I can't feel my toes. I don't have any toes! I think I need a hug.

I want to have several titles for this post. I need options.

I chose this quote from Shrek because I kept thinking about it this week. My other top choice(from A Cinderella Story):
"You don't look upset."
"Oh it's the Botox. I won't be able to show emotion for another hour."

It's been a week, so I guess it is time for some funny surgery stories. Perhaps telling them will make the whole experience funnier.

I went in for surgery last Wednesday. The surgery actually took place in the dermatologists office. Let me describe it for you, in case you have never been. Dermatology practices are the most luxurious doctor's offices imaginable. Mine is a sprawling two-story building, with a rounded staircase and a water feature in the lobby. But when you walk into the waiting room, it is filled with old people. Allow me to be a little more specific, lest you think I am age-ist. I am not talking the 50-60 year old crowd, I mean the 90+ year old crowd. The kind of people that you look at and wonder "why bother having it removed?"

Given the clientele, it is understandable that the nurses and doctors I see always comment on my age. This time was no exception. The doctor walked in, "Well, you are my youngest patient today! As I'm sure you could tell by the waiting room." She hastened to reassure me, "Not my youngest patient ever, just my youngest today." So I took the bait and asked, "How old was your youngest ever." "18." And then we said at the same time "Tanning beds." So she told me all about their "Pasty by choice" campaign.

When I went to get my stitches out, I got to see one of the posters for this "Pasty by choice" campaign. I agree with the idea, and support any type of skin cancer awareness. But, of course, the model on the poster was an absolutely gorgeous blonde girl with perfect porcelain skin. It didn't make me feel any better about my flawed skin. Not only is it not tan, but it's just not pretty.

But back to the surgery, it was an outpatient thing, and I was fully awake the entire time. Perhaps you know how creepy that is. In order to keep me calm and distracted, the doctor and nurse kept chatting the entire time.

Before they started stitching me up, the doctor had to trim a little of my hair. She said it was no big deal, but my hairdresser would accuse me of being a five year old, and still cutting my own hair. But, there's no way I'm letting anyone get near my head for the next several months. So it probably won't even be noticeable.

As they were stitching me up, the nurse commented, "Oh could you give her a widow's peak?" So I said, "Actually I wanted a lightening bolt scar." The doctor chuckled and said, "I never read Harry Potter."

The cancer was deeper than they thought it would be, so the surgery actually took more out. The scar is quite long, and after they finished sewing, I said, "It's really pulling, how long will it pull like that?" The doctor said 3-4 days, because they basically gave me a mini-face-lift. According to her, "You'll look two weeks younger!"

Let us simply skip past the parts of laying on my bed in pain (because the couch is too uncomfortable for good laying), and the sickness, and the changing the bandage, and canceling classes. Those parts are not funny.

I returned to work on Monday. First, I chatted with the fam on Sunday night. It becomes more and more apparent to me, at times like this, how much my family are storytellers. We all accuse my mom of being an outrageous storyteller (and foolishly, at times, in our younger years, we accused her of lieing in these stories), but we are all storytellers. So as the phone got passed around, they all began to ask, "What are you going to tell your students?" I had to cut off the tales they wanted to suggest, because it hurt too much to laugh (see the above quote on Botox). But finally one suggested that I have the students tell stories about what happened to me.

So I did.

Here are the funniest:

On Wednesday, Emily went to the doctor. As she was walking into the doctor's office, she saw an old man feeding the birds. She thought this was filthy, so she decided to shoo the birds away, and said some not very nice things to the old man. Upon seeing the old man so meanly treated, the birds formed an attack. They chased Emily all the way into the building, pecking at her head.

Thursday morning, Emily got up and decided to go running outside, because it was a nice day. As she was running, she heard someone coming up behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw a man dressed all in black. She got a little freaked out. So she ran a little faster. The man in black sped up too, closing the gap between them. As Emily kept looking over her shoulder to avoid the man, she ran straight into a tree.

Emily finished her classes Wednesday night, and decided it was time for some fun. So she called up a friend, and they decided to go to a party down at UMKC. Emily dressed up as a bunny, and her friend dressed up as a magician. After a while, they decided the party was lame. So they decided to go parachuting. They jumped from the plane, aiming to land in what they thought was an empty field. But it turned out to be the KC zoo. Emily landed right in the lion's cage. The lions moved toward her, ready to attack, but Emily made quick work of them with her kung foo skills. Only one got close enough to give her a single cut across her head.

Emily was leaving work in a hurry Wednesday evening. She grabbed her things, locked the door, and headed down the hallway, absorbed in checking her belongings to make sure she didn't forget anything. As she rounded the corner, she ran smack into a man, colliding heads. Emily fell to the ground, unconcious. She awoke later in the hospital, and seeing a handsome man sitting beside her asked, "Who are you?" "I'm the man you ran into," he responded. "Please, can I sit with you until you are better?" And that is how Emily met the man of her dreams. [My comment: That is a pretty short dude if he can hit heads with me!]

There was another really clever one about ninjas and pirates and kung foo, but it was involved. What I remember is that I was kidnapped by ninjas, married to their king, became super rich, then was attacked by pirates and returned home, but am still super rich.

The end. The best part of letting my students make up the stories is that they got really involved and engaged in their stories.