Close call?

I'm kind of a head-in-the-sand type. I might prefer not to know. But I'm no longer allowed to do that, I suppose. I'll have to revel in my hypochondria, now that I'm a "cancer survivor".

Whatever. Last week, I had my hair cut and colored. Albert's new assistant is really pretty good at the head and neck massage. I even got a new (well, back to the original, but new if you've met me recently) color that was a pretty dramatic change. I was feeling good.

Two days later, I wake up with one eyelid covered in my ol' "psoriasis" rash that I used to get before the allergy people made me quit using every beauty product known to the market. Also, my surgery incision was kind of puffy and weird on the right side.

By Friday, I had convinced myself that it was cancer come back from the grave. I was touching my neck so obsessively, I massaged away the main swelling and ended up with a vague post-surgical tightness. That lasted all weekend.

Monday I started to believe it was an allergic reaction to the hair chemicals and took a bunch of Benadryl. I slept really well. My neck still felt tight Tuesday morning though.

Only Wednesday did I finally call the doctor to ask if this was normal. Now, part of the delay was that I couldn't decide which doctor to call. I ended up calling the surgeon. His medical assistant said, "Oh, no. That's not normal at all."

She also said the doctor was out, I'll check with him and call you tomorrow at work. I kept it together at work today quite well, I thought. Checked my cell phone a few thousand times in case she couldn't get me on the work line. Raced home and looked at the answering machine on the land line, which is of course where she called, and listened to her message that said to return her call.

Which I promptly did and got her voice mail. Then, I flipped through some magazines that came in the mail, turned on the tv and watched the end of some Bravo show, and ate a lot of dry-roasted peanuts.

She finally called and said that I could ignore the swelling, maybe lightly massage if it made it feel better. Oh. I was going to ignore it in the first place, but then ....