Amy's Hernia

My best friend Amy is a delicate flower.

She was that girl in middle school, you know the one that was always fainting and had to breathe into paper bags, sit with her head between her knees and be excused from dissecting things in biology and watching films in health class. Amy gets light headed when exposed to all things involving blood, guts, pus, vomit and spiders.

Poop for some reason doesn't bother her, but all the rest, forget about it.

She can't take extreme changes in temperature either and gets heat stroke when it's hot and chilblains when it's cold. She's kind of like a Chihuahua. Being extremely fair skinned (her nickname in middle school was Maalox - because she was chalky - get it?) and weighing no more than a buck and half haven't done much to toughen her up.

I was never like that. I was of a heartier stock or have a stockier heart or whatever, and tended to be the robust, husky girl who escorted the fainting, pukey girl to the nurses office. Probably because I was the only one big enough to pick her up and carry her if she collapsed on the way (perhaps my nickname in middle school should have been Butch).

Amy and I didn't meet until we were in our early 20's, so we didn't know each other in middle school, but if we had, you get the picture.

Over the years I have carried her to the proverbial nurses office many times and killed a spider or two for her along the way. I've seen her through sinus scraping, placenta-previa, childbirth, numerous root canals and various other assorted revolting dental surgeries.

Mostly I'm just there for moral support, to keep her calm and try to fatten her up with Big Macs and Nerds. Of course girls that are delicate flowers seldom have much of an appetite during times of physical crises and the snacks were really for me.

Anyhoo... now we live really far away from each other and last week she had surgery and I'm not there when the girl is down for the count. She's got Ted now and he does a good job I suppose, but it's difficult knowing that I can't just pop over with McDonald's and sour candy and make it all better.

((WARNING - If you are a delicate flower, have a heart condition, any characteristics resembling a Chihuahua and are under the age of 18, DO NOT CLICK on the link in the paragraph below.))

I mentioned in an earlier post that Amy had a femoral hernia. She walked around like this for weeks, frightened out of her mind that she was growing a wiener, before finally going to the doctor.

She had a lot of other things going on at the time, namely that her ex-husband Assface's unemployment ran out and he took her to court for child support and now she has to pay him. Turns out that with shared custody the parent who makes the most money pays. His unemployment check was more than her salary as a teacher, by the way.

By the time she made it in to see the doctor she was feeling very world weary and downtrodden. When the doctor asked her what was going on she described her ailment, namely the large bulge that seemed to be sprouting from her groin-al area and proudly announced, "I think I'm finally growin' a pair."