Back to Grim Reality

The Outer Banks of North Carolina are simply fabulous. A clean white sand beach that stretched north and south as far as the eye could see and a gentle surf, not too calm and not too rough. It was heaven on earth.

Actually, the whole vacation was pretty damned good. It was even an extra day long. I was originally supposed to drive to my brother’s house in New Jersey, stay overnight there on Thursday 6/15. He, his wife Jane, and I would then drive most of the way down to North Carolina Friday and stop off in a motel for the night. This would mean that we could hit the beach for a few hours on Saturday before we were allowed into the rental house at 4 p.m.

Instead, we got the word that we could have the house a day early, on Friday. So, we hit the road at 8:30 a.m. Friday with an incredibly packed car and drove straight through. Most of the car was full of food and supplies for the week. I brought coffee, boxed milk, sugar, and the makings for a large amount of baked ziti. Mike and Jane brought enormous amounts of paper products, several bottles of wine and liquor, and the makings of a really neat sausage and pasta dinner.

On the way, we touched base by phone with my brother Gerald (the official patriarch of the family) and his wife Helen, who were driving down together, and my nephew Paul (Gerald’s younger son), who was driving down with his kids, Matthew, Patrick, and Meaghan.

We got to the house around 4:30. I had never been to the Outer Banks before and was expecting the houses to be farther apart. Instead, these large, nice looking houses were about 10 feet apart. Our house was the third in from the beach, which meant an enormous walk of 100 yards to the beach.

The house was huge, at least 3000 square feet. Four bedrooms that slept two, one that slept four in bunk beds, and a daybed on the ground floor, where the ping-pong table was. I got the daybed because I was the only singleton in the group and because I signed onto this jaunt late. The fully stocked kitchen was on the top floor, with most of the bedrooms on the second floor. This made for a lot of stair climbing each day. There was a pool out back and a hot tub on the front deck, and three levels of deck.

The rest of the contingent arrived at midnight. My sister Sue and her husband Rob had flown out from Arizona to my nephew Mark’s house in Durham. From there, they drove to the Outer Banks with Mark and his wife Kim and their two daughters, Zoë and Talia.

Ten adults, five children under age 10, with one just under a year old. We had a blast. We annoyed each other occasionally, but had no arguments. This is hardly believable to most people. Then again, I don’t believe it either.

Each night, someone was in charge of putting together a dinner. We ate like royalty and the last night, we ate leftovers. Wednesday, Mark arranged a tasting of red wines, which was interesting. Paul made Bloody Marys most afternoons, and much beer was imbibed all week long. I made Margaritas a couple of times. Most nights at dinner, my brother Mike threw out a topic of conversation, such as having everyone name his or her favorite movies or books.

Most days, we all played it loose and did what we wanted to. I usually hit the beach around 11 and stayed until 3 or 4. Mark had set up a screen tent on the beach to keep the sun off his incredibly pale children. It was a very civilized beach. We had cold beers in a cooler.

On Tuesday, I had a personal red letter day. For the first time since the surgery, I did not have a single bandage on any part of my body.

Every day except one, I walked for an hour on the beach. Either I listened to a book on my MP3 player, or I walked with Jane and we talked.

Saturday afternoon, I saw a pod of dolphins. Like I said, it was a perfect vacation.

Vacation, Here I Come!

I have been back to work at the bookstore since Sunday and have worked all of three days. This means it is time to go on a vacation. I am heading to North Carolina for fun and family reunion. Fourteen of my closest relatives and me. It should be a hoot.

Returning to work has not been too bad, except on my feet. Working in a bookstore is horrendously hard on your dogs. I have walked as much as 4.5 miles in an eight-hour shift, usually while carrying large piles of books.

I was touched and pleased that several customers came up to me to say that they had missed me and to ask how I was doing. The other staffers also said they missed me.

But I am going on vacation anyway.

I saw Dr. Schwartz again on Monday. He says my incision is healed and that the belly button is doing well.

I think I should stay out of his office for a while. I was sitting in the exam room waiting for him and I started doing that thing where you put your hands along the side of your face and pull back to see if you need a face lift. I am starting to get some vanity and I am not sure I like it.

Back to the Real World

I have been attempting to get things done around the house before I go back to work (tomorrow) and on vacation (next Friday).

I have finally gotten around to completing a professional website for myself. It is at http://www.nasw.org/users/vdebenedette. This is the website that will, I am hoping, increase the number and profitability of my writing assignments.

I am continuing to heal and feel almost fine. I still have a bit of soreness around the incision. My belly button is totally numb. I still have to wear a bandage on that since it is oozing just a bit.

I am continuing to walk. I did 2.5 miles on Thursday, in between rainstorms. I am hoping to get out today and walk, since it is nice and cool, but it is clouding up again as I am typing. I can start doing sit-ups tomorrow, according to Dr. Caputo.

Since I feel that I have been through a lot this year, I decided to treat myself and bought an MP3 player. I got a Sandisk Sansa e150, which has 2 gigabytes, an FM tuner, a voice recorder, and can display a couple of photos. The display screen is tiny, so I won’t be uploading photos and I don’t care about the voice recorder, but I like the memory size and the FM capability. It uses one AAA battery, which means no having to recharge it or throw it away when the rechargeable battery dies.

As with anything electronic, the minute you buy a device, you hear about a much better model. There is now an MP3 player that is also a portable satellite radio player. Oh well. Next time.

Everyone has commented on how thin I look. I have lost about 15 pounds or so, with about 10 of that coming off during the surgery. Now that my stomach is really flat, however, my upper abdomen looks really fat. There is just no pleasing me.

Whole, With No Hole

The hole where my belly button was has closed up. I am whole and holeless. It sort of looks like a navel again, although it is a petite little thing. It is maybe only about a half inch across. Dr. Schwartz said it would look like a navel, and by gum, it does. Not that I am about to have it pierced or anything. I might contemplate it, however.

I saw Dr. Caputo on Wednesday and he gave me a complete check-up. He said everything is healing nicely. After the exam, he told me that he had decided against vaginal cuff radiation. I see him again in two months for a follow-up Pap smear and after that, I will just have regular check-ups. Hooray.

However, while I was in his office, a miracle occurred. I got Dr. Caputo to laugh. He is a very serious man and frequently when I have cracked jokes he just sort of stared at me. But after he told me that I would not have to have the vaginal cuff radiation, in which a small radiation-emitting thingy is placed into my vagina near to where the cervix was (hence the term “cuff”), I got him. I told him that a friend of mine has referred to this as “radioactive sex.” He laughed.

My main incision, across from one hipbone to the other is almost completely healed, but there is about three inches that are still open and need to bandaged daily. The open area is starting to close up rapidly now.

And the rest of Wednesday was just wonderful, too. Before I saw Dr. Caputo, I ate lunch with Judy Chervenak. I was supposed to eat with both Judy and her husband, Frank, but I got stuck in traffic right by Yankee Stadium and ended up missing Frank, who had to fly to Boston. So, Judy and I ate at a wonderful Spanish restaurant named Malaga. Judy recommended the shrimp and it was wonderful, with enough garlic to knock a horse over. I had this fear that poor Dr. Caputo was going to be flattened by my breath, but then Judy was running off to a dentist’s appointment, which was probably worse.

After Dr. Caputo, I drove down to the Empire State Building and picked up Joan, since we were both going to Tarrytown to see our friend Lanning Taliaferro play in her steel band. Lanning, who is education editor for the Journal-News, plays in a Caribbean steel band called Steel Passion. You have to know Lanning to see why this is so funny, since she is incredibly pale skinned. But then again, so is the majority of the band. She never played a steel pan before last year, but now she is playing the rhythm guitar part in the band, hammering away on three pans.

The band was great and they were playing at the Washington Irving Boat Club, right on the Hudson and in the shadow of the Tappan Zee Bridge. There was a cool breeze off the river and Joan and I ate sausage and pepper heroes and I had a beer. The perfect end to the perfect day.

The other good news of the day is that Dr. Caputo said that I can go swimming again. He says that I can start doing sit-ups on June 11, which is the same day I go back to work.

He also said that I can have sex again. Now I just have to find a man I like. Hey, things are starting to go my way, so maybe I will.