Girly-girl stuff

So yes, the wedding is now over. The scenery photos above and below are the views from the 36th floor of the Marriott overlooking the Financial District (above) and the World Financial Center & Jersey City (bottom). If you want to see other photos from the wedding itself, you can check out this album.

I am going to refrain from bitching (once again) about standing on the Brooklyn Bridge for a photo shoot in our dresses in February (okay, so I lied -- that counts, I know) but I will say that makeup artist Laura Nadeau and the hairstylist, Jennie (sorry, don't know her last name) have really made me reconsider the whole "natural look" thing.

There is, after all, a certain motivation in seeing your sweetheart with a "whoa...wow" look on their face when they see you for the first time (after 4 hours of professional hair & makeup), but damn, those eyelash curlers are scary! The trade off for watching a large contraption approaching your eyeball is having people (women -- men don't really care, I suspect) ask, "Oh, did you get false eyelashes too?" Why no, these are actually my very own lashes slathered with mascara, thanks.

Also scary is looking at my boob. On Monday, I went back to for another needle aspiration. Apparently the swelling from the hematoma was problematic enough that it was popping some of my stitches, so the doctor decided it was time to open the incision area back up.

You know when you inflate an air mattress or travel pillow and you have to deflate them afterward? When you squeeze, flatten, and press on it to expel the air? Or when you're trying to squeeze out the last bits of toothpaste from the tube? Yeah, like THAT, except with my boob. Once again, I became intensely fascinated with the ceiling tile since I certainly didn't want to watch the doctor and nurse squish out the various blood clots from my body. Yech!

They decided to leave the skin around the incision area open to help with the drainage, instead of closing it again with Steri-Strips and sent me home with a huge box of gauze pads. (The box of Jacques Torres chocolates if from my sweetie's best friend, who's really a good egg.) Presumably the internal stitches are now happier, but the outside skin area freaks me out every time I look at it (so yes, I try not to look at it ever -- except when I'm rinsing the area [oh-so-carefully] every day in the shower).

Imagine a 2-inch line of skin (a little wider than the opening of the coin pocket in a pair of blue jeans), cut open to show you the INSIDE of your body. Unlike some folks who watch medical shows on TLC, I never EVER want to see the inside of the human body, especially when it's my own! I have to admit looking at it makes me want to cry, and the first time I saw it, when the nurse showed it to me before I got dressed again on Monday, I did shriek.

The lack of progress on this incision has extended my short-term disability leave for another 2 weeks, so the earliest return to work date is now Thursday, March 5th. (It is true that the idea of having a commuter on the subway jostle me makes cringe in terror.) So I will indeed be breaking the 4-week barrier at which point my pay drops from 80% to 50%. (Ouch!)

And you can bet my mom was yelling at me for my lack of inertia (i.e., too much rushing around = too little healing) to which I responded that my various commitments are now over and I am devoting myself fully to the duties of a couch potato, which may heal my body but will rot my brain -- have you SEEN what daytime TV is like these days?!

At least the other incision over the lymph nodes (think: left underarm) is healing well. The nerves that radiate from that area (to left upper arm, and left pectoral area) are cranky however, so my meds are divided between iboprofen during the daytime, and Darvocet at night.

Okay, time to go fold laundry.