An email I sent a few weeks prior to my chest surgery.
As you probably all know, i'm heading for SF in less than 2 weeks for chest surgery w/
Brownstein. I'm very excited, but haven't really given too much thought to being
scared or nervous--which is REALLY strange, since i was very apprehensive a while back.
Anyway, i've been focusing on taking care of mundane things (what to bring, last minute
arrangements, etc) and haven't really thought much about the surgery itself.... UNTIL
Sunday night when i had the strangest dream....
Here's the dream:
It begins in the recovery room at the surgery center. As i'm starting to wake up, I
see Brownstein looking down at me. He starts very gently talking to me telling me
that everything was fine, things went ok, and that as soon as i was ready i could get up,
dressed and go back to the hotel. He does say, though, that he needs to see me in
his office the next day--i think this is strange, since it wasn't what he told me the day
before at the consult. Time elapses and I'm in his office the next day...
He has this really serious look on his face and i'm concerned that something is really
wrong. He tells me that something happened in the OR, something unexpected.
Eventually he tells me that when he was preparing the right nipple graft, he dropped it on
the floor of the OR... and since there was no way to sterilize the tissue, he couldn't use
it.
He repeatedly told me how sorry he was and that he would fully refund the $4400. I
had to ask what the right side of my chest looked like... he went on to explain that he
didn't know if he should try to make the right nipple out of the excess from the left one
(which would make things very uneven since most of the tissue was used on the left) or if
he should just leave the right side w/out any nipple at all. He said he left it
"blank".
end of dream
So... all those into freudian analysis can offer their explanations... and all others can
hopefully get a good laugh.
michael <--who *REALLY* hopes he ends up w/ two big, healthy, soon to be squeezable
nipples.
I got some really warm responses to this strange, fearful email. One of my
favorite responses was from my sweetheart friend Kate Bornstein:
"Hrmph. I think the dream is a very good articulation of your fears, and nothing
more. Certainly, it's not a "things-that-shall-come-to-pass" kinda thing.
::softly:: You'll be just fine, hon. I can feel it. love Kate (--who's looking forward to
squeezing those big healthy nipples of yours one day)"