Monday, Sept. 27, 2004
Dear Diary:

When you go into a teaching hospital as a patient, in a sense you become a project, kind of like a renovation show. Just as Norm Abram explains his techniques on This Old House, my surgeon did a running commentary for the interns around us in the operating room as he worked on my nose, explaining what he was doing step-by-step and why he was doing things the way he was.

So, yeah, basically last Tuesday was the episode of This Old Broad where they built Frankenschnozz and then left it to, ah, dry and cure. Tomorrow will the episode where Frankenschnozz is unveiled to the world.

My facial swelling is gone now and all that�s visible around the bandages is a fairly spectacular technicolour bruise. Since there�s no pus bubbling up from the bandage and no eau de putrefying corpse wafting about the region, I�m guessing that it healed without infection.

No, really, no need to thank me for those last two images. I can feel your gratitude from here.

The wondrous emotional roller coaster ride seems to have diminished a bit, too. I�m guessing that while some people can juggle nine doses of local anesthetic topped with Percocet, I am not one of them. The giveaway was the moment when I almost dissolved into a pool of sissypants crymonkey goodness right in my local grocery store.

They frown on people blubbering on the produce, you know.

It�s funny, but when I woke up this morning I knew I was back to okay�well, as okay as is possible for someone of my august years--because more than anything I wanted to head out to my gym. Seriously. I had a major hankering for some quality time with the elliptical machine and the squat cage.

Walking on my road is better than nothing, but it�s just not the same as hanging out with my workout buddies. I miss the 20-something metalheads giving me grief about my puny weightlifting abilities. I miss the middle-aged women of dubious fitness teasing me about how hard I try. While the lay-off has healed a few minor aches and pains, I physically miss exercise now.

Yep, the woman who once felt that being velcroed to the couch doing nothing more physical than clicking the buttons on the tee vee remote was a life well spent, well, that woman has disappeared. I know. I�m as sick about this as you are. I barely recognize the freakish person who has taken her place, but it appears she�s here to stay.

Am I nervous about tomorrow? Yeah, for sure. But not the way I was last week. Life has a wonderful way of smacking me upside the head with the old clue bat.

See, not only is my friend�s husband out of remission for prostate cancer, but when I went collecting for the breast cancer run this weekend I found out one of my neighbours is, too. Also found out that the daughter of another neighbour, a woman in her early 30�s, has just been diagnosed in the early stages of breast cancer.

Both face radiation and all the pain and side effects that come from that. For my neighbour, there�s no guarantee that this will even work, that he will go back into remission.

And me? Tomorrow morning while my neighbour goes in for radiation mapping, I deal with a nose boo boo. I know. In the face of that, I�m more than a little embarrassed by last week�s meltdowns. But on the other hand, I would have been less than honest if I had pretended unflinching courage, so there you go.

When I was younger I felt invincible. I thought the only way I could possibly die was in some sort of freakish accident. Bit by bit now, my sense of having a Get Out of Death Free card is melting away.

It�s not that I feel that I will die tomorrow or anything, nothing like that. It�s more that I feel that I don�t have forever anymore, that maybe drifting along isn�t the smartest thing to do.

Lots to think about, eh?

--Marn

Here are the Generous Souls Sponsoring me to Run to Limp the 2004 Jog for the Jugs In Montreal on Oct. 3, the few, the proud, the Bazonga Boosters:

Leora D

Judy U.


Mileage on the Marnometer: 685.43 miles. Ten percent there rubber duck.Ten percent there rubber duck. 25 per cent thereTen percent there rubber duck.Ten percent there rubber duck..Ten percent there rubber duck.
Oh man. This is going to be hard
Goal for 2004: 1,000 miles - 1609 kilometers

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This template is a riff on a design by the truly talented Quinn. Because I'm a html 'tard, I got alot of pity coding to modify it from Ms. Kittay, a woman who can make html roll over, beg, and bring her her slippers. The logo goodness comes from the God of Graphics, the Fuhrer of Fonts, the one, the only El Presidente. I smooch you all. The background image is part of a painting called Higher Calling by Carter Goodrich which graced the cover of the Aug. 3, 1998 issue of The New Yorker Magazine.

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�2000, 2001, 2002 Marn. This is me, dagnabbit. You be you.