Baby, you’re the end of June
What a time to be alive
Writing a Substack newsletter right now sort of feels like an amateur comedian’s segue at an open mic night – “What else…what else is going on, you guys?”
The summer is off to a hot and frightening start but if you’re looking for a few glimmers or just a distraction – here are five things (and one story) to round out the month.
It’s officially the season to split a bottle of wine, make a summer salad and watch Chocolat. For extra staying power, I’ve been topping my salads with Good Culture cottage cheese or tuna packed in olive oil. And for said bottle of wine – this organic rosé rises to the occasion.
Our office closed early the other day, which proved to be somewhat disastrous for my bank account as I took to the home décor aisles. My impulse purchases did give me an excuse to try out a decorating hack I saw – buy inexpensive throw pillows with zippers and swap out the inserts for down fills from Amazon. You’ll end up with a Pottery Barn look on a Target budget.
I can’t stop thinking about this list of 50 ways to be generous and now I don’t hesitate to compliment a stranger’s haircut.
Do you have a signature scent? In high school, I would douse myself in Abercrombie 8 or Moonlit Path from Bath and Body Works to the point that my dad would have to roll down the car windows. College smelled like Sarah Jessica Parker’s Lovely which completely overpowered me, but we’d do anything to be a Carrie. I loved wearing Chloe in my late 20s and early 30s but recently I’ve been on the hunt for something a little more grounded and found it with DedCool’s Milk. If you want to be randomly told you smell good, I can confirm – this is the scent.
My guilty pleasure show for years has been Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team. At the time, it was this niche little docuseries on CMT which followed the exact same format season after season…tryouts, training camp, squad announcement. Was the show pretty problematic? Yes. Did I attempt to learn their dance to Flo Rida’s “Wild Ones” in my living room? Yes! I’m still following dozens of former cheerleaders more than a decade later on Instagram. So, you can imagine my surprise when Kelli, Judy and the girls took Netflix by storm last year and now everyone’s in their living room learning “Thunderstruck” (listen, CMT did not want to pay for the royalties on that one). The second season of America’s Sweethearts is out now, and it’s striving for a little more self-awareness which I found to be refreshing. Paired with a 400% pay raise for the cheerleaders, I’d say that’s worth putting the boots back on – even though I still can’t figure out how they do their sexy hips.
Cut to the feeling
In ninth grade, a dance-related injury sent me to physical therapy. I pulled a major muscle in my calf and was hobbling around with crutches for a few weeks. We figured that anything to speed up my recovery couldn’t hurt. My PT included ultrasound therapy which made the muscle warm, tingly and twitchy. It also caused the vein on the inside of my calf to pop right out.
Most high school students aren’t sporting varicose veins, but I was just cool like that.
I probably should have been more bothered by this aesthetic, but it quickly became a part of me – like a really big freckle. I walked around like this for the next 25 years.
It wasn’t until 40, when said vein popped out on top of my foot that I figured it was maybe time to do something about it.
Before you meet with a vascular surgeon, you get a full ultrasound on both legs to measure your veins and test how well they are functioning. My tech, Roy, made a point to tell me that he only picked the 90s Easy Listening playlist in his room because it was the least offensive. This was not his kind of music. He proceeded to endorse 75% of the songs with random comments.
“Okay, THIS song is pretty good.”
I didn’t look at the results of my scan before I met with my doctor the following week. As she walked into the room, her first words to me were, “Your veins are terrible!”
I liked her immediately.
She explained that not only did I win the genetic lottery of poor veins but my body was working harder with the quagmire in my calf and the best course of action was removal. I told her that I had seen a surgeon when I lived in New York, but he said it was fine, and I should just wear support hose when I fly. She was shocked.
“Who left this in you?!”
Dr. Harry Bush
There’s nothing that will make your stomach flip faster than finding something on your body that’s not supposed to be there.
I was in my mid-20s and living in New York when a Midwest blizzard derailed my travel plans for Christmas. Despite my best efforts to tell myself that I was an adult now and it was totally fine and normal to not be home for the holidays – I was not in fact, fine.
I channeled this emotional energy into trying to recuse a tiny and sick-looking kitten outside of my Queens grocery store on Christmas Eve. My attempts to lure him out from the shelf he was hiding under proved useless and I was still crying about it in the shower the next morning.
While sobbing and shaving my legs, I discovered a relatively large bump in my inner thigh that I had never felt before.
Cue the panic.
I was getting ready for Christmas with my then-boyfriend’s extended family on Long Island which luckily included several nurses.
“Hi – Merry Christmas. Feel my thigh?”
The bump perplexed everyone so I secured an appointment with my GP as soon as I could post-holidays. For legal reasons, I will not disclose his name in case he’s still practicing in New York, but this guy was like a real-life Dr. Spaceman from 30 Rock.
He made confused faces while poking at my inner thigh. He eventually landed on his diagnosis…a lipoma.
Otherwise known as a fat deposit – just what every woman wants to hear.
I should have been relieved that he was ruling out a tumor, but I wasn’t fully satisfied, so I pointed out that the unidentified bump seemed to line up with the varicose vein on my calf. Could it be part of the same problem?
“No – that’s not your vein,” he said definitively.
Dr. Spaceman was sold on lipoma, but he did refer me for an ultrasound, just in case.
This time, it was an ultrasound tech poking around my inner thigh, and I was doing everything in my power to read her facial expressions. She too seemed confused.
“My doctor said it was a lipoma.”
Her reply was short, to the point, and terrifying.
“It’s not a lipoma.”
On the verge of tears (again) – I was walking out of my appointment when I realized I had already missed a call from my GP.
That can’t be good.
I called Dr. Spaceman back within the minute and the receptionist said he was unavailable. Several hours and many voicemails later, we finally connected, and he delivered the news.
“You have a vein aneurysm.”
Lipoma my ass.
I sort of blacked out after I heard the word “aneurysm,” but his central thesis was that I get myself to a cardiovascular surgeon.
I asked if this was a time-sensitive situation.
“There is a chance your vein could rupture and if that happens, you need to go to the emergency room immediately.”
Assuming I was on the brink of exploding internally, I ran to the computer to find an in-network surgeon. I was working for David Letterman at the time and several years earlier, he had open heart surgery at Weill Cornell Medical Center, so I started my search there.
Scrolling through the list of MDs, one jumped out at me immediately – Dr. Harry Bush.
What a name on that guy. If I was going to need surgery, I was at least going to have a sense of humor about it.
Within a few weeks, I was getting another ultrasound. Afterwards, I met Dr. Bush who was experienced, distinguished and apparently had bigger fish to fry than me.
He let me know that this was just my varicose vein making its presence known in my thigh (as I suspected before I thought I was dying – thanks, Dr. Spaceman). It was a superficial vein and there was no risk of “rupturing”. I should wear support hose if I fly and throughout the duration of any pregnancy. The latter part sounded terrible, but I was too relieved to be walking out in one piece that I didn’t question it.
I went to a medical supply store and purchased thigh-high support hose that I wore exactly twice.
Prepare to be underwhelmed
Fifteen years later, I was being prepped for the surgery I should have had a decade prior. My current surgeon (a woman) confirmed my fears that a pregnancy with this vein would have been a miserable experience – so score one for remaining childless.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I checked in for surgery but what did surprise me was just how quickly they get you naked. Within a few minutes of leaving Admissions, I was being handed a hospital gown and these giant sanitizing wipes for my full body.
Nurses quickly swept in and out of the room while they hooked me up to monitors and put in an IV. I was told that would be the worst part of the day – and it was because they didn’t get a cap on the IV correctly.
“Is there supposed to be this much blood?”
OH! No.
I told the nurses about Dr. Harry Bush and that got a laugh. They gave me the pro tip that I can always ask for more drugs once I’m in surgery which was noted and then forgotten because I was on Fentanyl.
As I was wheeled back, my doctor said, “Prepare to be underwhelmed.”
I hoped she was right.
Reader – I’ll spare you the gory details of the surgery. What’s strange about this one is that you are awake for everything, but you are also very out of it. I do not remember the first half where they go in and ablate the vein, but I do remember the stabbing part. I also remember my doctor asking if I’d like to see my vein once she’d pulled part of it out.
“That’s none of my business.”
The healing process was relatively quick, albeit weird. In my follow-up call, I asked my doctor why I felt pulling sensation in my leg, and she let me know that it was just my vein – dying. Several weeks later, I’m grateful to have it all behind me and to have symmetrical calves again.
If the experience has taught me anything it’s to always advocate for yourself. If something feels off, get another opinion. And maybe don’t select your medical professionals based on their ironic name like a 12-year-old.