Open-eyed surgery

'Go ahead and take off your shirt,' Dr. A pronounced this morning in his Lebanese accent.

I blinked in his direction, unaccustomed to this request in the absence of some sort of medical modesty gown. I'm also unaccustomed to going under the knife in a regular exam room, wide awake, for a supposed 'ten to fifteen' quick minutes. But this was to get the port taken out of my chest, the final final step in the journey with Hodgkins (Lord willing), so I did as I was told. He leaned back the dentist-like chair and pressed around the port implanted in my upper left chest. A red scar a few inches long marked the place.

'I'm going to numb the area now,' and he did, inserting the needle and wriggling it around under my skin.

OW. But I kept my mouth shut.

'Now tell me if you feel anything.' He lowered the knife.

'I FEEL SOMETHING.'

'Like pressure or like pain?'

'LIKE CUTTING.'

'Okay. More anesthetic.'

Now I've got 1.5 times the regular amount of numbing medicine, and he lowers the scalpel again. My neck is craned way back and I am counting the perforations on the ceiling tile praying not to feel (or see) anything, and

'I CAN FEEL SOMETHING. I CAN FEEL SOMETHING.'

'Okay, more numbing.'

Now I've got 2 times the regular amount of anesthetic. 'Some people are resistant to it,' Dr. A exlpains. THAT WOULD BE ME. But I keep my mouth shut. I want this thing OUT.

Finally this time, I feel only pressure. He opens the scar and comments, 'There is some fat in the way,' then adds in the way of kindness, 'But not too much.'

['What?! You don't have any fat!' -my Mom when she heard this part. Gotta love a mother's perspective.]

Then followed no fewer than the promised fifteen minutes of clipping, pulling, wrenching and coaxing. 'Come on, come on,' he muttered as he strained to clip the stubborn internal stitches as well as the fibrous sheath my body had built around its alien visitor (and, I presume, the fat). Finally he dropped all tools and in one action that felt more like finally wrenching the lid from the jam jar than the cool division of a surgeon released the port up into the air. He held it up, the small circular container with a long tube attached that had funneled the saving poison into my insides.

'There it is.'

It's WONDERFUL to have it out. I never ceased being aware of the plastic bump under my skin - never ceased feeling disgusted at touching the skin with something lifeless beneath or rolling onto it in my sleep. I finally feel like my body is DONE with cancer.

Me today, port-free!!

Less than a year ago, Sam and I sat in Dr. A's office while he showed us slides of tumors crowding around my windpipe, and color and hope and strength and breath drained out of us and puddled on the floor. I started a nasty regimen of toxic poisons that were the only hope for survival, and our insurance company informed us that they would not cover any of my treatment. We had a new baby. I had no strength. We knew we would have no money.

Now it's 2013. I have scans that show no cancer, and last week the insurance company agreed to pay, and our attorneys who helped the company reach that decision waived their fees. I am as I've been over and over since receiving the cancer diagnosis: humbled. Thankful. The Lord would have taken care of us either way, but it is a blessing to no longer have the burden of an unwelcome parasite in my chest and the threat of financial devastation lurking our every move.

Peekaboo.