Priorities

As some of you now know, I have been helping Jill write some of the more recent blog posts. I do this mainly out of a sense of guilt, I think. Since returning home from my mission some six years ago I have taken the liberty to write in my journal a total of zero times. In my defense, not much has happened in the last six years to deserve literary immortilization: engagement, marriage, graduation, career, two children. There was that one time when my team won the BYU flag football intramural championship (Div 3, but whatever). I guess that deserved a nod.

Perhaps my faith is not sufficient to spur me into penning the family history, or between writing emails for work and attempting a novel I have little literary drive left at the end of the day. More than likely, however, the absence of a personal journal is probably due to my egotistical need for immediacy. To put time and effort into something and keep that creation on my night stand only to have it be discovered 80 years from now by some inquisitive progeny, doesn't exactly give me the tingles. So please humor me now, as I continue my effort to remediate past personal family history omissions.

An event occurred a few weeks back that forced me to ponder this need to keep a better personal family history. About two months ago I noticed a small pea-sized lump on my leg behind my right knee. In its infancy, I believed this lump to be some kind of ingrown hair. With more than a decade of experience dealing with acne, I originally considered doing a little self-surgery (I had seen a mission companion "successfully" deal with a similar situation via frozen burrito and safety pin, although I won't get into that now). In the end, however, I shelved my exacto knife and bag of frozen peas, fearing my wife's response if the operation were to run into complications.

"Hey Jilly!"

"Yea Baby?"

"Can you come in here?"

"What's up?"

"You know what, never mind. Just go start the car."

"What? What's going on?"

"The darndest thing happened. You know that lump on my leg?"

"No"

"Well, I have this lump on my leg. And I thought that since an exacto knife was a lot like a scalpel...."

I think you get the point. So I did the sensible thing and made an appointment with the doctor. In the end the doc said that the lump was too big and too deep to do in the office and that I would have to come back to get put under. Put under?! I didn't even get put under when they ripped my wisdom teeth out of my mandible with a refashioned medieval torture device. This is ill-behaved hair!

I have to admit, however, that after accepting the fact that my 26 year streak of no stitches and no hospitals had come to an end, I was actually kind of excited. I'd get to wear one of those liberatingly drafty hospital gowns and finally get the opportunity to be morally exempt from getting to sample some pretty gnarly drugs. As I walked into the hospital my only fear was the off-chance that I would be put up next to some guy who was getting his spine replaced and having to admit that I was there to get a pea sized hair follicle removed.

Well, all went as imagined (except for the spine guy) and, after shaving away a large patch of my precious leg hair, I was wheeled off to the OR. The last thing I heard before magically passing out was the doctors’ strategy to "frogleg" me instead of turn me over onto my side. Whatever that meant I'm glad I was unconscious when they did it to me.

The whole operation apparently took one second. When I opened my eyes I reflexively reached down and found a large patch over the former resting place of my little leg lump. Although remarkably clearheaded, I still stupidly asked the nurse if the operation was over.

"No, we routinely put patients out so we can place a large bandage over the operating area."

Looking back I should have yelled, "It’s the wrong leg!", but I regrettably didn't. Sitting there I calmly glanced around the room and immediately thought of my brother-in-laws, who are known to say some pretty ridiculous stuff while coming out of anesthesia.

Looking up at the nurse I took inventory of my lucidity and found myself to be quite sane. I remember sitting there thinking "I am in complete control of what I think and what I say. My brother-in-laws were weak where I am strong (although Kevin is self-purportedly both fast and strong)." I would succeed where they had failed and maintain my dignity while shaking the effects of the wonderfully calming and relaxing drugs.

In truth, I was in complete control of what I was thinking and what I was saying. The drugs did, however, manage to remove the very thin veil of what remains of my self-inhibition. This was most conspicuously demonstrated in my brief conversation with the nurse.

"How are you feeling?"

"Pretty good."

She gives me some instructions about caring for the wound. "Now you need to make sure to avoid all vigorous activity for the next 48 hours."

I pause, then respond with complete sincerity. "Can I still have sex with my wife?"

She laughs then notes she'll have to tell Jill that when she shows up.

I respond. "Well, you said 'vigorous' so I guess that would depend on the quality of the sex."

Jill and the kids showed up and the nurse whispered to Jill what I had said. Jill was so embarrassed that she didn't remember any of the instructions on how to care for her poor, intimacy concerned, convalescing husband. In retrospect, I learned that when one is forced to confront their own mortality they often reflect on those things they hold most valuable. I also found that drugs help us verbalize these reflections. For an 18 year old Kevin Myers, the fact that he was "fast" and "strong" probably was one of the more important things of his mortality. I'm just glad I got my priorities straight.