Now What?

In 1996, six pounds of painful, useless flesh and fat were removed from my mammary glands. They call it breast reduction surgery. I take full responsibility for this elective procedure.

March 12, 2008 was the date of my first open-heart aortic valve replacement surgery. I chose a cow valve (they were out of pig parts that day)

Then there was the mold that got to me in 2010 and early 2011. Seattle doesn't think it has a problem.

Having been thrown on to the dance floor in 2010, it was determined I had a cracked and chipped 5th lumbar disc in my back. The pain comes and goes.

Late June of 2011 had me stuck in a 3-hour traffic jam at the top of Donner Pass in California. A week later, I was in the hospital for 8 days, being pumped with Heparin and Warfarin because a blood clot sailed up my leg and through my heart and took up residency in my lungs. Pullmanary Embolism, is its formal name.

More mold, this time in Pennsylvania, made me move to the high desert in New Mexico at the end of 2012.

A surprise diagnosis of an ascending (upper) aortic aneurysm needed immediate surgery in February of 2015, but not until after a large tumor that had wrapped itself around half of my thyroid and vocal chords was removed in January. And oh, by the way, the 7 year old cow heart valve got replaced by a pig valve, also.

What is this, March of 2018? Well, they've just discovered cancer in my uterus and it has to be taken out.

What the fuck, universe?