Deported

It's out, it's out, it's OUT!!

I D-14'd it for 505 long days, walking around with this thing in my chest like some kind of refugee from one of the Alien movies.

I honestly felt like that little piece of engineering might just come flying out of my body at any moment, the way it protruded so attractively between my collarbone and my bra strap.

Zach kept saying that it was hardly noticeable at all and that I was exaggerating wildly.

All I know is that I noticed it every single day.

I felt it every time I lay down on my right side or stretched my right arm over my head.

I saw it in the mirror every time I got out of the shower.

I thought about it whenever I wanted to wear something with a V-neck, or a scoop neck—or any kind of neck, really, other than a crew or a turtle, and I haven't been wearing too many of those. (Just ask any thermostatically challenged post-menopausal woman how often she likes to wear clothes with constricting necklines. Let's just say that it's hard enough to deal with one's own personal heat waves in a tank top, let alone anything more confining.)

The very same surgeon who put the port in last February took it out first thing this morning. The whole thing was over so quickly that Zach barely had time to get a cup of coffee before they called him into the recovery room.

It'll be a couple of weeks before the stitches are out and the soreness disappears, but I don't mind.

I'm free, I'm free, I'm FREE!!