tea

When I described the surgery to my daughter she said "So they're going to slice you up like prosciutto?"

Yes, exactly.

Except I was awake throughout and ham is normally, you know, dead.

Have you ever had surgery served up in courses, with intermissions in which you sit around with an open wound, waiting for the lab to say if the entire tumour has been removed? And if it hasn't, you get to go back under the knife, again, then wait for the lab results, again, repeat? For hours, and hours, and hours?

No?

I was in a speciality clinic recently and the doctor tapped his pen on a piece of paper. My blood work showed significant problems with my liver.

He said "Either you are drinking yourself to death, or you have hepatitis."

I blinked. "Um, well, I don't drink, so I guess we can go with the other hypothesis. Or wait, maybe I had it? No. Yes. Definitely. I remember, I picked it up in the hospital in the middle of the cancer years."

The doctor started taking notes. "Which kind? A, B, or C?"

"Dunno."