The news this week is that I got a surgery date, May 6 in Atlanta (that’s a Friday)—assuming all gets approved by the insurers. The surgery is supposed to start at noon and go at least four hours, but apparently they don’t plan to keep me overnight. Three of my excellent sisters are traveling down to be with me on Thursday, and we are staying at a hotel in Buckhead near to both the hospital (Piedmont) and the plastic surgeon, with whom I have a meeting at 9 am to get pre-opped and marked up by the artist.

To keep from making weekly trips to Atlanta, I’m trying to do as much as I can here, so I went

yesterday to get pre-qualified by my primary care doctor. This went reasonably well; I got into the doctor’s office in record time and all my blood work seems good (despite the Goldfish crackers, both my weight and my sugar are down since early March, Jean Lewis!). The funniest part was that the doctor’s office had recently revised their EKG-giving policies and so sent me up and down to various offices at least four times until I stopped moving and promised to stand in the lobby singing Gilbert and Sullivan songs until the staff reached a consensus.

Although I once had a job giving EKGs to infants, premies, and small children, I have never had one of my own. Apparently they have changed a little since my day, when we just attached the child to a kite with a key on it and waited for lightning to strike. I promise, it doesn’t hurt!  Now they seem to measure several things at once; with a little prodding, I got a copy of mine. I used to be able to recognize the really far-out heart conditions; for instance, I once noticed a condition in a small infant who came in for a heart murmur. The heart was on the wrong side altogether, which made it difficult to get blood to the other organs. I remember flagging this scan and getting it to the one resident who gave a damn (the others were on a rotation—perhaps not their first choice–and didn’t seem interested in the grunt work of reading routine scans), and I often wondered what happened to that baby after the doctor fled the office to flag down its parents, who were on the way out the door.

However, I have no idea what mine says, and I hope it isn’t a secret coded message for the surgeon like the one in Hamlet: “Please execute Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the bearers of this EKG.” It’s kind of like when people get tattoos with foreign characters on them which they are told say “Sunrise” but which probably actually say, “Asshole.” In this case, the EKG is actually labeled “Mary Adamds.” I hope that doesn’t end up meaning that I get no surgery while someone named Mary Adamds gets her boobs carved up despite her unheeded screams.  I attach the scan for the purpose of decoration, along with a photo of me waiting forlornly on a vinyl EKG table with no shirt while staff wandered to and fro, talking of Michelangelo. But if you can decode it and find it contains the mystery of the ages or the meaning of life or even the outcome of the next election, please share.

Between now and surgery, I hope things will slow down just a little. My next appointment is April 27 for a bone scan (this is to see how much osteoporosis I have, since the hormone suppressing therapy will not be friendly to my bones). Results of my DNA tests will probably come after the surgery, as will the Onco-dx test and info about lymph involvement. But my sisters are coming, and it’s spring! Kaleb’s “Goon Squad” continues to prepare to take over things at my house for a while, so if you want to help, please find him on Facebook and ask to belong. Thanks to everyone for the donations and kind thoughts and wishes.