Mixed Bag

In this episode of Mixed Bag: summary of the first massage since surgery, SEAF hair idea pictures, and video of the act Kaylee and I surely would have mastered had we found a third to join us.

First Massage Since Surgery:
I went back to the massage therapist who got me limbered up before surgery. It was just simpler to work with someone I'd already broken in. (During the last massage he gave me, I was wearing Max's collar.)
This was more of an information gathering session than actual massage therapy, though to describe it, sounds more like a scene with Max in many ways. My therapist poked, prodded, twisted, bent and occasionally massaged just about every joint and major muscle group from my neck down. He was duly impressed by the flexibility I've maintained in my hips and shoulders, and more than a little stunned at the reality of fusing T-4 to L-3 without major post-surgical complications.
For the most part we both made it through the appointment unscathed and better informed about my body's reactions to stimulus.
I think we'll actually get some solid work done on my neck and shoulders next week.

SEAF Hair:
Courtesy of weddingchannel.com, here are the current candidates for SEAF Hair. Feedback is welcomed, though I make no promises to actually heed any of it.

Somewhere in my head, straightened sleek hair means grown-up and sophisticated. I don't do that very much in my day to day life.


This one is nice with all the carefully negotiated curls and still a smooth look, if a little softer than the one above.


I think this one has some appeal to me simply because it's so similar to my hair color and texture to start with. Also... Sexy Redhead Back!


I don't intend to stick flowers in my hair, but the complexity of hair sections appeals.


Please try to ignore the BAD BAD BAD make-up in this one. I like the idea of letting some of my hair loose in the back, but not enough to cover my scar. When I can't get past the make-up, this one just looks like a bad prom memory.



Now, the video: My mom (who reads this blog incidentally) sent this to me today. If only Kaylee and I had seen this before my surgery, I'm sure we could have recreated it on our own (okay, maybe not).

The artistry, the classic 40's harmony, the costumes, the... no really keep watching! (1:15 at least)

Bullet Round Update

Kinkfest: Yes, I went to Kinkfest. Russell and I only stayed for Friday and Saturday, but it worked out nicely for us overall. Here are some of the highlights.

• Quality drive time with Russell. We have some of our most productive idea sharing conversations on long drives like this.
  
• Our room was much better than the rooms we've had the last two years. (Turns out we were directly above Max and his family)
• Eating at Thai Noon. This is the most flavorful and friendly and nifty Thai restaurant I've ever been to. Russell and I were introduced to it during Kinkfest last year and it was definitely one of the big things we were looking forward to this year. Mango Sticky Rice!!!
• Being Max's. Conferences can be treacherous waters for poly families, there are A LOT of moving parts to keep track of in a very small and sometimes intensely loaded space. Fortunately everyone in our respective families plays nice and genuinely wants things to work out for everyone else. I am quite grateful to all parties involved for the time I was able to share with Max at this year's conference.
• Dangling above the ground from ropes for the first time since surgery. While the dangling portion of the scene was not the centerpiece of our scene in the dungeon, full suspension is a very notable recovery landmark. Max is a creative, talented man who had an intimate understanding of the risks and ways to minimize them. I'm not ready to let the rest of my friends with suspension bondage skills tie me up just yet.
• Good sex with Russell.
• Mo Williams' workshop on service. It seemed like this workshop was still in the development stages, but Mo is a fantastic story teller so that didn't really matter. It lacked detectable structure, but once I sat down to record the things worth remembering from the workshop I had a page full of notes and sound-bites.
• Sharing a snack picnic with a friend who also needed to avoid the hotel food. I was both happy to get chatting time with her and delighted that Russell and my preplanning paid off for one of our friends.
• Vendor fair purchase. Russell split the cost of one of these for me. Coming to a Grind near you sometime soon.
• One low-light: The drive home was in some spectacularly crummy weather. There was even snow for part of it.
  

SEAF (ok, mostly costuming stuff):

• I will be revealing the fact that the x-ray made it in to SEAF to my surgeon at the next appointment (about a week from now). I'm hoping to present smaller matted prints to him and his nurse as part of a thank you gift. I don't think they know about or read the blog, if they do I've just spoiled the surprise... oops
• I picked up an adhesive backless bra at Nordstroms on Thursday, insuring that the dress will fit better.
• Russell saw a test run of the dress and aproves.
• My budget for this event grew a little recently. Now I'm hoping to take the whole day before the Artists' Reception off to indulge in pampering and primping.

Physical/Medical Stuff:

• Lately I've been thinking "I could really go for a massage" but I'm not sure there are many massage therapists willing to work on someone with this much recently installed hardware. Most of the tightness is in my neck and shoulders though and that seems workable with a little information.
• The trip to Kinkfest also marked the longest drive since surgery, but that didn't cause any problems for me at all. (Hooray!)
• [edited to add] Oh, AND I made it to the gym the day after Kinkfest even though I had to work all day too. (last week's record wasn't so hot and I'm determined to get it moving back in the right direction)
  
• Overall, I feel pretty darn healthy and strong.
  

So, About the Collar

Preface:
Collars are uniquely intimate connections. Even with as open as I try to be here, there's a lot about the collar that will continue to go unspoken on this blog. What I don't want to glaze over though is the fact that making changes on one branch of a poly relationship will almost always have impacts on others. Wearing the collar like this was a big change. The other members of my poly family have given me an amazing gift by choosing the lowest-drama route to dealing with this situational change. I can not say enough how grateful I am for that. I am truly blessed to be surrounded by so many incredible people.

How did Max's collar interact with my surgery and recovery?
First I should start with how I came to be wearing his collar immediately before surgery and during recovery. While Max and I have had a collar-oriented relationship for about a year, this is the first time I'm wearing his collar not in his immediate presence. It's a huge step for both of us, but one we were ready to take when the surgery rolled around.

The Sunday before surgery, we scheduled one last overnight date. As some people might imagine, this “date” quickly turned into a grief and anxiety processing session. Honestly, the nature of the date didn’t surprise us either. After this intense evening, we decided to leave the collar on so I could keep going back to it as a concrete representation of our connection and a source of the same strength and serenity I feel when I’m working hard for him. It worked! The next day at work I could feel it underneath my shirt reminding me to finish or release the last couple tasks on my plate so I could leave early. That afternoon, my massage therapist was a little surprised by the collar, but noted just how much more willing my body was to let go of the tension it’d been holding for the last few months. People all around me were commenting on how calm and centered I seemed given the circumstances.

As helpful as the collar was for my mental and emotional states, it didn't seem like the brightest most practical idea to go in the operating room wearing a chain locked around my neck. Much to my surprise, my surgeon was just fine with the idea. He did however suggest the anesthesiologist might be less flexible about extra stuff hanging around my airway. Rather than deal with back-n-forth the morning of surgery, it just made more sense to take it off in a quiet moment with Max just before heading back and let him put it back on as soon as it made sense to do so afterward.

I don't actually remember when in the sequence of events immediately post surgery Max put the collar back on. The farther I get from that day the blurrier things become. I do remember the power the collar held though, I do remember it linking right in to our connection and opening up to him, I do remember how relieved I felt to be able to push just a little more of my fear and pain back out through those links and into Max's strong hands, I remember feeling just a little more peaceful knowing I didn't have to do it alone anymore.

The collar was also a very practical tool for much of the hospital stay, even when Max wasn't around. It worked like a worry stone that never fell out of reach. I could fiddle and fidget with it when nothing else could distract me from the sensations that moment. Or I could simply tug at it a little and feel Max's hands on my neck holding me and keeping me. I genuinely believe I had more and easier access to the mindset required to get through the tough nights because of his collar around my neck.

Friends and hospital staff took it in stride for the most part. I think I was on my third post-op day before anyone on staff so much as mentioned it actually. Most often I explained that it was a token to help me stay strong and centered. Whether people understand D/s relationships or not, they usually understand tokens and symbols. Every once in a while a vanilla friend would comment and I'd just flat out say "It's Max's collar." Sometimes this knocked them back a pace or two, but my ease with it seemed to spread quickly and calm the situation.

Gratitudes!

Time to toss out a list of things I'm really grateful for (in stream of consciousness order):

• Making it through the one-month count-down mark without panicking.
• Finding the exact shoes I'd searched 4 Target stores to find at Value Village... in good shape, on 50% off everything day.
• Piles and piles of quality moments with Russell.
  
• I'm extra super grateful for Russell in general.
• Taking Paige and Russell to visit my mom in my home town and spontaneously getting to introduce them to some of my old-school extended family (My mom took care of her in college, she babysat me, I babysat her daughter--who graduated college recently GAWD I'M OLD, and every year we still take cookies to their house at Christmas)
• Supportive--if sometimes a little stress inducing--comments from my coworkers.
• Having a seriously relaxed couple days at work recovering from the busy season.
• Easy on-line booking systems for the only nice campground I know about (yes, I know, some tree-hugger I am... but I like to visit trees, not take up residence with them)
  
• Spready Cheese on crackers (Russell who brings them to me)
  
• The guy at Quiznos who always gives me the discount price even though I order the wrong ingredients on my sandwich.
• Aleive that knocks out my cramps.
• Happy news from a redhead about to start school at Mt. Holyoke
  
• Paigelett now has extra time in her schedule
• Friends and Family (including Paige, Russell, and Max) who make time in their schedules to be with me even when they don't really have it.
• A mid-day massage appointment.
• The brand new extra comfy bed in Russell's bedroom (even if it isn't the one I'm sleeping on tonight)
• Having my own blog to occasionally fill with a pile of random happiness

More topic oriented content coming soon... probably.

Less Than Two Months

Last Friday marked exactly two months until surgery. I spent a large portion of the work day thinking about what I would be doing two months from then and what I needed to do to prepare for the inevitable. I can't say that was the best use of my time and mental energy, but I will say I managed to do it without careening into a death spiral. Lately I seem to be dealing with it through a combination of dark humor, retail therapy, and reality checks. In a week or two I'm going to need to contact my surgeon's office and get the ball rolling on extended leave requests and blood donation scheduling. Right now I'm more about acquiring bedding that makes me grin and want to squirm around on the bed happily.

Also, as a side note, I'm considering introducing my massage therapist to the wonders of gags next week. What I interpreted last week as a typical reaction to kink information was actually just the way he talks all the time. The whole session was spent with him rattling on about how busy and stressful his weekend had been. Oddly, I had a much harder time releasing some of those tight spots in my back. Oh well, I have a whole week to come up with polite ways to say "STFU!"

Coming to you LIVE

I'm typing to you from my most recent surgery-prep purchase:
The new laptop desk/bed tray

On Monday, I had my first insurance-sponsored massage treatment. So besides the fact that I'm getting these massages to loosen up my back and reduce stress before surgery, I'm talking about it here because of a conversation we had during the session. It went something like this:
"So what kinds of physical activity do you do?" He asks
"Oh, walking, a little bit of weight lifting, and I'm taking a belly dance class once a week." I say.
"Ok and what else?"
"I do some yoga before and after working out and I try to get out dancing a few times a month."
"That's nice and what else?"
***I pause here. It's possible he's just trying to make small talk and not really paying attention, but this is clearly my opening to talk about my other activities. There are two schools of thought in the category of sharing kinky proclivities with one's health care providers: "What I do in my bedroom is my business," or "How can I get good health care if my providers don't know what I'm really doing with my body?" I fall pretty solidly into the latter category, although I try not to overshare or make people too uncomfortable. The fact that I spend some regular portion of my free time being twisted into knots and hung from the ceiling seems pretty relevant to massage therapy.
"Well, I do some rope suspension. That's why you may see some marks on the backs of my arms and around my rib cage." This is what I like to call a verbal traffic cone. It's clear that I do something different, but if the other person wants to he or she can just leave it alone and walk around it.
***This is clearly taking a moment to register
"Ah," he laughs a little "kinky stuff." His tone indicates he thinks he's joking.
"Well yes, actually." I respond. If the last sentence was a traffic cone this is an Enter at your own risk sign.
After stammering about for a moment, he did actually enter. He had aparently attended a workshop at the Wetspot before. We spent some time talking about poly and kink and D/s while he did stuff that made me make a lot of the same noises I make in scene. I felt really good physically and mentally after I left. I'm looking forward to going back next week.