Sophie seems a bit tweeked tonight

Today's good news/bad news about my cancer.

Good News: I gained a few pounds. I'm up to 205

Bad News: I have to shave my belly

After I left the hospital last, I still had open wounds from my surgery and they were bandaged. The bandages had to be changed on a daily basis until the wounds no longer needed to be packed with gauze. I had a nurse come and take care of this situation for the last month or so. The bandages were stretched across my belly and secured with tape. Let me fill you in on some information about tape that you may not be aware of. There seems to be two choices in medical tape. You can either have tape that holds the bandages on by adhering with super strength and winds up peeling off sections of your skin when you remove it. Or you can have tape that is gentle on the epidermis, but often falls off while you're sleeping, or walking, or sitting, or breathing. The last time I was on chemo, I lost some of my body hair. Not all of it, and not uniformly, but still there was some thinning. One of the places that saw a little less foliage was on my belly. Today I visited my surgeon and he said the wounds were healing well. I no longer need to have a nurse change the bandages, I can do it myself. I also don't need the bandaging to be as expansive, stretching two bandages across my gut and taping them down, I can go with simple 4x4s over the two remaining sites.

So how does this all tie together? Well, since you've decided to take the long road with me, I'll bring it all home now. When my belly hair was sparse, and the bandages wrapped around to my sides, the tape wasn't that difficult to adhere or remove. But now the hair has filled back in, and it's decided to sprout thickest right around the sites of the wounds. In a proactive attempt to mitigate the pain involved with bandage removal I'm going to shave. Nobody tells you this when you first get cancer. The doctors don't tell you. The support groups don't tell you. The books don't tell you. I'm going to put together a little class on all the stupid stuff people have to go through with cancer. Dave can help teach.

Oh, and on another good note, I'm going to Amsterdam on Friday!!!! One last big bash before the new round of chemo. That's life baby.