腐国🐇

maybe i'll be a bobblehead for a while

so the plastic surgeon came in this morning. he looked at my head and went "hmm" in that way doctors do when they're about to rearrange your entire life in a single sentence.

and then he said it. they're probably going to have to remove the bone flap.

i keep turning that over in my head like a smooth stone. remove the bone flap. like it's a hatch. like my skull is a ship they need to access the cargo hold of.

he's going to talk to neurosurgery to arrange it. which is a polite way of saying two departments are going to have a meeting about removing a piece of my actual skeleton and then i'm going to wake up with a helmet. for awhile. which is a funny way of saying "indefinitely" but we're all just pretending it's temporary because that's what you do when your body starts betraying you in architectural ways.

the thing is he doesn't think i have an infection. if i had an infection i'd be much sicker. i'd be feverish and miserable and my body would be waging a full scale war against itself. but instead there's just this bacterial colony living in the bone flap like a tiny squatter who refuses to pay rent. just hanging out. throwing parties. causing the skin to get reinfected over and over like a broken record.

so they want to evict the colony. by removing the entire apartment building.

i'm trying to decide if that's funny or devastating. both i think. both is the answer.

the helmet is going to be interesting. i've been looking at pictures online. they're not cute. they're not the kind of thing you can accessorize. they're just. functional. which is the most depressing kind of fashion.

but also maybe i can paint it? put stickers on it? become one of those people whose whole personality becomes The Helmet? i could get really into it. start a blog. "helmet girl chronicles." day three: i have learned to sleep on my side. day twelve: a pigeon looked at me with respect.

i'm spiraling. i know i'm spiraling. but what else are you supposed to do when they tell you they're going to remove a piece of your skull because of some bacterial colony that decided your bone was prime real estate.

the good news is i don't have an infection. the bad news is i have a bacterial colony. the weird news is that apparently those are different things? that your body can just. tolerate a group of bacteria. like "oh yeah those guys live here now. they're not making me sick they're just. occupying. colonizing. setting up a little bodega in the corner of my cranium."

i wonder if they pay rent.

anyway. helmet era begins soon. i'll keep you posted. maybe i'll get one with a little visor. really lean into it.

right now i'm just lying here thinking about the fact that there's a community of bacteria living in my skull and they're about to get evicted with extreme prejudice.

and i'm going to have to wear a hat for the foreseeable future.

god is funny. not haha funny. but funny in the way that makes you stare at the ceiling and wonder what you did in a past life to deserve this specific combination of circumstances.

helmet. bone removal. bacterial colony.

i'm collecting weird experiences like trading cards at this point.