Hi. Not to hype myself up with superlatives or anything, but I’m the worst. I slay myself with my faults and foibles. I have a friend whose face has an imprint of her hand on it because I make her facepalm every day, practically.

Some of my fumbles are mortifying, but others are panic-inducing, like the one that happened the morning of my surgery.

My surgery was scheduled for 7:30am Monday. I had to be there to check in at 6:45am sharp. Between the scheduling and the actual day there were letters and emails and texts and voicemails and in-person reminders, all very strict and adamant about this! I had to arrive no later than 6:45am!

So what did I do? I woke up at 6:50am when the nurse called to ask me where I was. It was five minutes past my arrival time, and I was at home, in bed.

Turned out that my alarm didn’t go off because when I set it, my finger (must have) accidentally touched the “S” for Saturday. My alarm was set to go off in five days.

My friends, it is not possible to quantify the panic that ensued. My check-in was five minutes ago! I’m taking an Uber to the hospital!! I’m going to miss my surgery!!!

Cue the festivities.

Somehow, I reigned in my hyperventilation enough to check my voicemail, because I knew that the nurse had left one. Of course I had 12 new voicemails to get through first! (Why am I like this?!) When I finally dug through the pile and got to the voicemail from the nurse, my hand was shaking and my brain was in a fog of panic and I didn’t have a pen, so naturally I thought, I can memorize the call-back number! No. I couldn’t. At least I’d saved her message, but in order to hear it again, I had to first listen to my two previously saved messages, which are dear to me and so shall remain saved until the end of time. But they are long. When I finally got to her message again, I had a pen, and I was ready to sprint out the door. I’d gone ahead and ordered my Uber, because my plan was to get to the hospital anyway and sit there in hopes of I didn’t even know what, at that point. It was 7:20am. My surgery was supposed to start in 10 minutes. The Uber, which would usually arrive in 2-7 minutes, was going to arrive in 24 minutes because of the 2022 WM Phoenix Open (golf tournament). Sunday was the final day of the tournament, and Monday morning was tournament attendees (aka everyone and their mother) taking Ubers to the airport, of course.

Ten thousand years later, I was able to call the nurse. She was very sweet, calm, and reassuring in the most wonderful motherly way. She said, “It’s alright, don’t panic, everything is fine, just come in as soon as possible.” I was practically in tears. I got to the hospital in jammies with bedhead and unbrushed teeth – fortunately, I was masked – and this, my friends, is me in a nutshell. A veritable mess. If you know me in person and you think I’ve got my shit together, trust me, it’s a facade. Looks are deceiving. Internally, it’s Armageddon, and it is not pretty.

At the hospital at last, forms were signed. There was no wait. The nurses, anesthesiologist, and surgeon were all friendly, relaxed, in good humor. No one was mad at me! It was astonishing, like I’d walked into a Twilight Zone of kindness. I apologized to everyone, and they all good-naturedly brushed it off. I was in shock because when I woke up to the phone ringing, it was like I’d missed a flight, in my mind. I’d missed my flight and the plane was not coming back for me. But the plane was there, the doors were open, and everyone was super nice. They all had a right to be supremely annoyed, but they weren’t… at least, if they were, they didn’t show it.

I’m so grateful every day. The Universe shows me in blunt ways how very grateful I should be, because the more I f*ck up, the more I realize how lucky I am, and I f*ck up a lot.

I’m grateful that the team took me for the surgery, and I’m grateful that it went well. (It was a simple, common procedure for trigger thumb with cyst removal.) I can now look forward to regaining full use of my hand, as the pain in the heel of my hand had cut my capacity by about 50%. I’m grateful for my friend who picked me up from the hospital.

I stayed home from work for the required 48 hours, and I went back in today.

After work, I took a short walk to the Tempe Town Lake bridge that’s behind the Center for the Arts. There was a beautiful ballerina in a single-shoulder pink leotard modeling action shots in a professional photoshoot, leaping and fluttering and displaying impossible feats of flexibility in her pointe shoes on her toes in the middle of the bridge. The bridge trembles slightly when we ordinary people walk across it; when the ballerina leaped and landed, the bridge was still.

I came home and sat down here to take a selfie, because.

I hope this finds you doing well, or better, or whatever kind of positive state applies. Until the next time, my friends!