Every BODY is Beautiful

What a week it’s been. Fresh out of a week in the hospital, it was time to return to work on our latest concert, This Is Me. I missed more than my allowed number of rehearsals due to my unexpected health problems, but the Chorus was really great about giving me a mulligan, and I was able to put in a lot of study time while recuperating at home, so I was totally ready for the concert.

One thing that helped a lot was that I didn’t have much music to memorize. We only sang four songs in the first act. The rest were our smaller ensembles, the Chamber Singers and OUTLoud, plus our collaborating partners in this concert, the Minnesota Valley Women’s Chorale and See Change Treble Choir, and interpretive dance by the James Sewell Ballet.

For the second act, we presented the Midwest premiere of EveryBODY, the work we’re taking to the GALA Choruses Festival, a quadrennial gathering of GLBTQ+ choruses from all over the world, which, conveniently, is right here in Minneapolis this time around. EveryBODY explores body image and learning to love your height, weight, shape, size, and even your eyes and nose. Everybody is beautiful, whether you’re thin or thick, tall or short, bald or hirsute, disabled, or even have pieces missing.

Sadly, the one person who really needed to see this show, who used to criticize me all the time for being so thin, couldn’t make it. (You know who you are, Chuck.)

I was a little concerned because the concert was all the way out in the northern suburbs of St. Paul, but we managed to fill the house both nights. After this, I’m looking forward to the GALA Festival… then it’s back to the medical routine for more surgery.

Unexpected Medical Stuff

I've been having trouble with my legs for a couple of years now. They're why I use a wheelchair. But a couple of weeks ago my gastrocnemius (a big medical word for the calf muscle) really started hurting. It screamed anytime I bore weight on it, and eventually formed a hard lump that was painful and warm to the touch, as if it was running its own little fever down there. After enough nagging from Jim, who totally gets to say "I told ya so," I let him drag me down to urgent care on Saturday. Urgent care sent me to the E.R., where they admitted me to the hospital.

After an ultrasound and MRI that lasted well into the night, the doctors decided it was an abscess that would have to be cut open, drained, and cleaned out. Just when they got around to doing this was up in the air for two days, when I was on and off of n.p.o. (nothing to eat or drink) preparing for surgery it took them that long to schedule. The doctor literally grabbed my breakfast right out of my hands just as I was about to start eating!

The surgery finally happened on Monday night, and thankfully they knocked me out for what they did. I don't want to know what they drained out of that abscess. I spent the next few days getting poked and prodded for blood samples, pumped full of I.V. antibiotics, and kept happily stoned on oxycodone while being tortured by physical therapists getting me to walk on my surgery leg.

The picture shows the last time my wound was uncovered. (That's gonna leave one heck of a sexy scar!) They sent me home with a waterproof dressing covering the wound, a course of doxycycline, and a small prescription for oxycodone I'm using sparingly. The picture is the last time it was uncovered, and I'm not supposed to take the dressing off until I'm seen by orthopedics later this month. And, of course, there are my dozens of other comorbidities still trying to kill me.

Meanwhile, there's also life stuff, especially the Chorus. Our Pride concert is next week and I'm understandably behind, considering my hospital adventures. Fortunately I have lots of time to study. After the concert, we have the upcoming GALA Choruses Festival, the quadrennial gathering of all the GLBTQ+ choruses. It got cancelled in 2020, of course, because of COVID, but this year it is on, and it is right here in Minneapolis! This totally eliminates hotel expense, since I can just stay at home, and transportation expenses, which are down to $2.00 a day to take Metro Transit. I can take a direct bus that gets me home around 4:00, or a later bus should I care to hang around for mocktails at The Saloon.