Here I am talking about what we talked about
Oh hi.
Oh hi! Happy New Year! I’m quite overdue in posting all about the surgery experience and the way anesthesia was less like a light switch being turned off and on and more like a power outage followed by the clock blinking 12:00. Or maybe a lightning storm. Also, I think it’s weird there’s music played in the OR. Also, I have other things to say. But the good news is there wasn’t any cancer and they were able to save both ovaries and everything that went into my IV hurt like a motherfucker. That wasn’t the good news, it was just something I wanted to add. Specifically the last thing they gave me before I was knocked out, which I’m thinking must have been propofol. All I remember is they put a mask on me and said it was oxygen and then I ripped the mask off and began coughing and they said to someone else, “That’s normal,” and then I felt an intense burning in my hand, like so bad I honestly thought to myself, “I don’t know how I’m going to be able to handle this,” and then I was out. If in fact someone was giving me a hot hand then I think that is poor judgment in the OR. I would be more ok with a dutch oven.
Um, but anyway, I will write a long post with more details. I did talk about some of it on The Adam Carolla Show last night.
In the meantime if you would like to hear some shows hosted by yours truly (that’s me) then I suggest these: In this one I interviewed Christopher Johns, the guy who witnessed (and had a bizarre role in) the Hollywood shooting and also I talked to Larry Miller about chicken. And sex. And other stuff. To be perfectly honest I had mixed feelings about my own performance on this one, as I was recording it, and so I haven’t listened to it yet. And then in this one Lynette and I talked about dating stuff and took your calls and I accidentally hung up on some people as they were saying goodbye. And before they were saying goodbye.
Ok then!
Also I can’t stop watching this baby bat and this baby polar bear.
Also I received some bad news (nothing medical!) last night and in the Vicodin haze I just had a sense that it was something I would be upset about if I were able to feel upset however I regained ability in the middle of the night so yay. Now I’m upset.
In case you need to listen to me
Oh hi! I’ve been on some recent podcasts and I think you should listen to them if you enjoy things like that. One of them is Paul Gilmartin’s Mental Illness Happy Hour. I’m a big fan of his podcast and it was an honor to be asked to be a guest and I’m not even full of shit even though people who are full of shit say things like that all the time. And I was worried that I sounded inarticulate or overly something or other but I’ve received some very nice emails so thank you all very much.
But wait, then Paul Gilmartin was a guest on a podcast I hosted with the lovely Lynette Carolla! How’s that for synergy? Also, what does synergy mean? I don’t really want to know. At one point I knew but now I forget. This is not unlike a lot of theories and words I learned in college which I think I understood at the time but now I have no idea about. As opposed to say, calculus, which I struggled through at the time but suspect I might have an easier time with now. Or physics, which I never took in college but also think I might be able to understand now. I have no good reason to think I could understand these things now though, and it’s been a long time since I’ve done any kind of science or math, so I’m just going to change the subject now. Anyway, the podcast is going to change names and I’m kind of thinking of going with Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend which was the name of my Ustream show awhile ago but seems good as far as names go and people seem pretty into me naming it that. Should I?
And here I am talking about a rectal exam:
Top Ten Lists List
1. shopping
2. mailing
3. Schindler’s
4. to do
5. to don’t
6. bucket
7. Angie’s
8. wish
9. “it”
10. shit
Tarte cosmetics asked me for some holiday gift picks
who: Alison Rosen, writer, humorist and pop culture expert.
claim to fame: Aside from sharing her witticisms daily on the Adam Carolla Show, the Guinness World Records number one most downloaded podcast, Alison is also an established journalist who has written for Rolling Stone, The NY Post, Spin, Maxim, The Village Voice, People and Seventeen.
Read the full post here [friends & family gift guide: the comedienne]
(And ARIYNBF viewers will be happy to know Koryn of the “When Koryn Walks In” song (by the amazing Trappdog) is now working at Tarte!)
Fears about my uterus
You might have to take my what?
So the chances of the doctor needing to remove my uterus when he goes in to remove the blood-filled ovarian cysts (oh, were you eating? sorry) are very small. Very very very small. However I still need to sign consent forms saying it’s okay if they take my ovaries (chances of me waking up minus one of those are a little less remote since one of them is the size of a hobo’s knapsack and one is the size of a proper London flat) (okay I made that up, one is enlarged and one is more enlarged and the more enlarged one might have to be removed if all the “good ovary” has been “used up”–those are the Dr.’s words–which is delightful) (where was I? the problem with all these parentheticals is I lose my train of thought). So anyway I must sign consent forms saying I’m okay with waking up in a bathtub full of ice with a note saying to go to the hospital because they removed my kidney. At least that’s what it feels like. Or I can refuse to sign the consent forms which means if they go in and find out things are fucked and they need to remove stuff (that would only be in a cancer situation which again, is not what anyone is really expecting but they have to rule it out etc) then they close me back up and give me the bad news and then open me back up again and start the looting of defunct and/or weaponized organs.
Considering how little I’m looking forward to one surgery I really don’t want to have two, so part of me says I should just consent and trust the doctors who are aware that I really want to have children and have promised to do everything they can to preserve that option.
The thing is that I’ve always known I wanted kids but I’ve never felt any immediacy about it, I’ve always felt that it’s something, like everything else, that will happen when the time is right. I just never considered complications.
And while I’m feeling sorry for myself, I have to say that, having watched a loved one go through cancer, this whole thing is reminiscent in that I’m having surgery and they don’t quite know what they’re going to find and after the surgery they will determine a course of treatment (if it’s endometriosis which it most likely is) and it’ll be the kind of thing I’m dealing with/managing the rest of my life.
And if it is endometriosis the treatment will involve (I think) increasing doses of hormones so I will be moody and uncomfortable.
So, yeah.
I know that no one is promised health or a long life and the fact I’ve lived this long without a hospital stay or surgery is the unusual thing–more unusual than something cropping up that I now must tend to–and millions upon millions of people deal with this stuff all the time and it’s like jury duty–it’s now my turn– but I’m the kind of nerd who vaguely enjoyed jury duty and I don’t expect I will enjoy much of any of this.
Update: I should add that the surgery is happening at the end of the month as I realize it sounds like I’m writing this on the way into the O.R.
Oh hi!
This duckling also hasn’t been blogging
It’s been too long since I posted so I wanted to say hi. Hi!
Hope you had a good Thanksgiving and black Friday and cyber Monday and fiber Tuesday which isn’t a real thing but should be since why’s it all, “Hey, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, fuck you!” I left out Saturday since there’s small business Saturday.
Anyhoozerswhatzits, I have to have surgery coming up since I have some ovarian cysts and an elevated CA 125 blood test and a family history of ovarian cancer so you can imagine how excited I am. How excited am I? Go ahead and imagine.
The chances of it being anything dire are very very remote from everything I’m hearing however I’m kind of scared all the same as I’ve never been put under general and prefer my body to be free of needles and scopes and things that cut things and also I like it when my blood stays inside my body as opposed to ends up in vials and wads of cotton and gauze and soups and sauces and glazes and demi glazes. Look, I’m not saying it’s standard practice to use patient blood in haute cuisine but I’m also not not saying it.
Perhaps you’re wondering why I assume it would be haute cuisine and not regular non-haute cuisine? I think that’s obvious.
So, yeah, that’s what’s happening and I’m kind of not into it and maybe I’ll run away.
After the Adam Carolla Show vlog 11/13/11
Here's a video of me on a soapbox
And here’s a photo (photo not on soapbox)
