One Good Thing

Today, my One Good Thing is having to get rid of this lovely holiday manicure. 

Sounds strange, I know – but hear me out. 

For quite a while, I’ve dealt with a chronic condition that affects my breathing. When I ignore it long enough, it really becomes a problem and exercise gets harder as I don’t have enough “wind” to really exert myself. Ignore it longer than that, and I start having to pause on the landing on a flight of stairs and I gasp for breath. The next symptom is a frequent dry cough that sounds a disturbing amount like the barking of the sea lions at Pier 39 in San Francisco – and no, I haven’t noticed any extra skill in balancing a ball on my nose. Fortunately, modern medical science can fix the problem in a short outpatient surgical procedure. (However, since the problem involves scar tissue in my windpipe, and scar tissue grows back, this is a fix, but not a cure.)

I had taken the necessary steps to address this and had surgery scheduled for mid-January, but my doctor made it clear that, while I wasn’t in danger, if I was contacted about moving the date up due to a cancellation, I was to take that option.  

Lo and behold, I’m having this taken care of on Thursday. As in “in 48 hours, I’ll be recovering at home with soup and ice cream.”

Clearly, this has meant a LOT of extra running around to make everything work – I had to grab two days off of work (and I just passed my probationary period, so whew! God surely looks out for children, fools, and Divas who are just trying their best), as did my Beloved, who also made the necessary hotel reservation for tomorrow night. I’ve scurried around to get a variety of work projects to reasonable conclusions, and oh – so much holiday frivolity is being reorganized! And I need to have clean nails – one way surgical staff monitors your oxygen levels is by quick-checking your nail beds when you’re under anesthesia and they can’t do that if my nails are covered up in OPI Big Apple Red with a cute accent bow on the ring finger. So at lunch tomorrow, I’ll get this bit of lovely taken off. 

And that’s okay. 

In fact, it’s a Good Thing.