Crazy Day II

One of my best friends had to have a cyst removed from her ovary today. She is a single mom and her mother succumbed to breast cancer the year before I met her, so I knew she was more concerned about it than she let on. I offered to take her to the hospital. We got there at 5:30am, and the doctor and nurses were fantastic. The anesthesiology nurse was actually from her church, and he knew her dad, so that helped ease her worries a little bit, I think. The doctor explained that they were going to put a hole about a cm wide in her belly button and one or two other tiny holes in her abdomen. She was planning to try to remove the cyst, but would take the ovary if need be. My friend has a 16-year-old and no plans to have more children so she was fine with that possibility. After the surgery, she was in quite a bit of pain, and they did end up having to take the ovary. I think it may have bothered her more than she thought it would. Of course, she still has the other one, but this got me to thinking about a lot of things.

The first was how I take my own feminine health for granted. Sure I have monthly cramps, but they're fairly minor (worse now that I get almost zero exercise), and the only issue I've ever had was a cyst inside my ovary that broke up on its own. Though somewhat painful, not the end of the world. Second, seeing her daughter's worry reminded me of when I was 16 and my dad had triple-bypass open heart surgery. I'd never seen my dad weak. He is tall and strong, and even in his old age (he's 70 now) somewhat foreboding to those who don't know he's a giant teddy bear. To see this man who had lifted me on his shoulder just a couple of years before that and carried me across a baseball practice field after I sprained my ankle be unable to feed himself was earth-shattering. My view of the world as I knew it was cracked irreparably from that moment on. In turn, this made me think of how I need to take better care of myself. I'm an "older" mom so the girls won't be graduating til I'm almost 50.

Also, when I got to work today, I found out that our biggest client laid off their entire packaging department. Complete shocker. We are still their agency at this time, but not sure how that will impact us. They needed to clean house, so if it pans out for us to still have the work, FANTASTIC. But a little nervous it could be the beginning of the end for us, too.... Need new clients!