Jinxes

Thanks to those of you who’ve inquired about Blaine and wished him luck during this week’s surgery. We’re leaving tomorrow to drive to Augusta, which is three hours away --- not far enough to really be considered “far”, but too far for me to drive back and forth every day, hence the reason Grandma Betty and her magical wad of bribing dollar bills were summoned.

Now, if you know me at all by now, and I think that you do, you know that I am the Queen of Jinxing Things, and through the years I’ve learned it’s just best, with regards to Blaine and the ongoing Saga That Is His Medical Fiasco, to keep my trap shut. Because if a situation can be jinxed, I am the one who will inadvertently jinx it with my big fat mouth. I’ve learned in the past that things rarely go as planned and it’s probably better if I don’t set goals or broadcast timelines, especially out loud, since Blaine has single-handedly redefined the concept of “one step forward, two steps back” through the years. Yes, that’s right. I said YEARS. Did you know it’s been FOUR AND A HALF YEARS since his original cancer diagnosis?

Let’s see …. What can happen in the span of four and a half years? Let’s think of a few, just for comparison’s sake, shall we? A person could purchase, and pay off, a car. Begin, and graduate from, college. Meet a guy, date, get engaged, get married, get divorced. Or, assuming you stay married, get pregnant, give birth, and celebrate both the first, second, and third birthdays. When Blaine was in the hospital, having the very first, very, very first-est ever surgery, to remove the original tumor ---- we were sitting in his hospital room watching television when they announced we had gone to war with Iraq. So as long as our country has been at war, Blaine has had cancer, or been struggling with the after-effects of the reconstruction complications caused by his cancer and radiation.

Wow. That pretty much sucks.

But! OK, here goes. {tossing salt over my shoulder, crossing my fingers, holding my four-leaf clover, rubbing my genie lamp and my rabbit’s foot, nailing a horseshoe over my door, stepping over the cracks on the sidewalk, finding a heads up penny, breaking the long half of the wishbone, seeing a shooting star, crossing my fingers, and last, but not least, knocking on this piece of shit computer desk …. }

This should be Blaine’s very last major surgery.

I know!

Who ever though we would see the day where that goal was reached???? Where we could say those words aloud??? Ok, yeah, I know, we’ve actually said it several times in the past already and there’s always a complication or two. He always winds up catching the flu or getting an infection or needing a trach or having a tissue failure or, oh, I don’t know, getting his freaking cancer back ---- but we really think this might be IT this time!

This surgery is to separate the part of his cheek that adhered too tightly to his gums after the last graft surgery. The graft surgery that happened unexpectedly when his second free flap surgery wasn’t completely successful. The second free-flap surgery that happened unexpectedly when his first free-flap surgery wasn’t completely successful ---- you see how this is going, right?

But assuming he doesn’t have any complications, assuming he doesn’t adversely react to the anesthesia, or get food poisoning from the hospital food, or pick up another staph infection, or slip in the hotel parking lot and fall and break his freaking ankle (!! Crap, I just jinxed it, now he’s going to break his ankle!!) then this should be the last surgery.

He’ll still have quite a bit of prosthodontic work to be done before he has teeth permanently attached to his posts/implants. But at long last, he’ll be able to begin resting and recuperating from the fifteen surgeries and five weeks of radiation he’s undergone since this thing started. It’s been six months since his last surgery (Remember, he had surgery scheduled for last April but it was postponed when he got the flu like a weenie) and I don’t think he has felt this good physically since the whole ordeal began. This break has been a good thing.

So, if you could wish us luck, and keep him in your prayers just one more time, it would mean a lot to us. I feel like maybe, hopefully, possibly, for the first time, we can see an inkly, twinkly, sparkly, smidgen of light at the end of his tunnel. It would be fabulous to think we are nearing the end.

Or, you know, the nurse taking care of him this week will walk down the hall towards his room to take his vitals, slip on a banana peel, fall to the ground, accidentally pushing an empty wheelchair as she goes down, which will roll into Blaine’s room, crashing into the wall holding the Sharps container, which will fall on Blaine’s head, causing all the used needles contaminated with infectious diseases to rain down upon him, and the one filled with flesh eating bacteria will accidentally puncture his skin, causing his outer layers of soft tissue to become infected and fall off, which will require an extensive stay in the hospital while he receives life-sustaining, supportive care for organ and respiratory failure.

And I will kill the nurse. And go to jail for the rest of my life. In which case all my future blogger updates will be written from solitary confinement at the state penitentiary.

Oh, crap. Did I just jinx myself???