Have you seen the jewelry commercial were the husband pops out of bed to get a beautiful diamond pendant for his wife? He climbs back in bed, puts it around her neck, then pretends to be sleeping. She wakes like a second later to find the surprise necklace and gets a huge smile because she has a husband who not only buys her diamonds, but one that gives them to her in a thoughtful and romantic way.
This commerical made me sick. This commercial had to have been created in the mind of a female ad exec. In my world these things do not happen. In my friends' worlds these things do not happen, unless they have been holding out on me and not telling me because of the lack of romantic gestures in my life.
I was living my life just fine, annoyed satisfied with my hub's (who fully admits that he used to buy me flowers for no reason, but now doesn't think of it) love language of Acts of Service, then WHAM-O! V, (a friend of mine, fiance to Metro and Wednesday Night Dinner participant) sent this to me in an email. No kidding, this really is a true story. Romance really does exist. It's not just something made up in the imagination of women.
O.k. so can I just tell you I have the most romantic fiancée ever in this whole world! First of all I was watching the last episodes of the Bachelorette waiting for Metro to get home last night from the golf tournament. Those episodes are all about romance b/c they go on exotic dates etc…. Naturally I am like, "man it would be nice to feel like that again." Not that I am not in love, but sometimes things get kind of stale/boring with everyday routines.
Well Metro gets home with flowers, which was so sweet. Then he tells me to get my shoes on he is taking me somewhere. So he takes me up to the top of where the gravel pit is which is one of the highest points in town and pulls out a bottle of wine where we proceed to watch the sunset over the mountains on this mass of rock. I mean seriously….The bachelorette has nothing on my fiancée.
After I puked in my hand said my ohhs and ahhs and told her how nice that was, I called the Hubs. He works with Metro and they happened to be having lunch. I told him to ask Metro what he did last night and why he was trying to make the rest of the men in their circle look bad.
Of course, without even knowing what Metro did, the Hubs just laughed. You see, that's my man. Fully willing to embrace what he isn't and not willing to apologize for it. Despite all of that, I love him with all that I am even when I do believe that a romantic gesture on occasion wouldn't kill him.
As many of you know, the hubs had surgery a few weeks ago to determine whether or not his melanoma spread to his lymph nodes. Prior to the surgery, we met his surgeon. In she walks wearing stripper shoes peek toe stilettos with her white lab coat. Really? Have you ever seen a doctor wear stripper shoes peek toe stilettos? No? Me either.
On the way home, we talked about it and laughed. My final thought on it was, well at least she’s styling up the place.
We show up for the surgery and see her before he goes under the knife. She doesn’t have on the stripper shoes peek toe stilettos. I said to her, “What? No high heels for surgery?” She laughed and said, “No,” then went on to remove a few lymph nodes from his groin area.
The surgery ends and all is well. The hubs saw her again late last week for a follow-up. I didn’t attend this little visit because he is cancer free and didn’t really need me there.
He had an appointment with a dermatologist yesterday (got 4 more moles removed). The dermatologist said to him, “So, Dr. Peektoe Stiletto did your surgery? What did you think of her? I hear a lot about her.” This comment from the dermatologist sparked a conversation at Wednesday Night Dinner.
Apparently, the hubs has given her a lot of thought. He described her to Metro, one of our Wednesday Night Dinner guests, as a cross between Catherine Zeta Jones and Demi Moore with stripper shoes (my hubs is not anywhere near fashion forward enough to use the words peek toe).
WHAT? He has given her that much thought? Are you kidding me? You have thought that much about a woman who has seen your nether regions? WHAT?
If she weren’t so friendly and compassionate, I would be thoroughly annoyed. Now I am only slightly annoyed.
The phone call came last night while we were finishing up dinner. The one we had been waiting for, but didn't expect until Monday. The phone call that had my heart in my stomach and me waiting on pins and needles. The lymph nodes were free of cancer! THE HUBS IS CANCER FREE! My heart did a million cartwheels and I wanted to scream it from the mountain tops!
For all of you that were praying, sending warm thoughts and hugs our way - thank you! God is good!
We dropped Little Man off with Grammy at 10:00am (Ladybug doesn't like to be too far away from her food source, so she tagged along), then headed to the hospital. I had Kohl's cash, so the hubs was a trooper and stopped there first. I can not let $30 go to waste. We got to the hospital, Ladybug in tow, at 11:00. We were a little early, so I decided to feed her in the car. Halfway through I looked out my window and saw the security camera aimed right at me. I'm so glad I decided not to be too discreet - when I show up on the internet, bare breast exposed, you'll know it's because I had no idea we parked under a camera.
Upon check in, we asked what we were supposed to do next. We found out we had a hour and a half wait for nuclear medicine. Yikes - that's a lot of time to kill in a hospital. I had lunch; the hubs couldn't eat anything. Part way through, Grandpa showed up and took over Ladybug duty. He got in all the Ladybug love he could yesterday.
At 1:00 the Hubs had the nuclear medicine injected in to the site of the melanoma. Apparently it was 4 injections of fire. They don't numb the area or sedate for this procedure, but I have come to the conclusion they should provide Valium at the very least.
Immediately following, we head up to surgery again. It's there we find out that they were expecting him there much earlier. What that means is the hour and a half we were trying to kill was for no reason at all. The took him in immediately and prepped him for surgery. I sat with him through most of it. He was pretty nervous, but everyone around was very friendly - that eased his nerves a bit. When it came time for the IV, he went as white as a sheet. He's not so good with needles - he mentally breaks down and then his veins collapse. It took the nurse about 10 minutes to finally get the IV in there and going. The nurse on the "sleep team" gave him something to relax him following the IV episode, so all was well again. Following that, I asked the nurse on the "sleep team" if he could come home with me and work with Ladybug in the middle of the night. Anyone that calls himself part of a "sleep team" must be a sleep expert!
He was wheeled away from me, then I started a little bit of a panic. I think I watch too much television - people going under the knife for simple surgeries and tragedy strikes. I have a vivid imagination when I let my mind wander. I snapped myself back into it and went to find Grandpa and Ladybug cruising the halls trying to get a nap.
The surgery started at 2:36. The doctor came out to see me about an hour later. She said he did very well and was hopeful that there wasn't any cancer in the lymph nodes she removed. She said the nodes are usually black when they are removed. His were not black, but, she cautioned, they need to be looked at under a microscope to be sure. She was very positive about it, so that eased my mind slightly. Obviously, I will not rest until the results come back.
We were home by 6:30. The hubs spent the evening on the couch in and out of sleep. He finally went to bed at about 9:30 and tossed and turned most of the night.
Today the Hubs goes under the knife. He is scheduled to have a wide excision on the site where the melanoma was removed and to have nuclear dye injected into that site. The nuclear dye will tell the surgeon which lymph node(s) that mole drained into, and the surgeon will remove that node. The node will be sent for a biopsy. Apparently there are 3-4 pathologists that will read the report, so it will take about a week for us to get the results.
At the consultation, the surgeon soothed our nerves a bit. She said she thought the chances were slim that the cancer had spread to the lymph system. The surgery, however, is still recommended because of his history. I won't rest easy until the pathology comes back clean.
If you're a mom reading this, I beg you...please, please put sunscreen on your kids and reapply every 2 hours. Make sure you put it on under white and other light colored shirts as well (they don't protect against UV rays). Most skin damage is done in childhood - you can prevent what is happening to the Hubs by being diligent with the sunscreen.
