Me, not so much...

Pookey Bear had an absolutely wonderful, stupendous day yesterday!

Me, not so much.

I woke up at the crack of dawn to head over to a surgical center in Fort Worth, where I was taking my sister to have her gallbladder removed. This brought back a flood of unhappy memories from my gallbladder surgery 20 years ago: suffering the agony of repeated attacks, writhing in pain in the hospital bed while they waited for my lab numbers to get decent enough to operate, enduring life-threatening complications after a botched surgery--and, to add insult to injury, sticking rigidly to the recommended diet afterwards, only to pack on 45 pounds in one year.

Not a happy time!

Fortunately my sister was in good health to start with, and--as the doctor predicted--her surgery went great.

So great, in fact, that within twenty minutes of being wheeled into recovery, she was standing up and drinking a Coke!

When the young doctor bounced in with photos of her innards, he spent a great deal of time waxing eloquent about what incredible shape she was in, how absolutely remarkable that a woman her age had such a youthful body, that he had called over other doctors and nurses to share in his amazement, and that they had all insisted upon seeing her chart, to verify that she was in fact not a twenty-year-old, which her lithe, athletic frame seemed to declare.

I stood silently by, trying to blend my pasty, wrinkled, XXXL frame into the wallpaper, hoping I would escape the scrutiny of the flat-bellied medical team.

But no! One of the nurses turned to me with my sister's bag of belongings, and said,

'Here, Mom, why don't you hold onto these while your daughter gets dressed.'

Mom?!?

Given her age, that would put me in my seventies!

Needless to say, this facility will not be receiving a donation from me during this year's fund-raising drive!