FUNNYACCENT

A Girl Got To Do What a Girl Got To Do

I had a shower last night before I went to bed. I carefully placed water resistant gauze pad over the taped incision. After the shower I placed a thick 3"x3" gauze on a resistant pad and put on an ace wrap.

This morning I found out I was out of cotton gauze. What to do? What to do? Then the  bulb in my head  lighted up.  I took out a heavy duty sanitary pad, cut it into half and placed carefully over the taped incision. Then I put on an ace wrap. Now, I have the incision padded and covered safely. Brilliant!!!

The post surgery appointment with Dr. Kavannah was at 2:45 pm, but she didn't get in to examination room until 30 minutes later. The nurse came twice to relay Dr. Kavannah's apology. She poked her head through a little crack. "She 's still with another patient".

I said, "Fine, fine, I am not in a hurry. Where do I go like this?" I sat on the examination table wearing an open front hospital gown.

She laughed at my joke. "What are you reading?" I lifted up the book to let her see the cover.

"Fried Green Tomatoes at The Whistle Stop Cafe. Is it good?

"Very. Funny and uplifting. You cheer the main characters until the end. You wish the happiness and joy to them even you knew it was only a fiction. This is the fourth time I read this book, but I still laugh and smile at some scenes."

"It must be good. I have to get one. And I'm reading this..." She disappeared from the door and turned up again with a book in her hand.

I gasped.I mouthed the word with tenderness, " Obasan."

"What? What? You already read it? Don't tell me the end.""

"It was beautiful written, Haunting and......." I couldn't find the word.

"Sorrow?"

"Yes, yes.....and I thought about it for a long time after I finished it."

"Ohmigod, ohmigod, I'm only only half way and I already cried so many times. Ohhh...oohh...I have to go."

One wonderful thing about reading is, you can easily make friends with other bookworms. Book titles swapping and recommendation.

Finally Dr. Kavannah came in with a medical student and Deb, the Obasan reader. As she removed the tape she explained in a cvery soothing voice what to expect in upcoming weeks and months. With a tiny surgical scissors she removed the loose stitches. I tried to lift my head to take a good look. She gently pushed my head back.

"I know they told me you like to look at it, but I don't want to get the scissors poke into a tender part."

The healing muscle will be hard she said. Don't be alarmed. The tape should be removed after two weeks. Then I could run again.

She helped to step down from the examination table and gave me warm hug  and told me I have a clean bill.

Mak, Wiz and Lepat Labu

A few months ago during a fasting month, wiz, The Cup Cakes Goddess wrote an entry about lepat labu. I left her a comment that I'm crazy about lepat labu and I have a story about it. Later, wiz asked me to write about it. I skirted around it until today.

                                                              anakmakanakmakanakmakanakmakanakmakanakmakanakmak

We entered the third week of Ramadan, and it was wicked cold winter in Boston in 2003. I was in a second year as  a Women Advocate at Domestic Violence shelter in the city. I worked 4 days from 8 am-4m and on the fifth Day I work 12 hour shift 8 pm-8 am on Sunday night. The Director of the shelter asked me to run a writing and reading group, and night shift was the perfect time to get all the women together.

On Sunday morning, the morning shift weekend staff arrived  90 minutes early due to her alarm clock malfunction. By 6:45 am I was already on the train home. I took two trains, switched from Green E line to Red line at Park Street Subway station. It was  a quiet ride. I took my seat at the end of the third car. The car that had a capacity of 60 seated commuters was filled with only a half a dozen or so riders including me.

I've  always enjoyed a train ride especially when it was quiet. But it wasn't that morning. I closed my eyes trying to block the noise from three men who talked in Haitian Creole. They weren't talking but shouting at each other actually with hands and fists flying all over. They grunt, grind, chewed and spat out the words  at each other with an incredible velocity.

As the train pulled out of the South Station, the neurons in my olfactory system detected a very, very strong comfort scent. A scent that was and still is dear to me. The scent that pulled me gently into a time warp and transferred me back to my mother's kitchen.

The scent was so strong I felt like  somebody poke my ribs. I straightened up and looked around trying to read every single person's expression. If anybody else detected the same scent that I was experiencing? The Haitian men continued to shout at each other, a skinny and tall man in a security guard uniform slouched in his seat. His long legs streched out in front of him. His chin planted in his chest, a book in his hand, a young couple had their lips glued since they boarded the train at Downtown, and a couple more commuters scattered here and there.

I pinched my arm, gently and the scent became stronger, I pinched my arm harder until I felt a tingle pain to make sure I wasn't dreaming. And the scent didn't go away.

If you ever in the kitchen when  any types of dishes that wrapped in banana leaves in a steamer, and the water was boiling, and the scent of banana leaves filled up the kitchen. You got my picture. The scent of pureed pumpkin wrapped in banana leaves filled up the car as the train zapped through the dark tunnel.

When I got home, the first thing I did was to call my mother. My niece, Muna answered the phone.

"Tok baru habih semayang, maknjang." Grandma just had her prayer.

Then I heard Mak's voice.

Before my mother finished the word hello, I told her about the scent of lepat labu in a steamed banana leaves on the train.

As I was rambling through the scenario in the train, I realized I didn't hear anything on the other side. Then I heard a sniff.

"Mak.....? Awat Mak nangis?" Mak, why are you crying?

"Mak buat lepat labu petang tadi." I made lepat labu earlier this evening.

Author's note: Malaysia is 12 hours ahead of Eastern time.

Learning to Unlearn

 

I was taking some shots near the fountain when a gentleman in a black long leather jacket stopped and asked me if I liked to have my picture taken? I said, why not?

Since the surgery I haven't sat still. Sure I've rested. I finished Eat, Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert which I enjoyed it very much. I loved her sense of humor. I doodled on a couple of ideas for baby quilt LanLan asked me to make for his friend.

I've been listening to Sade's Lover's Rock, Violin Adagios and for some reason I've been listening to The Last of Mohicans cd over and over again.

">Promontory  was intense but it soothed me for reasons I don't understand. I've been making an effort to learn not to dissect certain subjects. Just do it. Experience tthe sensational and everything that comes with it . I'll stop if I don't feel comfortable or if I had a feeling I was deceiving myself.

I've been walking a lot too since Thursday. The  mercury rose between mid 40's to high 50's was one of the reasons I spent at least five hours outside.

My left arm is no longer stiff. And last night I had a real shower after three days of sponging myself with warm water mixed with rose water. What a wonderful feeling.

I removed the ace wrap, tape and gauze, but I didn't touch the tapes that cover the incision. The instruction said not to remove it until my post operative visit on Thursday.

Friday, 1/11/08

                                                                                    

                                                                                                                               UMass Boston campus from Castle Island-1/12/08

Sunday, Jan 13th. 2008.

Do you see what I see?

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After the phone call from the Director, I brewed another pot of coffee, and set to organize the fabric shelves. Folding and arranging fabrics by shades and colors was another way I've noticed that took my mind away from wandering and jumping around like little monkeys.

Perhaps when I looked at the shades that aligned with the colors of my chakra, they got in sync.

Three hours passed and the snow grew thicker on the branches and twigs. I knew I had to get out to walk in a crispy air and to wade in a soft snow.

Imagine, last year before I switched my thought about snow, I'd rather be in my apartment. Now, I couldn't wait to get out.

Live from Boston

8.59 am

Snowing In

View from my livingroom window- 7.47 am

I was rinsing my coffee mug thirty minutes ago when the phone rang. It was a Director from the program. She said, "Ana, don't come to work today. It's gonna be a lot of snow later. L, C and N will be there. Get some rest, okay?"

There were a couple of times in the past I wanted to leave the place, but working with a wonderful boss who trusts my judgment, give plenty of rooms for me to grow, supportive and understanding make me think twice about leaving the place. I'm grateful. And it is snowing outside as I'm typing this entry.

Heaven On Earth.

I wonder if my passion about writing (with bad grammars, fragments and all that) wasn't strong enough, if I only cared to embellish my entries about living  in a far away place I call home now with all ups and leave out the all downs and if....., if......, if...., if......I would've 'met' all wonderful people with beautiful hearts and souls through this blog?

And I've always been telling my clients during our weekly sessions or group meetings, there is no IF or BUT, either you do it or you don't. And here I am writing about IF.

Thank you, grateful, appreciation, wondrous and amazement are some of the feelings and words that I could muster right now to express my feeling to everyone who has left prayers, dóa's, encouragement, and well wishes in my entries and by emails.

To Dik Nina, Beth, mamarock, Salma Beach, Nur, Nor, Norzu (we met in person), Nurhanne, Wiz, Sandra, Jo, Rebecca, PakIdrus, Gurindam Jiwa, Maryam in Marrakesh, Anisah, Iza, Lan,Lan, Trisca and friends who prefer to stay anonymously, thank you and thank you from my whole heart. Your beautiful words have moved me to the core. I pray and wish to all of us for our physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually journey. I hope I don't leave anybody else out. If I did, please forgive me.

Cry, Sob, Weep and News, Number Wahid.

It was exactly at 6:00 pm when the phone rang. I was watching Ratatouille on my pc. I pressed the PAUSE button and picked up the phone.

"Hello this is Dr. Kavannah from BMC. May I speak to Ana please?"

"This is she."

"Ana, how are you? This is Dr. Kavannah from BMC."

"I'm fine Dr. Kavannah, thank you. How are you?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Listen, I'd just got a result from the lab.........Ana, are you still there?"

"Yess," my voice barely escaped my lips. My heart stopped beating, I think.

"The tissue from your left breast doesn't have cancer."

"Dr. Kavannah, could you repeat that again please?"

I heard a smile in her voice this time.

"There is no cancer in the tissue of you left breast, but I still want to see you at 2;45 pm on January 17th. okay? I'll let you go. Get some rest and I see you next week." Clicked.

I put down the phone and wept.

The Space Between Best Friends

My best friend Trisca called me at 8.15 yesterday morning. She was sitting at a cafe' on Federal Street. She had an interview at 9:00 am at Taylor Investment Associate. She told me to get ready and after the interview she would call me. She called me again at 11:00 am.

"Meet you outside Macy in 30 minutes?"

"How was the interview?"

"Ohhhh kak, I think I did great. InsaAllah."

Trisca is Singaporean-American. Her ancestor were from Java. She speaks Javanese fluently. She speaks French, Dutch, Hokkien, Mandarin, Japanese, English, Malay and is teaching herself Russian. When she speaks, to my ears she sounds like Ann Curry, an anchorwoman for NBC Today. When we meet we speak in Bahasa Indonesia. Of course my Bahasa Indonesia is berterabur and lintang pukang, that will make any Indonesians gasps and twitches their faces like they've just swallowed a durian seed.

Since she moved to Salem 3 years ago to live with her man, we only meet once a month or once every other month. But we keep in touch by emails and phone calls. And when we plan to meet in person both of us are excited, we keep calling each other every hour. We act like we are going to meet a long lost lover.

And when I get off the orange line train at Downtown and took two flight stairs to the ground level, I see her standing  a few meters away from hotdog cart. I was on the opposite side-on FileneBasement side.

I cupped my hand over my mouth, "Kak Triscaaaaaaaaa."

"Kak Ana."

We met halfway wrapped into each other's arms.

"Ooouuuccchhh, ooouuuchhh, ooouuuccchh, my boob, my boob, Kak, you're crushing myleft boob."

We stood for about 10 minutes telling how much we have missed each other.

While we stuffed our faces with nodules soup and spring roll at  Pho Restaurant in Chinatown we updated each other herstory since the last time we met.

After the lunch we walked to the Border's Book store and got us raspberry mocha and continued our talk at the cafe'.

We left the cafe's around 4:15 pm and promised to meet again within a month.

Looking from Inside Out

A procedure on my left breast lumpectomy on January 9th. went well. I was supposed to check in at 8:00 am. Being a punctual nut that I am, I did even better. By 7:00 am I was standing outside a brand new Belkin Breast Health Center, at Moakley Building, Boston Medical Center waiting for my best friend LanLan. A few minutes later LanLan stood in front of me and we walked through a revolving door.

We went up to a lobby on the second floor. The well lit and squeaky cleaned lobby smelled like mountain mist air room freshener. It wasn't an offensive strong smell, but a pleasant smell. A lone man sat at the far corner reading NY Times and two young men with Dunkin Donut coffee in each hand sat two rows away from us. The rapid fire Spanish bounced between them and a spacey, high ceiling lobby.

I registered at a front desk with a friendly but tired looking nurse (she was on night shift) . She asked me a standard questions: Name, address and the last four digits of my SS#. We chose the seats facing a see through glass wall and waited. Today was LanLan's birthday, the same date his father died in a car accident many years ago in KL .

Fifteen minutes later, my name was called out and we were ushered in through the door. A beautiful nurse in blue scrub (well everybody was in a blue scrub anyway) introduced herself. She showed me my room. It was a comfortable size about 12'x8'.  A three side walls with heavy curtain instead of a door.

LanLan turned his back while I changed into hospital gown and blue pants and hopped onto a bed. Terry, my nurse (aaaahhhhh......my nurse) came in with a bunch of paperworks for me to sign. Within 30 minutes I got into my room, two residents and three other nurses came in and went away with the same standard questions.

Terry told me a needle localization would be done on the first floor at 10:00 am. It was a procedure where a wire would be inserted  which marks the calcification area for what needs to be taken out without guess work and without removing more than needed usually.

Another nurse gave me Novocaine and 10:00 am, I sat on a wheel chair and Leroy took me to the first floor. A technician named Deb helped me to move to another chair whcih was 6 inches higher than a wheel chair and added another layer of blanket on my lap. She explained to me a purpose of the procedure. A "Deb gently pushed the chair to a mammogram machine.

"This is not gonna hurt like you did the mammo process," she told me.

"Between 1 to 10, how do you grade the hurt?"

"I could say 1." She looked at chatty doctor as to get her support.

"One is perfect." the doctor said.

So, another squeeze, but this time I agreed with Deb, it was one. A squeeze to make easy for a doctor insert the wire.

She then proceeded on by inserted the tiny wire on my left breast  a few cm from my armpit. With my breast squeezed between two plates (a slightly squeeze), it was a tedious thing to do to crane my neck to look at the process.

"Look away, I don't want you to faint." A chatty, friendly doctor told me.

"I won't. I want to write about it.""

"You are funny. You want to write about it." She gently inserted the wire, about 4 cm inside my left breast behind the nipple. I felt the a slight pain. She continued to talk, asking about my work, interests and I continued to watch a wire slowly pushed under my skin.

The process ended in 20 minutes and Leroy took me back to my room. Another residents, another doctors, nurses and by 1:00 pm two male doctors pushed my bed to the surgery room. I was out within a few minutes I was in a surgery room.

When I opened my eyes, I was back in my room. Terry arranged my blanket and added another layer when I incoherently told her I was cold. I heard the voices, but I felt like a brick was placed on each of my eyelid.

Terry told me I took almost one hour to come around as she placed a corn muffin and ginger ale on the tray. She left to get LanLan and I put on my sweater and jeans and jacket. Leroy brought the wheel chair and we stopped at the nurse station to thank them.

Are We Going to Make It?

I noticed tiny buds sprouting out on some trees along Charles River and wondered how long will they last before another snow storm hits us again?

They must have an internal survival skills like us human too, to endure the heat and the cold.

I looked at this tiny twig wrapped up tightly by hard snow and I thought about us.

We have to learn to live like them too. We have to learn to be humble, to embrace the differences, to include the ones that don't share our point of views, to love the ones that don't look like us, don't talk like us, don't  think like us.

We have to learn to see beyond our naked eyes, to make an effort to learn something that we don't understand, not to make an assumption and pass a comment without knowing which is head which is tail.

Can we get along without killing, hackingr, nuking and blowing up each other to pieces? When are going to learn?