The Port That Won't Go Away

I went to the hospital yesterday happily believing I was going to have my hideous port removed. I had been counting the days since I made the appointment for the surgery six weeks ago, eager beyond words to get this ugly uncomfortable protuberance cut out of my chest wall. Especially because I can't get back to lifting serious weights as long as it's dangling its big thick dangerous catheter into my superior vena cava.

But alas, it turned out this long awaited moment was only to be a consultation with a surgeon to obtain approval to have the damn thing yanked out. The actual removal is still many weeks away.

I was seriously bummed, to say the least. This is just one of the many drawbacks of the public charity hospital: nothing is ever simple, nothing is ever quick, nothing ever goes smoothly, everything is always wrapped in five thousand layers of sticky inefficient red tape. But at least I did get the approval, and the surgeon, who was disconcertingly young and hot, had a wry sense of humor and actually treated me like an intelligent life form.

I don't have any say in when I will finally have the thing taken out, the hospital is going to send me an arbitrary appointment in the mail. It will probably be a few weeks, but possibly a few months or more. Big drag.

But! Just look at the front yard that greeted me when I came home. One can only wallow in bitter disappointment for so long when surrounded by this riot of exuberant technicolor: