Wearing the trousers

This op will be no piece of cake.  No-one goes into this, thinking it will be easy.  Or if they do, they are a fool.  But there are layers and layers of issues that seem to be rearing their ugly heads.  The latest is an exchange with my unempathetic and brusque boss.  I have just found out that I will have to wear surgical stockings for 10 days to a fortnight after the op.  I am due back in work on the 9^th day post op.  It will be the middle of June.  I’m assuming it will be hot – although frankly, who knows.  I wear mostly midi/a-line skirts to work, with thin, knitted knitwear (rather than blouses which never really work over my comedy bosom).  I’m going to have to buy trousers for this 1-5 day period – something I resent on the whole cost-per-wear thing.  And since I look even more like humpty dumpty in trousers.  I wear jeans – a lot.  But they’re different somehow.  I am not even sure if I have sufficient (4) tunics of the blouse variety which will be required to cover my stomach and bum as best as is possible.  It’s a whole shopping trip.  A whole distress-purchase, feeling crappy about myself stressful event.

I let my boss know that I had to wear the stockings and that I’d have to wear trousers  but would make every effort not to be scruffy.  In retrospect, dear Reader, this was stupid.  She is a friend – well, perhaps less than I thought she was once she came to work here – but she’s not the caring, compassionate type.  She is as abrasive as sandpaper and extremely open with her scorn, which can be very funny but is less amusing when you need a bit of moral support.  She is an excellent problem solver – I kind of thought she’d come up with a brilliant wheeze for working around this (say, for instance, saying I could work from home).  Instead she told me briskly that there is no reason not to be smart, pointing out that a colleague of ours always wears trousers.  Yes.  Yes, she does.  She wears them with heels and neat little blouses – because she is very slim.  It’s a whole world away from my own situation.  The boss’s considered opinion is that I should start wearing trousers now, to get used to the idea.  Sigh.