  I know you are man, because you have absolutely no idea what pain is like…well, yeah, you do know pain, and I admit, they way you chose to go has got to be worse…but come on!

Deep breath.  This is nothing right?

So off I go to the doctor.  Pits and legs shaved, makeup done, hair washed.

I SOOOOOOO don’t have time to be at the doctor today.  I have laundry to fold.

Are you doing this to me because I told John that I would rather have a day long pap smear than go to his executive retreat in April?

Regifting and the Art of Regifting

Twitter:  Listed to one of my friends complain about the change purse she went home with as a gift after Bunco.  Kept my mouth shut – the gift was from me!

This is EXACTLY why I don’t tell anyone about this blog, and the fact that I’m the wizard behind it. Now, remember when I mentioned going to bunco, and then leaving early to go home and sit on the couch with John and the kids? Well, I forgot to mention my “gift closet” and the fact that I was supposed to bring a gift to Bunco. When the girls called me 10 minutes before I was supposed to be there, I just splashed some water on my face, grabbed a gift from the closet, and took 3 dollars out of John’s wallet.

Well, I did bring a gift to Bunco, it just happened to be a small change purse that I bought years ago for my nanny, “Erica”, but then she went MIA and I still had the freaking change purse. I don’t know why I grabbed that gift, instead of grabbing the “plug it in and electrocute yourself bathtub spa” that my parents gave me ten years ago as a Christmas present that never came out of the box, or the massager/vibrator that I think they also gave me the same year, but I was thinking that I didn’t want to make a splash with my gift, so I just grabbed the cute beaded purse with an “E” on it and threw it in the gift bag and headed out the door. I figured that I would just trade it with someone else and bring it back home.

So, I get to Bunco, realize that I’m not medicated enough to survive an evening with strange women drinking wine, and then escape home to the couch. The next Monday, I had signed up to attend a women’s club event with the same group of women, and caught a ride with one of my new, loud, tall friends. Things were going well, I thought….I still was having major anxiety issues, but they had Champagne, and so four glasses into the event, I felt that I would survive the event. Plus, I wasn’t driving, so I couldn’t leave.

On the ride home, the usual topics of conversation ensue. Boobs, plastic surgery, and pecking order of the women at the event…then Susan says, “Oh My God! I was SOOOO angry! I know that Moo Moo Lady (her name isn’t moo moo lady, but she always wears a moo moo, and since I never remember her name, she lives two doors down from me, I call her Moo Moo Lady) brought that horrific change purse to Bunco! I think that we need to really put some rules in place regarding gifts! I mean, I’m putting a lot of effort into my gifts!” I was partially listening, and then I had a memory that OMG, that change purse was the one that I brought! Holy Shit.

It was so hard not to say it was me. I bit my shirt and tried not to laugh, but she was pissed. I sat there quietly, hoping that they wouldn’t ask me what I brought, because it was the E purse. I looked straight ahead and thought, the vibrator would have probably gone over better….

Confessions of a Tennis-aholic

Jack plays tennis now eight days a week, and twice on Friday.  It’s probably too much.

I’m supposed to play tennis this morning, but I’m non-committal.  This would require me to get dressed, and John is out of the house today until after I get back from Allergy shots with Jack.  I have my day free, to myself, and I’m not sure I want to expose myself to the Clubettes.  I really need to exercise, and playing tennis is my escape.  However, Tuesday’s with the Clubettes means having the tennis pro feed balls, I get to hit two shots, and then go to the back of the line…for 90 minutes.  It’s so freaking boring!  I’d rather PLAY TENNIS!

So, in my great plan to have my children busy after school so they don’t petrify their brains playing video games, Jack has become a tennis player and I can’t wait until we get to PLAY TENNIS every day this summer.  He’s been slow to embrace the fact that I’ve spent THOUSANDS of dollars for him to develop a forehand, or return a serve with some pace, but my nine year old son actually has a chance to know how to become a force on the tennis court.  Again, he’s nine, and I can’t wait to play tennis with him!  Only 66 more days!

In order to have him embrace this skill, I decided that just taking lessons three days a week wasn’t going to get him there, since each time I told him it was time to go to tennis, he groaned as if I were abusing him by making him stop playing his Wii, his Nintendo DS, or stop building cruise ships with his Lego Star Wars pieces.  Jack does better in school, and pays attention when he’s over-scheduled after school.  My house is also cleaner.  Plus, I’m developing a life long tennis partner that I love.

Jack now goes to tennis four days a week for clinic, Pizza League on Friday nights, tennis team practice once a week, tennis team matches once a week, and now, because of the drama of being on a tennis team where we aren’t the “member” and so we don’t get preferential treatment, I’ve registered him for a match play league where he gets to play ANOTHER singles match once a week, two sets…so, don’t tell him, but he’s playing eight days a week.  He’s nine.

It’s probably too much.

I’ve also registered the other two kids for tennis, Minny is playing four days a week for lessons and two days a week for tennis team (she loves it), and Ashton is twice a week for lessons, and then has Quickstart Tennis team, so he’s also out there four days a week without realizing it.  All he says when I ask him how tennis is going is, long pause, “It’s HARD mommy!”

It’s costing a fortune.

I also signed myself up to be a member of the same club’s Ladies A Tennis Team….and get this, I’m such a second line member of the team because I’m not a member, they will go through the entire lineup of members to find a player should they need one before getting me.  I however, will get the email that says,

Dear Cinderella,

Should Judy not be done with her appointment in time, we need you to be ready at a moment’s                   notice to play tomorrow @9:30.  However, if she’s done in time and if she likes the way the wind is blowing, then screw you, but you are on call next week too.

The last time I played with them, there was some discussion regarding the forecasted weather and the rule that if it rained that you had to play on the next sunny day, and one of the ladies actually said to me, “if it doesn’t work for me, then we’ll just schedule it so that it does.”  Sure lady, you can tell God to adjust the weather.  What the F ever.

The other day as I was folding the laundry, I had a conversation with myself regarding the expense of having kids play “sports” in an attempt to have them get college scholarships.  If I just applied the dollars for these extra-curricular activities towards my children’s college fund, we’d pay for Harvard in ten years!  Plus, think of all the FREE TIME I’d have if I wasn’t sitting sideline to them.  But I have a bigger plan than that!  I am developing my tennis buddies so that I don’t have to play with anyone but them – ever again!

Jack’s tennis academy didn’t have a tennis league for kids, so I looked around and found a team for him to join at the country club close by.  He was a welcome addition, plus I brought over two other kids from the academy so that they could form a co-ed team.  I volunteered to be the tennis team mom so that my kid would have a better chance of getting selected in the line -up.  Right?  Wrong!

The worst is when some punk country club kid bumps him down on the lineup because he’s a member of the club, and my kid gets his feelings hurt because the coach is implying that the country club child is “better”.  If a country club kid is available, and his parent calls the coach and says that the kid wants to play “#1 Singles”, then the kid plays “#1 Singles”.  It’s so confusing to Jack.  He’ll say, “But Mommy, I can beat Andrew!”  It’s infuriating to me, especially when the dad emails me to say that his star athlete can’t play in the scheduled tennis match because it rained last Tuesday, and he now has a baseball game, and my kid is there, available, and missing his own baseball game!

Did I mention that Jack also plays baseball?  Yeah, he plays baseball, but only gets to play if he doesn’t have a tennis match or cub scouts that conflict with the baseball schedule.  We really need to quit cub scouts because neither John nor I have any intention of earning our Eagle Scout badge during this life time.

One would think that during Tennis Team practice, the coach would actually have the boys play one another, make a “ladder” and fairly, not objectively, determine the better player.  One would think!  But, dear reader of mine.  This isn’t fair, this is country club sports, all determined by who has the better car, house, plastic surgeon, and job…I mean, how does one objectively choose who is the better player when certain players are paying the bills?  I am no dummy, and I can bite my lip with the best of them.  Join the club, get first slots on the lineup.

We belonged to a country club in our prior Florida life, and it was the worst kind of snot infestation that one would willingly expose themselves too.  Lesson learned.  Why would one intentionally “apply” to be a member of a club that could exclude someone from joining just because they didn’t like what they did for a living?  Give a $45,000 membership fee that is NON-REFUNDABLE.  Really?  The thought that someone can only join a club if “another member invites them” disgusts me.  The reality that people I know actually think that joining something like that will make them more socially registered….barf.  No thank you.  What really cracks me up is when a friend of mine brings up to me that they are looking into joining a club, that they “got dressed up in country club attire”, “got their kids coats and ties so they could go to brunch at the club” etc.  All I think to myself is, “Girlfriend, your life doesn’t match that life.  If you don’t already have dress clothes for your kids to go to brunch, you probably won’t fit into the Sunday Brunch at the country club life, and you will be constantly trying to fit in, they will be looking down their nose at you, and if you were true to yourself, you’d admit it.  As soon as you stop going, they will never speak or call you again.  Go join a family recreation center.”

The kids tennis team made it to the playoffs for the winter season, and the country club parent gives the coach a call – much against my recommendation for the team lineup for the match, the country club kid is put at #1 singles, and the kid that is our best player sits out the match.  The country club kid loses 2-8.  We lose the match by 6 points and don’t get to go to the city finals.  Go freaking figure!  Was I surprised, no.  Was I infuriated?  Absolutely!  I know in my heart of hearts that my kid wouldn’t be playing in the lineup if I hadn’t volunteered to be the team mom.

I think I’m about done being the tennis team mom for Jack’s tennis team.  I did it originally to get the team started, so that Jack would have an opportunity to play competitively, and keep his interest up beyond drills and practicing serves.  However, I feel like the second class citizen in regards to the team, since we’re not members of the “CLUB”.  What the F ever!  I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and it’s all bull snot madness.

I have resolved myself to not voice my opinion to the Clubbettes – but I am watching out for my kid, and as soon as I can get him on another team that doesn’t apply this crap, he’s on it.

The fact that Mohammad has a freaking tennis court wasting away in my back yard BLOWS.  It’s driving me crazy that I just can’t put up a net and play there.  I don’t want to play with country club women!  I don’t.  They aren’t nice, they take themselves way too seriously, and frankly, I get my feelings hurt too much.  We should have never moved into a neighborhood that didn’t have a swim and tennis center.  Trying to play tennis as an outsider is a futile attempt at a social sporting life.  We need to join a tennis club, but I’m so anti-country-club, it makes my would have, could have, should have blood boil.

Last night I had a realization that part of my social anxiety stems from the drama of country clubbers and that I’m a mis-fit mom in this entire competitivedom of suburbia.  Looking at my life, one would assume that we’re right smack dab in the thick of Clubdom.  Nope.  Been There, Done That.  Lesson Learned:  None of it freaking matters.  I don’t want to be here, so I drown myself in my kids, and fill the space with watching them participate in activities rather than me having to socialize with their social climbing parents.