Holey Moley

Maggie and I have both received texts and emails asking about Holey Grail/Moley. I realize now that subject may be a bit cryptic for some of you. It is an every day thing for me and second nature now. I decided this was the easiest way to get the information out all at once. If you are squeamish, please tread carefully.

In April, we visited St Augustine for the 23rd annual Thompson girl cousins weekend. Shout out to Grandma Nona B who lived to be 100 years and 50 weeks. I was looking at the pictures during the week and I noticed something strange. I know I have belly rolls, that’s no secret. But I saw a little sumethin’ sumethin’ extra on my side.

Over the course of the next week the lump in my stomach abscessed and I had fever, chills, the whole nine! Finally, I got in to see my doctor and was in surgery shortly thereafter.

I thought it was going to be microscopic draining. But nope, full on incision. The surgeon took out a baseball size mass. The plan was to let the “hole” heal from the inside out. Therefore, we had to unpack, clean, and repack the wound every day. Thank you Joni for visiting me every day to do that task for the first week. Then I went to Florida and was on my own. Don’t worry I survived, but there was a lot of time spent cleaning up the biohazard mess.

Things were going well and the hole (named Holy Grail at that time) was getting smaller on the outside….But, if you know and love me, things are never easy with me.

I had breast cancer 22 years ago and part of that surgery was to harvest my abdominal muscles to build new breasts. (Trading six pack abs for two mountain dews!) At that time, the doctors inserted mesh to hold everything else in place. Well, evidently that mesh only had a 20-year warranty. And now we’re on year 22.

First, the hole can’t heal organically because nothing can grow over the mesh. AND the mesh is breaking away and is poking into the small intestine. Those holes are causing most of the leaking that I have to deal with. The whole process is entirely disgusting, but I am used to it now and will just carry on until we can fix it. I just have to keep it clean and dry, and stay out of rivers, oceans, hot tubs, and other germ filled bodies of water; which is hard for a water lover like me.

So now, Holey Moley (new name) is doing fine, but is very active because he is not happy with the constant movement of Odyssey 2.0. That’s okay. That just means a few more pit stops during the day to change gauze and bandages. Not to worry, people deal daily with worse problems in their lives.

I just have to finish vacation and then will have another surgery to fix it once and for all. The remedy is to pull out all of the old mesh and replace it with something new, and to close the hole. That happens two days after we get home.

Bottom line: I’m not letting life get in the way of LIFE. I'm enjoying every day to the max, warts and all.