I woke up earlier than normal, and I took a shower and put on clean clothes. I pulled my hair back in a ponytail so the doctor could get at the sutures in my ear, and I did it without getting the Sciunci tie tangled up in my fingers.
I reached the doctor’s with 20 minutes to spare, so I answered a few work e-mails from the parking lot. One of them was about asking for an extension on a government mandated project that an affiliated company was already asking for an extension on. I forwarded it off to my team and my management with my opinion: Replanning now would take energy away from the system-testing we are beginning today. “Stay the course,” I mentored. (Manager is 20+ years younger than I.)
In the doctor’s office, I didn’t even cry as the PA struggled with sutures that the graft had begun to close around. No sign of the Physician.
Out of the doctor’s and back home and online a full hour before I had promised my team I would be. Esperanza had already cleaned my office and was working on the bathroom, but I didn’t have to go. Noted the two-hour “forced-go” window my urologist had suggested and vowed to pay attention. Joined a conference call just as my name was called (“Oh, Bill’s/Jill’s here now!”), and provided a status update. Didn’t mention the request for an extension.
Contributed admirably to conference calls the rest of the afternoon, then Zoomed with my Counselor for 45 minutes. Then I carried the cat box to the trashcan through the side yard and didn’t gawk at the neighbor in her pajama-shorts and tank top/in his beltless jeans and loco tat down his shirtless spine, and his abs…and didn’t spill a grain of litter and didn’t choke at the smell. Came inside and washed my hands, then looked in the mirror.
My hair was still in this morning’s ponytail! And I hadn’t chewed any hair in my ham-and-cheese-on-wheat all day!
I‘ve got this!
The Billy Pulpit 