medical selfies

When I posted a Bosch picture as a diptych with a picture of the current round of Mohs surgery for removal of skin cancer on my nose and reconstruction, the art librarian at Vassar College -- Thomas Hill -- speculated that "hospital selfies -- they seem to constitute a new and serious form of portraiture. I hate to look at mine, but I can't help wondering if they serve over time as trauma therapy."

I hope you'll forgive my using blog entries as more trauma therapy. The good part of the report is that I'm not in much physical pain.

This round of surgeries was originally scheduled in January and would probably not have conflicted with the joint ARLIS/NA + VRA conference in Seattle which is scheduled for March 8-12. And I've been dreaming of getting to the Bosch exhibition at the Noordbrabants Museum in 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, since I first heard about it. This is the 500th year since Bosch died (1516). The progress of the surgery is dependent of the doctor's schedule and on the healing of the flap of skin which will be the new right exterior of my nose. Very much, one step at a time.

This morning's visit to the doctor involved removing the stitches on my forehead and replacement with steri-strips. Quite a lovely pattern:

One feels a weird mix of self-involved and over-exposed when you talk about these things on Facebook or in a personal blog entry but there's that other therapy: the simple "likes" and expressions of support and concern that mean an awful lot, especially when you're not at home and feeling rather adrift.

So it's a bit after 1 pm and there's a lecture at Eastman School by JoAnn Falletta, the conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic. The plastic surgeon's office is on East Avenue near the Eastman House. I'm staying with Rachel Stuhlman who lives next door. The lecture is downtown and I'm looking forward to the walk downtown, probably about a mile.