A Night of Romance?: Chapter 16

And wait….
In her book "Just Get Me Through This" author Debra Cohan wrote about different things that women did the day before their mastectomy.
Since I was convinced that I was going to die on the table, I wanted to make sure that Mark’s and my last night together would be special. If you watch as many movies or read as many books as I do, then you know that in fiction a person’s last night alive is a special one. So, just like John Travolta and Kara Sewick in the movie “Phnom,” we did what every couple in love does; we made our last night together a romantic one.
First, I called to the girls to tell them that I loved them because I wanted to say goodbye. Next Mark and I had a romantic but small meal (no food or drink after midnight). Then I took long candle lit bubble bath as the book told me, to give me time to say goodbye to my breast. Then we planned an evening of lovemaking. What nobody talks about in romance novels is how awkward it is to have sex is when you think that you are about to die.
From the moment that we started kissing, I felt that making love was a mistake. But I continued for my husband, because I felt that he wanted, no he needed the intimacy. I just didn't realize how weird it would be to use sex to say goodbye. The irony was that Mark felt the same way that I did. He also felt very uncomfortable but continued because he thought that I wanted the intimacy of the moment. I guess you could call that night the modern day version of “The gift of the Magi.”
Anyway during this awkward moment the phone rang, we don’t as a policy answer the phone when we are fooling around (I have had friends that do). We knew that it wasn't the kids because we had already called them, so we ignored the phone. Later Mark went down stairs to get a snack and he checked the answering machine. Beep…
“Good evening, this is Dr. Davis calling, I will be your anesthesiologist tomorrow and I wanted to touch base with you before your surgery. I am sorry that I missed you tonight and I will see you in the morning.” Beep… I could not believe it, we missed the call that I had been waiting for because of “Death Sex.” I told myself that if I lived through this, the next time that I had surgery scheduled-we would rent a movie the night before… a comedy.