Totally Minor

So minor I feel like a dolt for even mentioning it, but this is what I do: I mention things. Whether said things make me look bad or make me look good, I mention them. I like to think they mostly make me look bad, or at least self-centered, because that seems only right – I have my awesome moments, but it’s not cool to talk about them.

Someone once told me it was totally uncool to say I was smart, because that was supposed to be for other people to say. That’s a nice theory, but sometimes one can wait days or years before that happens, especially if one isn’t that smart to begin with.

But I digress.

When I saw the surgeon, it was in a sterile environment, with tongue depressors and cotton balls and a handy exam table. He saw me also, it wasn’t a one-way sort of thing, but though I attempt to make the conversation about more than just me (“So, how are you today?” I’ll ask, and they respond, but don’t give me a lot of information to continue the conversation in that direction), it’s all about me. This makes me uncomfortable.

Dr. Surgeon (which is not his real name, but I forget what it is) said, “This may not work.”

“I know.”

“Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.”

“I know.”

“I just want to make sure you know that it’s not guaranteed.”

“What is?”

That’s a rhetorical question, obviously. There are never guarantees, even when there are guarantees. Life is what it is, no guarantees, no promises.

Once Dr. Surgeon was assured that I had no grand illusions he was all on board.

But I’ll tell you this: I expect this surgery to solve my immediate problem so I can move on to the next problem. I expect it to work.

Millions of people have this every day. It’s nothing, it’s a gallbladder, it’s an unnecessary piece of me that I suspect of being the culprit of this daily pain that starts in right underneath my ribcage and extends outward.

And damn right I expect the removal of it to work.

Because I can’t dance anymore, not since it started with a severe pain two months ago, a pain that I’d had before but that had gone away after a short time. This time the pain subsided into an ache, and then spread to my entire right side, and that’s where it’s been, pretty much, for two months now.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “I didn’t know you could dance!”

Well, I can’t. I’m a child of the 70’s, so mostly what I do is flail, but I do it with great energy and happiness. There’s nothing graceful or artistic about it.

It could be, as the surgeon was quick to notice, just my fibromyalgia, or it could be nothing at all.

Nothing at all. Isn’t that like saying I’m a hypochondriac? Whatever.

This is going to work, because I’m missing out on some really great stuff and I can’t keep missing stuff. Life’s too short, there’s too much to do, and being as there are no guarantees and no promises, I have things to attend to.

Sometimes I want answers and guarantees and solutions, and sometimes there aren’t any. It’s the uncertainty that’s hard to deal with, the idea that anything can happen at any time. But that’s how it works, and that’s why it’s fun, because otherwise, without surprises and the unexpected, it’s dull. I have to constantly remind myself that sometimes the unexpected can be the best things.

Or the worst.



Whatever. In two weeks I’ll be recovering from my very minor surgery and taking full advantage of the situation to read whatever I want and figuring out plot devices for stories I’m working on. Then I will be returned to my grand good health and will return to dancing whenever I want. Before then, I need to get all my work caught up, so it’s fortunate my work is not dependent on my ability to zip around or up and down.