Hospital Gown / Sexy Dress

I'm officially having surgery in the morning. I'm putting on the hospital gown at 8am. And right now (probably related) I can't sleep.

(By the way, does anyone else always have to ask more than once about whether the gowns are supposed to open to the front or to the back? I swear it's different every time I put one on. And I've been donning a lot of less than fashionable medical attire lately.)

I'm NPO right now (aka Nothing Per Oral, aka don't eat or drink anything after midnight), and super thirsty. I can only assume that my thirst stems less from dehydration and more from knowing that I can't have anything to quench it... But then, maybe I'm dehydrated and just stupid for not having chugged a gallon of water at 11pm.

The surgery comes on the heels of more tests that have been done in the past week. And -- surprise surprise -- everything has continued to turn up "normal" and "negative".

I'm sure I don't come off as super positive in this blog, as I tend to retreat here more for venting purposes than celebratory ones, but I swear I'm a super happy peppy person. My nickname in Chicago was Sunshine. Seriously, I'm generally so happy and positive as to cross into the land of delusional and annoying. But here, on this blog, I worry that I come off as embittered and sardonic. Alas.

Right. Well. The thought that led me into that fun little tangent: meeting me should assure a person that, disregarding my conditions, "negative" and "normal" are just not terms that I'm used to being applied to me.

The biopsies came back normal. That test to see if I have the rare Italian disease came back negative. Once again, my body is as perfectly healthy as an illustration in Gray's Anatomy (the text book, not the tv show). And my pains are still as big a mystery as they ever were.

So tomorrow! Surgery!

I've never had surgery. And this one seems to be mildly invasive... Still, I'm a little bit freaked out. More than a little. But I'm glad they're doing it. (Is it possible to be simultaneously relieved and terrified? Surely the Germans must have a word for that.)

I had a pre-op meeting with my surgeon today, who is, sadly, not my usual doctor. My usual doctor wouldn't have been able to do the surgery for another week, which would've screwed up my post-op consultation, what with the whole I'm-moving-to-California thing. So this other doctor (whom I saw once when my normal doctor was on vacation) is stepping in. I actually saw my usual doctor in the office briefly, and felt this strange twinge of guilt, as though I were cheating on her with another doctor.

The new surgeon is very nice. But the pre-op meeting was less than comforting. She says she's "a girl scout at heart," and thinks it's best to be prepared for anything. She explained the gamut of worst case scenarios, such as, "we PROBABLY won't have cut into any of your organs, but...," and "I don't ANTICIPATE us having to remove your ovaries, but...," and "there will be oncologists on site just IN CASE we find cancer," and "do you have religious objections to blood transfusions?"

She also asked about anesthesia. Yes, I've been under anesthesia a few times. For my wisdom teeth. For my endoscopy. Last week for my colonoscopy. But no, this type is "different." Apparently, that other type of anesthesia just put me "into la-la-land." I don't know what land I'm going to be sent to tomorrow, but I think it's less of a "la-la" and more of a "bam-bam" kind of thing.

Ugh. The stress is making me thirsty.

This time tomorrow I will have at least one (but maybe two or three) brand new scar. Perhaps I should photograph my abdomen now for posterity...

Also, there's going to be recovery time involved. Apparently I'm going to be in a massive amount of pain for at least one day, if not two. And she warned me that my right shoulder is going to hurt. Go figure. Also my rib cage and diaphragm. In order to have the potential to diagnose one pain, I must willfully surrender my body to others. Terrific.

Hilariously, though I am nervous about the whole "someone is going to cut me open tomorrow" thing, I'm probably more upset about the fact that I have no idea what I'm going to wear to my high school reunion. Which is Saturday.

You may think that I'm not prioritizing advantageously. Or that I'm attempting to distract myself from the truly big issue with a more superficial and trivial one. Or maybe you think I'm just incredibly vain.

I don't have an answer for you.

All I know is that despite having a closet full of dresses, I seem to have this inescapable condition in which I never have anything to wear. On a normal day, I can look in my closet and think that I have an ensemble for every imaginable occasion. But as soon as an event arises, every dress seems like the wrong dress.

And here are the requirements of a high school reunion dress:

- Must make me look skinny.
- Must make me look way hotter than I was in high school (NOTE: this is not difficult to achieve)
- Must make me look fabulous, classy, and successful.
- Must make me stand out in the crowd.
- Must err on the side of being overdressed, but not SO over the mark that I regret wearing it to a pub.

Here's the thing: I actually AM skinny. But I'm also an actress. We are held to different standards than everyone else. And as I have never had an eating disorder, I'm often the fattest person on set (you think I'm exaggerating right now, but you wouldn't believe the company I've been in). And -- though this part is most surely in my head -- I believe that even people who aren't in the entertainment industry expect me to be especially thin merely because I'm an actress. And I'm not quite actress-level thin.

Also, I have curves. It feels like Christina Hendricks is the only white woman in Hollywood with curves. And I feel like the bigger my boobs look, the bigger ALL OF ME looks. Retail associates always seem incredulous when I attempt to explain this, but I have photographic evidence. Hollywood-skinny girls don't have boobs, so having boobs makes me look way bigger than the rest of them. You'll just have to take my word on the subject.

I don't want to spend money on a new dress. I'm heading out west in a couple of weeks with not nearly enough in my savings, and now every dollar counts. Also, I'm probably going to be in bed for the next couple of days, leaving Thursday as THE ONLY POSSIBLE DAY that I can go dress shopping, and it looks like I'm going to spend the day in NYC hunting down a couple of wayward actor signatures for union agreements for that short film I made.

Yes, that's right. I'm leaving for the hospital in five hours, and I'm stressing about looking skinny in a dress. You'd think I were going in for liposuction.

I haven't seen these people in ten years. I don't care about most of them. And I doubt they care about me. But that's not the point.

In my head, I want to sweep into the room gracefully, half an hour late, just like Jackie O. I want to walk up to the bar and be bombarded by people telling me how fantastic I look. I want to hold court from a bar stool, sipping on a fruity mixed drink, while people come to me. And I want them all to think, "Damn. I should've been nicer to her a decade ago." Then I want to casually saunter out of the bar and into a taxi, leaving them all wanting more. I imagine that in my absence, they will say things like, "And not only does she look incredible and have an exciting life, she's brilliant, AND she's still as kind as ever!"

Unrealistic?

Absolutely.

And far too much pressure for any dress to live up to. No dress, no matter how perfect, is going to turn me into Jackie. Or Marilyn, for that matter.

In the end, I shall settle for some dress in my closet. And my former classmates will have to settle for little old me.

Why did I not feel this much pressure when I went to Chicago? I hadn't been there for four years. Not quite tantamount to a ten-year reunion, but surely in the same vein. And the people I saw there were people I care far more about.

Is it possible that I am only stressing about a high school reunion because I've decided that this is what people do when preparing for reunions?

Or is it because I foolishly believe that this one night will dispense all the appropriate retributions for everything that happened in the four years of high school? Maybe I am relying on that one night to erase all the suffering of years past. And for people to ask forgiveness. And for me to finally feel like something other than the girl who was teased, and tormented, and didn't quite fit in.

And maybe that's not fair. It's not fair to expect that out of the reunion, or my former classmates, or myself.



(Okay, I have a question: What have I been doing for the last couple of years when I wasn't blogging regularly? Because emoting through my rapidly typing fingertips is so very helpful. I don't know how I stayed sane for so long without this.)

Alright. I'm feeling somewhat calm. Or maybe just tired. (Also, really thirsty.) I think it's time to go to bed.

If you happen to read this before 10:30am Eastern time (which is the time they expect me to be out of surgery), send over some good vibes.

Also, if you happen to read this before Saturday, tell me where I can get a jaw-dropping dress for the low, low price of a dollar.



May you not worry about what you're wearing, and just focus on not wearing yourself out.

~A~




P.S. You know that saying, "I'll sleep when I'm dead"? For me, it's more like, "I'll sleep when I'm anesthetized."