I have survived. All systems heading in the right direction. Two weeks till launch and counting down.

B.

I looked around the house and assembled my stuff for my visit to the Austin dermatology practice that houses my dermatologist. I took with me a book to read. It's a poem of freeform poems by one of my favorite writers, K.B. Dixon. The book is called, "The Dogs of Doggerel: Irregular Poems." I am halfway through the book and I can't put it down. It's fun, insightful, opinionated and pretty much everything I like about reading books. In fact, since traffic in Austin is so unpredictably bad I found myself about 20 minutes early for my appointment to have a bright and talented woman stick a knife in my back. No problem as I had K.B.'s book in hand. I found a nice easy chair, declined the offer of a fresh coffee and settled back to read and giggle. Yes, I drove myself to the appointment...

I found myself actually disappointed when my favorite nurse came to retrieve me about ten minutes early for my scheduled appointment. With a sigh I stuck a bookmark between the pages, hoisted my small camera bag filled with errata and meekly followed the nurse down the hall to room #1. Maybe, I thought, they'll leave me in this procedural room for a long time and I'll be able to get some uninterrupted reading done, but luck was against me and everything happened so quickly.

Not to worry Mr. Dixon, I picked up where I left off when I got back home and found a comfortable chair as a cup of espresso. It's a great book.

The main event today was the surgical removal of a nasty and ambitious spot on my back. On my left shoulder blade, to be specific. Nurse Kaylie had me squiggle a signature on a form on her iPad which basically said that no matter what unfortunate things might happen to me the practice would practice a cheerful and nonchalant attitude of innocence and life would go on one way or another. 

Minutes later I was face down on an operating table making small talk to my young nurse while she jabbed a series of injections all around the site to be excised. "Does anything hurt?" She asked. Yes, I can feel every jab. Well until the first round took effect, deadened the area, and then all I felt was pressure on my skin. Once she finished jabbing me into painlessness she smiled and went off to find my doctor. Time for the excitement to begin. 

Dr. S. got right to work. She did a play-by-play as she worked. But she toned it down so I didn't freak out. Twenty-one stitches later and about twenty minutes later she announced that we were done with the scary work and asked if I'd like to see the stitches before nurse Kaylie applied the pressure bandage that I'd need for 24 hours. I demurred and they finished up the patching work. I got the instructions about post surgical care of the site, paid my whopping $40 co-pay, and headed back out to the car where my phone was blowing up with texts from swimmer friends, photography friends and family wanting to know how everything went. 

I drove home and was able to get off Mopac Expressway before the worst of rush hour ( which runs from 12:01 am through 11:59 pm nearly every day. I got lucky today. Straight shot, no stoppages. 

Now comes the fun part; fourteen days of sloth, laziness and lack of good exercise. Sure, I can go for walks as long as I take it easy. Seems getting the blood pressure up might open up cauterized blood vessels or, an inadvertent muscle flex (picking up a camera with that Leica 24-90mm on it) might pop a stitch. And I guess Dr. S. is totally aware that a useful swim practice is going to require a couple hundred long arm and shoulder movements - per practice. The swimming shut down was non-negotiable. 

It's now about nine o'clock in the evening and I'm still not feeling any real pain from the wound on my shoulder. Which is kind of amazing since the injections of numbing agents happened a little after one o'clock in the afternoon. Either that's so long acting anesthetic or I'm just being oblivious to the discomfort. 

Take away from today? If I get reincarnated as a swimmer I'm going to literally bath daily in sunscreen from the first time I step out into sunlight. But hopefully, in this imaginary future, all skin cancers will be taken care of with one pill that has absolutely no side effects. .. Sure, it could happen. But then again I might come back as a camel in the middle of a desert and never swim again. It could happen. 

All this stuff aside let's talk about the photos. I chose random photos of beautiful people. Just for fun. To remind myself that photography is supposed to be fun. 

Tomorrow I thought I'd reacquaint myself with the Sigma fp and the tiny Voigtlander 40mm f1.4. It's a fun little lens and the fp is about as eccentric/niche as they come. I'll lean on people's sympathy to convince them to pose for me. It could work. At least it might work if I try it....

Not real sutures. Believe me, now I can tell the difference. 

shades of Dr. Suess.

We humans are a frail bunch but since we only get one shot and it's all over too quickly it's important to make the best of the time we have. Shoot more. Walk more. Share more. Ask more. Give more. And wear that sunscreen....and a hat.

Thanks for all the nice feedback. 

(if only I had followed my time restricted eating diet and also eaten more kale.... Aw, the heck with that. I'll depend on early detection and talented healthcare specialists. It is the 21st century, after all). 

Go get K. B. Dixon's book. It's fun enough to distract even a highly sensitive 70 year old from the aches and pains. 

Here lies the book  

And by the way. I didn't cry, throw up or faint. I felt like that was pretty brave....