JP Drain Obituary...

Jackson-Pratt Drains. 14 Days, 23 hours, 10 minutes...my best estimation of the lengthy silicone embrace, medically necessary, albeit emotionally suffocating.

Daniela is now, as she exclaimed earlier this evening-drain free! Her last remaining leech deprived of it's hemoglobin nourishment was cast into a plastic wastebasket. Vampiric silicone sealed in a synthetic polymer coffin. I only wish that I could have been a witness to this unceremonious funeral. (One of Daniela's Superfriends accompanied her to the medical appointment today.)

During the past few weeks, I spent many moments ignoring, cleaning, cursing, emptying, and repositioning these drains. Aided by exhaustion, and uninhibited by sleep deprivation, I kept a list of acerbic aliases for these four horsemen of medical artifice. This list could still elicit a wince or two from a drunken sailor, I'm embarrassed to say.

So, the instant this last drain died, I should have sat at my office computer and triumphantly typed its obituary. But I didn't. I waited almost 12 hours...to say farewell. When I arrived home from work, Daniela was basking in her silicone-free status. Since Ari and Gabriela were spending the night with their paternal grandparents, we decided to go out and celebrate at a wonderful Ethiopian restaurant nearby. Hours gone by and with the Amharic aromas lingering in my mind, I finally began to write.

But after saying my peace, I confess that I feel ambivalent about my disdain for the drains. My supercilious schadenfreude seems excessive when I realize their role as conduits, not only of ire and frustration, but of more delicate emotions coaxed from me. These emotions, like the vital fluids syphoned from Daniela, contained a remediating reciprocity, a nurturing and nourishing quality that fortified our friendship. I'm glad the drains are gone, but the memory of those translucent bulbs like the Amharic aromas will linger a bit longer, and that's OK.