This is a recent autobiography; however sex tragic one of me, Laura. Nickname: Vixxx. Aka: Wanton Vixxxen. Wife {twice over} mother to six {NEVER over} grandmother of thirteen and still counting with the youngest chick getting married and leaving the roost next year. Interior designer/ retail merchandiser by day; writer by night and Dominatrix anywhere in- between.
And now...a virgin. Again.
The "long time, no see!" kind of virgin. Yes, it's been
that
long. After all, I was married the first time before I was able to legally be served {I did say
legally
remember} and about five minutes after the "I do's" were spoken, I found that I did and was going to be a mommy. And now, several decades, two husbands and a tribe of kids later, I find my road to paradise has been closed for repairs due to its unpleasant introduction to the Law of Gravity. It made its uninvited and unwelcome presence known on my uterus, and my uterus on my bladder. In other words, I was told I needed a hysterectomy to stop my organs from playing musical chairs with one another. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me take you back to the beginning of my I'm- never- going- to βwake-up- from βthis- nightmare- story, about four months ago, and let you eavesdrop on the conversation that started all of this "you remember when?βwell, forget it now!" intercourse insanity...
*******
My urologist was Dr. Joseph Margison; a man on the friendlier side of middle age, but with the knowledge and skills of a physician many years his senior. He also has a terrific bedside manner that leaves you at ease no matter what the prognosis, so as he leafed through my file after examining me that Monday afternoon in mid January, I casually asked,
"How far has it dropped this time, doctor?" I sat back up now on the examination table swinging my legs gently off the front of it, as I calmly waited for him to confirm what my own mind and bladder had been telling me for nearly a year; three years since the first procedure had been done to correct the problem. But I never expected the type of response I was now going to get.
Dr. Margison looked up from the folder in his hand, and replied with an unconventional $185.00 per office visit remark, "Well, if we take a look at this from a geographical point of view,
{geographical? Where the hell is he going with this?}
I would have to say your bladder, which would normally be located at say, the equator, has actually dropped this time to oh ...Argentina."
I allowed my mind to visualize a world globe as I slowly lay back on the exam table again; my high school A's in geography biting me in the ass β that is, if they could reach Argentina.
"But look on the bright side, Laura" he continued, as if there
was
actually a bright side to that scenario. "It could be a lot worse. Your bladder could be situated in Antarctica."
"Antarctica?" I echoed; knowing the moment I asked I would be sorry.
"Yes. Antarctica. In which case I could be using it as a footstool right now."
I swallowed hard as
that
horrendous picture all too clearly came into focus in my mind and just hoped he wasn't citing an actual case history. My heart did wheelies at the mere thought.
"It's unfortunate that this has happened again."
Much to my dismal surprise he had continued without taking a breath, as if his last remark was something routinely mentioned to his patients in passing. For all I knew it could have been standard office policy to use wandering body parts for medical furniture. The interior designer in me winced.
But he wasn't finished with his $185.00 per visit shock treatment yet. Oh no. I was going to get my insurance monies' worth out of him today. Yes indeedy.
"Laura..." he began all too carefully; all too out of his usual upbeat, off beat demeanor; keeping his eyes down and glued to my patient file in his hands as if they were retinally welded there. Uh oh. I felt this icky lump in the pit of my stomach at that moment and prayed it wasn't some other body part deciding to relocate itself.
I sucked a deep breath into what I hoped was where my lungs were last situated and said, "Go ahead, doc. Just tell me whatever it is you have on your mind β or in that file. I'm a big girl. I can handle it."
"Ok then," he said in a slow, faltering voice; never lifting his eyes from what I now positively knew were my documents of doom. "I... need to know. Were you planning... on having any more....... children?"
I exhaled slowly; relieved it wasn't anything serious in nature, but then allowed his out of left field question to really sink in. As the gestational periods of my life flashed before my now widening, glazed over eyes; the visions of a human weeble hugging the porcelain god twenty four hours a day, seven days a week; nine months times four pregnancies bounced and wobbled and rolled and loomed in the foreground. But it was the memory of my mother's heart swelling, breath halting and tear rendering version about how a woman with child looks "so radiant" while she is carrying that really brought me to the teetering edge of the bearing baby myth abyss. All four times the reality of
my
mother-to-be "so radiant" image was that of bloodshot eyes and bright purple dots of burst blood vessels all over a celery green face caused by the thrusts of bile and dry cracker projectiles constantly heaved into my best friend, the commode. And
that
so vivid a vision just scared me enough to bolt upright from the table and blurt out,
"HELL no!!! Are you NUTS?!?"
It was the clear cold fact that my dear, little, sweet saint of a mother who lies like a rug on the subject of glowing mothers-to-be that made my final decision to opt for the surgery soooo quick and easy. Thank you, Saint Mom.
*******
MEDICAL LEAVE β two of the sweetest words I could hear! It not only meant getting some well deserved R&R, but also having the golden opportunity to getting something really accomplished on my novel. After all, it wouldn't take any exertion to just sit here in my nice comfortable den typing on the computer, now would it? Now that I was scheduled for the surgery, I would have all the time in the world to get a good part of the research and some of the chapters' rough drafts completed. I would have eight, long, body and soul fulfilling weeks to accomplish everything I had in mind. I actually was looking forward to the operation. I had a very competent surgeon; my ob-gyn of many years that I had tons of faith in. Also, the operation was going to be performed at a hospital that I had given birth in to all four daughters, and those same daughters would be there when I came out of recovery. Yep, I was feeling very upbeat about the whole thing. The operation itself would be killing a flock of nuisances with one scalpel; surgically repairing a descended bladder while at the same time eliminating the need to worry about change of life pregnancies. All systems were 'go' as the hysterectomy was scheduled for the first week of February. And this girl couldn't wait.
Unfortunately I had, in my growing coupled excitement of envisioning working on my novel while also acquiring expanded sexual freedom, totally forgotten about another couple: Father Time and Mother Nature; two of the worst, warped pranksters known to Man β and Woman. Together, they are a dysfunctional pair that has celestial amnesty from child abuse. They wake up each morning and pick and choose from all of their millions of children throughout the world and decide which unsuspecting victim they are going to play a demented, cruel, ruthlessly raunchy, humiliating joke on. Not just little "haha" or polite, half hearted chuckle types of jokes either. They play the kind whose punch lines have no limits; no boundaries and are as frustrating and as embarrassing as they can get. How well I know.
Because on February 7th, their joke lottery was awarded to me.
*******
I remember waking up in the recovery room to a nurse's voice telling me the operation was over and that they would be wheeling me down to my room very shortly. I also remember barfing up some bile projectiles {minus the dry crackers} right after her little announcement and thinking to myself,
"well, thank God it's just from the anesthesia and not because of a 'so radiant' pregnancy"
before I drifted back into my then very unaware state of the first joke of renewed innocence oblivion.
The second of the sick jokes was in place, too. Literally. And it would stay "in place" for another week after I was released from the hospital. My newly slung bladder and urethra track remained hung over from the anesthesia and I went home with a catheter bag hanging from my arm like a perverted Gucci coochie purse. Back at the ranch, the grandkids thought it was way cool, however. Now I could just lay there on the sofa watching a movie on HBO and not miss a Matrix minute. Not one Morpheus moment would I lose of Neo kicking the shit out of a thousand agent Smiths because I didn't have to waste a precious Zion second going all the way to a bathroom to pee. In their eyes, I was almost as mystical and powerful as the Oracle. The two younger grandsons asked if I would leave the priceless plastic jewel to them in my will. They promised they would alternate wearing it depending on whose favorite show was on at any given time. Very time savvy kids, my grandsons. Although I wasn't planning anytime soon to belly up and shuffle off to Buffalo, I did ponder the thought of revamping my will to include the urine holding grail just as a memento of a dear, little sweet saint of
a very, very old when she died
grandmother. But then I noticed something very profound! The Oracle wasn't wearing a Gucci coochie bag while she was baking cookies and explaining to Keanu that the end of the world was inevitable. I decided right then and there that if a toilet was good enough for an oracle, it was good enough for me. The other inevitable was that the grandsons would just have to tape their favorite programs and hit the pause button whenever they needed to whiz.