National Doctors Day

March 30 is National Doctors Day which, for obvious reasons, has been a topic at the top of my consciousness.

Let me say this first: I have a great plastic surgeon. All the nurses, referring docs, and hospital staff have told me he's "amazing" and "an artist" and "a miracle worker."  Which are the exact kind of words you want to hear when you've just had half your nose chopped off and are needing someone to build something to fill the hole in the middle of your face.

Plus, he embraces my paranoid crazy and actually ENCOURAGES me to send him texts with pictures and questions in between appointments so I won't get upset and overwrought and worried that some slight change in the flap means what's left of my nose is going to slide off my face.

Which is not to say that I DON'T get upset and overwrought and worried that some slight change in the graft area means what's left of my nose is going to slide off my face...it just means that when I do start freaking out and referring to myself as "Kimbo No Nose" Opie can say things like "Text the doctor, ask HIM, he's the expert."

And, to date, the doctor has always answered within the hour, usually within 10-15 minutes.

Seriously, he's a rock star.

But at the same time, I occasionally feel like he's a little out of touch with the mysterious ball of emotions that is Kimberly.

Like when he decides that it is somehow critically important for me to understand "the nature of the defect we're correcting." and forces me to not only look at the mangled nose but spends horrifying minutes pointing out what's missing and explaining what we're going to add -- completely ignoring the way I was studying the ceiling and wondering aloud if it was going to hurt to vomit or if the leftover anesthesia from the cancer surgery would dull that pain too.

Ok, this is BEFORE the plastic surgery but
even then I'm not exactly a sexy beast! 

But my favorite doctor/patient moment came the day after the surgery when I was sitting in my hospital room, hoping to go home.  My entire face hurt, I had two black eyes, stitch marks the entire width of my forehead and down the side of my face reminiscent of Frankenstein's monster, what looked like a giant finger sewn onto the mess that used to be a nose and I was constantly wiping up uncontrollable globs of bloody snot...and the doctor, very seriously, told me I SHOULDN'T BE HAVING SEX. This was repeated in the written after-care instructions, basically shouted in bold all caps.

I mean, maybe I should be flattered that my raw animal magnetism is so primal and powerful that it transcends physical appearance...or maybe I should be worried that he thinks Opie is some strange, snot-obsessed, zombie-loving pervert.

Or maybe this was just a ploy to distract me from my own troubles...which was actually fairly effective because I have spent a disturbing amount of time wondering if he's issuing this warning based on some prior patient's post-operative problems and imagining all the horrifying things that could have happened.

But the fact is, none of that really matters. What matters is, as I said above, he's supposed to be a genius and he's eventually going to give me my face back.  So I hope he's having a great National Doctors Day and, to help facilitate that, I'm going to hold in all my questions and texts and pictures and let him enjoy the day in peace.

Which could make it a loooonnnngggg day for Opie!