Another quick update—I’m on odd hours, and yet more painkillers. Hopefully these will wear off in a few days and everything will return to normal as August draws to an end.

The surgery went well—sent home yesterday, and have spent most of the past 36 hours sleeping. When I wasn’t sleeping, I read Siri Hustvedt’s The Sorrows of an American—finally. For some reason I hadn’t got to it earlier. Had started it, and then found it wasn’t the right time. In this slightly otherworldishness of post-surgery it seems to have been the right time. I felt very calm as I read it.

I have three punctures in my belly. When I get up I have to hold my belly with my hands. I can feel my navel, which upsets me, and when I got to sit up, I sometimes feel like my insides will tumble out. Obviously this is all the result of my strange head, but—. So I hold onto my stomach.

It feels a little unreal. My parents are here—wonderful! Unfortunately the holiday as it was planned has ruptured a little. Still, we should be out of DC for a day or two at least.

I’ve been lying low. There are people I want to talk to, people I want to see. Some of them I’ve spoken to, and some I haven’t quite called… I will get to it. But there are people I realise I haven’t seen for weeks, and getting in touch again after a gap—and it’s a strange gap, when there’s suddenly been this medical stuff—feels difficult. And, too, I get into that haze where I want to talk to the new people in my life. And, well, I’m somewhere in that tumble.

Class goes back very soon. I will probably be missing my first class still, but with any luck after that it should all be fine. Everything will suddenly be busy and word-filled.

Just a quick update: another ER visit last night, ending in my being discharged by accident. Yes, that’s right. Accidentally discharged, and since I was gone they said I should just keep the appointment I had with the clinic doctor today. Never mind that at Georgetown this morning before the nurse got rid of me the doctors were waiting for a team of surgeons, while at the clinic I was scheduled only for another sonogram… Anyway, another night of morphine and drama, followed by a kind of lecture from the doctor today. (Didn’t I tell you to ring the clinic if your condition got worse? he asked. Well, yes, he did tell me that. And when I felt a little worse on Friday and rang, the person on the emergency number told me there wasn’t a lot they could do, but that if it got significantly worse before my appointment to go back to the ER. And, yes, once I started vomiting last night, my only thought was to get to hospital, and not to call the afterhours number at the clinic, leave a message, and wait for a call back.)

Now I have the surgery scheduled for Thursday morning. Not at Georgetown, but at Sibley Hospital. Which is, I have to say, a pretty fancy place. Not that I’ll care when the general anaesthetic hits.

Somewhere amid all the shufflings last week on Monday night (I love how they send the hospital administrators to get your ID before they give you the morphine), I think I lost my drivers license. Brilliant. Another bureaucratic thing to fix up… Oh, and my (printable) healthcare card is—somewhere. If I can’t find it, I have to find my details in order to print another card. Printable healthcare cards? Seriously?

Truth be told, I’m a little bit down about it all. Last week it was just a hassle. After a second ER visit in as many weeks, three sonograms (hey! did you know the image on a sonogram changes when you laugh? I found out today. Yes. I laughed), a few IV drips, and the news that if anything the cyst is larger, I’m pretty miserable. So, in less than 48 hours it will be gone.

I still can’t believe a hospital can discharge someone by accident. That is just awful.

In the mean time, I turn to books for solace. Finished the new Paul Auster. I liked it a lot. A few friends came up with the theory that only every second book he writes is good. This is a good one. Just finished Lisa Olstein’s Radio Crackling, Radio Gone, and have also been reading Julia Hartwig’s book of selected poems, In Praise of the Unfinished. This last book is beautiful. I’ll write more about it when all the other stuff is over and done with.

My parents arrived an hour ago. I haven’t seen them yet—they were getting out of the airport, getting their rental car, getting themselves to their hotel… then thinking about getting to Georgetown. The plan initially had been my finding my way to Dupont… but I don’t think I’m finding my way anywhere. Except maybe into dreams.

I’ve been a bit slow updating on the health stakes. And on generally getting stuff done. I ended up taking the vicoden a few days ago, and it’s left me a bit loopy since. (I’m realising that “loopy” is probably a word that no-one but my mum and I have used for 50 years… but I like it that way.)

The followup: Thursday. I like the doctor—I think he’s from a Germanic (possibly Jewish) background. Not being there for a Sunday brunch, I didn’t get to ask. He confirmed all the stuff I’d been reading—most functional cysts go away on their own, etc. Then he had a look at the thing and had a bit of an “oh dear,” moment. Well, he wasn’t worried, but said it is big, and obviously hasn’t just formed in a month or two, nor is it likely to just resolve itself. So, more tests on Tuesday. But he thinks that it is likely I will need surgery at some point—but non-invasive. I shouldn’t be out of action for too long. Good stuff.

But, as I said, I did upgrade to vicoden. The ibuprofen had been working fine. Then Robyn came, to give me her bicycle for while she’s in Hungary. (Thanks Robyn!) Now, I was sleepy, and a little drugged up already, so I probably should have known that this was prime time for me to do something stupid. Like, for instance, fall over while trying to get the bike to my apartment, and, lying something like a cockroach on its back, have the bike fall on top of me.

I laughed. Really loudly. You know, that cavernous Kate-laugh you all miss so much. Got up, figured out that I’d been standing on the wrong side of the bike—not able to use my hip to prop open the door—and got the thing up to my apartment. Lay down again. Then—ouch! It turns out when you have a painful thing in your abdomen, it’s not a good idea to fall over and have a bike fall on top of you. So, having rung the clinic again and made sure that it was fine it was hurting more (but to look out for nausea, dizziness and—especially—fever) I took the vicoden.

Whoosh. That’s crazy stuff. I’ve been sleeping very well—and for long periods of time—but also at weird hours. My professional opinion? (As a professional sleeper, that is.) There is no way House could have functioned that well while he was all painkiller-happy in season one. (Gosh. That’s casting my mind back a few years…)

So, Tuesday is a busy day. I have to first of all talk to incoming International Students about the writing center. I’m looking forward to that. Then I have to get out to my appointment. (I think the lovely Lisa is going to take me again…) Then my parents arrive later that afternoon at Dulles. Bliss!

Hopefully dodging all tricky pain/surgery related things, Paul Auster is going to be at Politics and Prose on Thursday night. I think, as one of DC’s best independent bookstores, I should be able to get my parents there, even though neither have read—or are likely to read, Auster. I am a quarter of the way through his new book, which I started two hours ago, taking a break for dinner (Sicilian Caponata) and most of an episode of Dynasty. (Oh my! The first major Krystle/Alexis catfight. I laughed out loud. Nice to know I didn’t invent high drama.)

I’m enjoying Man in the Dark so far. I have a pile of things I want to attempt to read before classes start again. Today I finished The Working Poor: Invisible in America, which I found amazing. The author, David K. Shipler, lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland—a lot of the people and programs he followed are local to DC. It made me want to go and find out more about them. I also finished reading my first book of C. D. Wright’s poetry (thanks for the tip, Brandon) One Big Self. I loved it. When I’ve been having my 2am nights (care of vicoden) I’ve been scribbling notes in my notebooks (I found one I thought I had lost… thank god. I’ve lost notebooks before, and it’s an awful feeling)—well, scribbling in my notebook when I wasn’t chatting to a friend (Chris) who had drunk coffee, and was apparently wide awake (not normally a coffee drinker… ah, the amateurs don’t know how to do these things…) or typing slightly mad emails to people.

Apparently my dopey conversations at Baked and Wired have been hilarious. Leaning on the counter, half asleep, vicoden-laced Kate.

It’s been a really busy month for independence days—and September will be busy too. After that, it will settle down. I’m glad. I’m used to doing that writing every day, but I’m hoping that I can put the time towards something—profitable? University-oriented? Who knows? Crazier things have happened.

This week has had drama. It all started out nicely—another Fulbrighter farewell last Friday night (Szia Robyn!) with a little whisky, a little chatting with friends. Some hours clocked at Baked and Wired. A dinner out. A little bit of time cleaning my room. Weekend stuff.

Then I woke up on Monday morning.

So, I didn’t feel right when I woke up—perhaps like there was a little cramp or something. Still, I was determined to stick to routine, and went and got my coffee, did some reading (finished Philip Roth’s The Dying Animal over a bagel) and then went back to the apartment, planning to get some more reading done, followed by some writing. But my stomach felt worse. So, I lay down with a heatpack on my stomach and fell asleep for awhile, woke up, and found it was worse again. I wasn’t exactly sure what I should do, and thought for a moment maybe it was something appendix related (I almost don’t believe in appendicitis—isn’t that like those phone numbers starting with “555”: invented for television?) and found that the appendix is on the other side of the body from where I was feeling pain. Still, it got worse. It was after 5, and so the student health clinic was closed. My friend Lisa suggested the ER. My reaction was—What if it’s nothing? Even with insurance, isn’t an ER in the US expensive? (This reminds me of the time I fainted off my bicycle on a major road during peak hour—when I came to someone was phoning an ambulance. Groggy as I was, I was still able to say “Don’t! I don’t have ambulance cover!” Oh dear.) So I rang my mother in Australia (as with the best mothers, she is all-knowing) and she thought that since it had been getting worse over 6 hours or so I should go see someone.

Fastforward to: a trip to the ER. I’d been lying still for quite a while, and apparently my body didn’t like walking anymore. I got out of the building, and then started throwing up outside. Nice. Lisa brought the car round. No more nausea. Phew.

Took me a few minutes to even find the ER—the Georgetown Hospital isn’t terribly well-signed. They should do something about that. Did the triage thing a few times, with waiting in between. On the scale of one to ten I initially estimated the pain at 7. Within an hour I would have been screaming ten. I was fine and then suddenly it was all just unbearable. High drama!

So the doctors thought that, yes, it might be appendicitis. Especially when I started pain-induced nausea as it got worse. Apparently the pain can manifest itself more on the left even though the appendix is on the right. So, first an IV, and anti-nausea medication, plus morphine. Morphine? Yes. It told you there was high-drama.

I had to drink about a litre of this slightly fizzy stuff as I awaited a CT scan—apparently you have to have it an hour before the scan. Some other lovely injections when I got to the CT scan room—and, to make the experience extra special, more vomiting. The results? I do not have appendicitis. Sigh of relief, right? Except, why do I still hurt?

New theory: let’s send her for an ultrasound. (No, this story doesn’t end with it turning out I’m pregnant with alien children.) But some more morphine first, as I was starting to get all feverish and crazy. Ultrasound finds an 11cm ruptured cyst. I realise, my dear readers, that some of you might not want to read about this. But apparently its one of the things a body can do to itself—most women have “functional” cysts at some point, but mine clearly wasn’t functioning very well, what with the pain and the vomiting and the rupture. On the bright side, I did get to see ultrasound images of my insides. Oh, and the attached picture is not of my insides. My cyst is bigger than this one.

The result? After 6 or so hours in the ER I was released with a few pieces of paper, prescriptions for painkillers (including Vicoden… but I’m managing on the industrial strength Ibuprofen) and the instruction to see a doctor within three days for further tests.

So, at the moment I have a lot of Ibuprofen in my system, and am due at the doctor’s office tomorrow. Most likely? Blood tests, more ultrasound, and at some point an opinion as to whether I’ll need a surgery or not. Surgery? Well, I’m okay with that—thank god I have health insurance—but if it’s required it involves entry via the stomach, and I’m really not okay with that. (I expect most of you know how much I hate to have my belly button touched. The idea of a caesarian makes me want to faint—hell, seeing a navel piercing makes me want to faint.) Anyway, from what I've read I don't think the surgery should be needed, and I think they wait a while to see if goes away on its own anyway.

It’s all a bit of a “hold on tight” thing. I was all upset, and now I’m just kind of puzzled. It all seems so strange. And how did I get the timing? Just after I finished teaching, a few weeks before my own classes start. I even have my parents coming in next week. What a whirl.

At least last night I ate icecream by the canal. That was nice.

The weekend saw the first of two goodbyes I’m finding quite wrenching: my friend Carolyn leaves today for a year in Bulgaria. Bulgaria? She’s a Fulbrighter, and she’ll be based in Sofia for the next year. She’s been renamed Karolinka —as she puts it, Carolyn translated, just as her whole life is about to be translated to Bulgaria. I’m going to miss her: it’s funny, I’ve known Carolyn less than a year, and I’ve probably only seen her about ten times this year (we’ve both been busy and never shared a class) but now that she’s leaving I know just how much I’m going to miss her. The one this I’m looking forward to is some corresponding. I’ve gotten a little behind on my letter-writing of late, but I’m hoping to sit down and catch up on letters in the next few days.

We celebrated Carolyn with a stooping party: sitting on the stoop to her fabulous group house in the U Street area, drinking wine and—as this was the deluxe party—grilling burgers on the stoop, transforming the whole experience in to a “Stoop-a-Q.” It was the perfect Saturday night, really. I’ve been enjoying spending time with some different people in the summer, from the Baked and Wired pool party, to stooping with Carolyn’s crowd, to the poetry group last week.

Oh, and hanging at Fort Reno last night. I’ve only just found out that summer sees a bunch of free concerts at Fort Reno park up in the Tenley Town area of DC. While I found out at the tail end, at least I did find out. And there are still concerts this week and next week. I had such a good time at the concert last night, and I ran into Taylor and Chris (from the poetry group—Taylor’s my link, through Baked and Wired, to the poetry thing). There was dancing, there was chatting, there was lying on the grass on a beautiful evening. In other words, the perfect Monday evening in DC. I’m looking forward to the next concert: Thursday.

I’ve been looking at lists of gigs coming up, too—there are some good musicians coming through in September, including Juliana Hatfield. I know, I know, I’m probably showing my age or something. (At 28, I don’t care: it’s a great age to show.) I love Juliana Hatfield, unapologetically, and I’m excited that she’ll be playing in the area in a month. When I had to select about 20 CDs to bring with me when I moved over last year, I had to bring one of hers. Sometimes her music is the equivalent of Linus’s blanket.

Speaking of September, for some reason I’ve started to think about my birthday party. In part because it’s now settled that I’m staying in my current apartment. Also, I suspect, because I’ve been having a real return to my music-is-everything mode, and dancing around my apartment I keep thinking about when I’ll have my next party. Answer? Ushering in 29.

Oh, and yes there are a few days left of class. I wonder if I’m guilty of leaving things too implicit sometimes? I had designed this week as something quite loose—time for revising, but also “looking forward/looking back.” Looking back? To the zeitgeist moment of 1990, with the launch of Beverly Hills, 90210. We watched the pilot, and, thinking through why 1990 was suddenly the time to launch what I still think of as the defining teen drama (yes, My So-Called Life is infinitely superior, but it was a cult show, while 90210 somehow was everywhere at the time) I found myself linking it to No Logo, and the sudden moment when youth was not only commodified, but also became such an important consumer-based. Especially thinking through the fact that 90210 was full of actors in their 20s playing 16. I think only two of them were teenagers when it started. Even just thinking through the fact that it was pretty much all adults showing “youth.” But when I make these kinds of connections, I find I can’t necessarily express them.

Today—workshopping towards the final portfolio. I seem to only have two students left standing. (One has vanished.) If the weather stays nice I think I’ll shift us outside. I do like the outside world…