“Oh, that’s bigger than I was expecting!”

Think clean thoughts, y’all. Or don’t, I’m not the thought boss. I’m honestly a little anxious right now and I’ve avoided talking about this because, well, I avoided dealing with it.

I’m going to have a lipoma removed from my back and honestly after all the poking, prodding, slicing, irradiating, etc. I’ve been through, I’m hardly looking forward to it. I know that it isn’t cancerous and that it’s “harmless” in the way that if I don’t do anything about it, it may not get larger, it may not cause me problems, but it likely won’t go away on its own. So I’m like, “That’s a lump. On my body. I don’t want lumps on my body. Unless they’re sexy lumps like muscles or a great ass.”

Truth be told, I can’t recall when it “started” forming, and I feel like its been the size it is for a long time. I only noticed it more when I shed a bit of weight. And then every time I went in for an oncology or dermatology check up, they’d ask “What’s that?” then look at my charts to note that it never lit up on any of my many many scans and they’d relax. It took me years before I finally asked, “Is there someone that can take care of this?” And then there was, and there wasn’t, and there was, and there wasn’t. Surgeons apparently change hospitals, facilities, and practice locations… A LOT. Or at least they did where getting a lump cut off my back was concerned.

Aside from a cursory search online, I was pretty good in terms of self-care and didn’t go down a WebMD hole or similar about it. It’s usually a short outpatient procedure, but when I saw the surgeon, he looked at it and actually did say the title of this post — told you to keep it clean. In scheduling the surgery, my only stipulation was that it not happen during my birthday week off. So I had a stay-cation and now I’m going to have, what I call, a fake-cation. Some outpatient surgery during the work week and then working from home for a few days after. Although I’m told there will be pain meds, so we’ll see how much work I can actually manage.

A friend is helping me get home from the hospital, which I hate. Yes, it’s what friends are for, but I hate being that burden. Hearkening back to my post on being lonely, it’s weird to think that for major things like this, I don’t have someone at home to take care of me. But then I’m also not rich, so I don’t have staff at home to take care of me either. 🙄

It’s just that hospital stuff is so nebulous that it’s hard to tell someone what kind of demand on their time it will be. I have to be there hours before my scheduled surgery time for check in, dress down, tube insertion, etc. I have no idea how long the surgery will take and it seems ridiculous to ask someone to wait in a hospital — one of the most fun places on earth — for some unspecified amount of time and, I don’t know, read? Mess around on their phone in a room with horrible WiFi? Watch daytime talk shows or soaps in an uncomfortable chair next to strangers? Not exactly an attractive prospect.

And yes, I grudgingly accept that they do it because they care. It doesn’t make me feel like any less of a burden. Yay guilt!

So if I’m quiet on social media next week, or I’m the complete opposite and posting relentlessly because of cabin fever or loopiness, that’s what up.