You may recall if you read We Welcome With Joy… that I decided to call (temporarily of course) my new boobs Jane and Marjorie Doe.  It wasn’t lack of imagination on my part. Really. Maybe it was a cautious failure to commit. Or maybe it was that I hadn’t had time to think about it before I spontaneously decided to write that silly blog post in the form of a birth announcement for a pair of silicone breast implants (for crying out loud).

Anyhoo…

About two and a half weeks ago I woke up one Monday with that nasty norovirus that has been felling people like spindly trees. Or at least I had something like that. And for 24 hours I felt like absolute crap. The next morning I felt so much better I decided to go out and buy not one, not two, but four bikinis in preparation for a warm weather trip in my near future.

But then on Wednesday and Thursday and come to think of it Friday and Saturday and gee for quite some time I never really completely bounced back, despite my recent pneumatic enhancements. I had this tired feeling behind my eyes. Didn’t feel rested when I woke up in the morning. I chalked it up to a still-compromised immune system following last year’s treatments and the fact many others I knew were taking a while to recover from said virus or some illness similar thereto (sorry but I used to be a lawyer so I have to throw in some official-sounding lawyer speak from time to time just to feel important).

Finally at the end of last week I started to feel like myself again. Although I did notice that I had something brewing on top of my right eyelid which was both attractive and comfortable. Oh dear, I thought. In response, I hurled into the rubbish this wand of gunk I bought duty free last year to make my eyelashes grow faster — which probably didn’t work anyway — figuring I had kept it too long and contaminated myself. Then I proceeded to self-medicate with ophthalmic erythromycin from the medicine cabinet and to cover the bump with make-up like any self-respecting woman who has a life and things to do would do. It just so happens that I was going to the eye doctor anyhow for a retina check on Tuesday and I figured he could look at the bump and prescribe whatever was necessary at that time.

I got through the weekend fine. Went to dinner on Friday and got home at a reasonable hour. Didn’t drink much. Went out to a school function Saturday and got home later and had a little more to drink but still not that much.

Then Sunday came along. I woke up tired. Nevertheless I went to the gym and had a decent workout. Didn’t feel bad while doing it. But when I came home and the endorphins wore off I took a nosedive. Before I knew what hit me I was ordered to bed by my husband. I didn’t even eat anything after lunch and let me tell you that is unusual.

Monday I felt a little better but not great. Tuesday morning a little better but still not fabulous. I canceled my workouts for both those days.

Then I proceeded to get ready for my eye appointment. And thus began the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I started the day worried about how I was going to have to go on vacation with a nasty bump on my eye. I left the house at 9:30 am in plenty of time to get to my 10:00 am eye appointment at Moorfields Eye Hospital. All I had to do was get on the Northern Line and go a few stops to Old Street and follow the painted line on the sidewalk to the hospital.

But naturally there was a signal failure “in the Bank area” so the train took 15 minutes to even arrive. I sat down on a bench to wait. It was hot so I whipped off my favourite green cashmere hat which I had bought at the Malo outlet in Connecticut about 15 years ago. I was there waiting for so long that my husband who had left the house ten minutes after me showed up and waited with me for a while. His train came first. Then my train finally crawled into the station and once I got on it and the doors closed I realised I had lost my fucking hat. Ah well, I thought. I’ll go back and look for it later.

The train went a stop or two in about six minutes and then when we arrived at Euston it just stopped altogether. For a long time. The conductor said because of the signal failure we wouldn’t be moving “anytime soon” and people who could use an “alternate route” should do so. I disembarked and started the long vertical journey to daylight. Once out of the station it took me five minutes to hail a cab. I was half an hour late to my appointment.

Luckily the ophthalmologist thought my retinas looked fine and dandy but that bugger of a cyst was infected so he prescribed an antibiotic. “It could take a long time to settle,” he warned. He informed me sometimes even after the infection is cleared up the bump will remain for weeks or even months or like, forever at which point he could flip the eyelid over, make an incision and scrape it out. The cyst not the eye. But still. Ew.

After that I went back to the tube, hoping to avoid a similarly unsatisfying journey in the opposite direction. I was a bit grumbly at this point because I wasn’t looking forward to searching for my hat which I kind of knew wouldn’t be there. Big shocker; it wasn’t. Some asshole stole my old, used, green hat. I hope they get the shingles, which I had on my head last year. Unless of course someone who couldn’t afford a hat got it in which case I am glad they now have a warm head and hope they do not get the shingles. I’m not completely heartless, people.

So I exited the tube and walked home, still grumbly but now because I was thinking about the fact that I had to take antibiotics for a week four times a day on an empty stomach which would interfere significantly with my snacking habits. And would likely result in another oral thrush infection which seemed to accompany most courses of antibiotics I’ve been on in the past year. Fun times.

Later that evening, as I was tucking in my eight-year-old, I noticed that Marjorie (a/k/a my right breast) was sore. Come to think of it she’d been rather bitchy for a couple days… and then I noticed she was discoloured. Red, to be precise. Along the bottom and inner side. And then I touched her and she felt hot. Oh shit! I thought. Marjorie has an infection!

I examined her in the mirror for a minute and then I phoned my surgeon on his mobile. He agreed I needed to be seen the next day. Before bed I did the unthinkable. The ultimate no-no. Late-night internet research on my presumed condition. The outlook was grim. In most cases meds don’t work, I read, and they have to remove the implant.

The next day my surgeon examined me and said I needed an ultrasound and to be admitted to the hospital for IV antibiotics. The ultrasound of Marjorie was unimpressive. The doctor found less fluid around her than he expected yet he was able to extrude some and send it to the lab. They haven’t been able to grow anything yet but we’re still waiting to hear if anything pops up.

So here I am sitting in the hospital on my sixth round of IV meds. Marjorie looks better than 24 hours ago. Redness is down, soreness better and no longer hot. I’ll tell you what: she had better simmer down and behave because them four bikinis ain’t gonna look so good with only one boob.

I’m hoping they let me out of the clink tomorrow because I just about went completely mental by myself in the hospital all day. Alone with my thoughts. Alone with my obsessive tendencies. Alone with my impatience.

I did learn one thing, though. I’m committing to a name. Regardless of her fate, Marjorie it is. She has earned it after all this drama. All this classic attention seeking. She has really made a name for herself.