Sweat Pants

"Again with the sweatpants?"
"What? I'm comfortable."
"You know the message you're sending out to the world with these sweatpants? You're telling the world, 'I give up. I can't compete in normal society. I'm miserable, so I might as well be comfortable.'"
- Jerry and George, in "The Pilot"
(quote found on http://www.pkmeco.com/seinfeld/pilot.htm)

So what does it mean when you choose to only wear pajama pants? The only pants that I have worn in the past week are these exceptionally comfortable waffle pajama bottoms from Target. I now have these pants in 4 colors: turquoise, lightish purple, gray, and brown. I wear them everywhere, even to the mall in Cleveland (the brown ones), and I'll be wearing the gray pants to lunch in Columbus at what is considered a "nice" restaurant.

The rural town where I live is not known for its fashion sense. Brandon and I often joke about the clothing styles for the local youth being stuck in 1999. On OSU game days, many locals wander around town in OSU pajama pants. Many of the men in our town choose to go shirtless -- and let me add, very few of them are in the shape to be doing so. I even yelled out of my car once to one man asking him to put a shirt on (he was carrying one in his hand). Until recently, I even wondered if the man who lives across the street from us even owned a shirt other than his work shirt. Now that autumn approaches, he does seem to wear some t-shirt that may be NASCAR-related.

But I digress...

The reason behind my current fashion statement is comfort. I have a drainage tube attached to me that hopefully will be removed on Monday (although my current level of fluids is not decreasing at a rate considered good for tubal removal). All mastectomy patients have drainage tubes. I am lucky, I have only one tube. If more lymph nodes had been removed during srugery, I would have another tube. Until the tube is removed from me, I am not allowed to drive, and will continue to take antibiotics and pain meds. While I can't wait for the tube to be removed, I am fearful of the process. I am told that I will be asked to take a deep breath, and then the surgeon will just yank it out of me.