The Surgery (Part 1)...

Rewinding back to the moment I found out I needed to have surgery... As I sat there on a Tuesday afternoon in late October, trying to level my head that was swimming with racing thoughts, in the faint distance I hear the doctor ask his nurse coordinator about scheduling availability. His voice then comes in clearly as I hear him say to me, "Looks like we can get you in as early as Friday for your surgery." Friday?? FRIDAY!! Uhh, that's like 4 days away and I'm still barely processing the reality of this whole situation. Talk about a quick turn around time. I then quickly hear the nurse coordinator chime in (I assume because she saw the striking look of terror rather quickly come across my face), "Or you can go home today and talk it over with your husband, and we can schedule you for a future date next month. Either way is no problem at all." Well, that simple statement helped ease me for a brief moment, long enough to quickly process and be able to say, "Ok thanks, sounds good... I'll talk with my husband tonight and then give your office a call." The only problem was, it didn't sound good... as a matter of fact, it didn't sound good at all. I was in this crazy fog of a panic as I walked out of the hospital to my car thinking: THIS.JUST.GOT.REAL.

Well, once the initial shock wore off and after I was able to discuss everything with my calm and rational husband (seriously, thank God for him!), we crazily decided to go ahead and as Nike would say: Just Do It... Yes, I had just decided to move forward with having a major surgery in only a few days - and a surgery, may I remind you, that I had no definitive answers about what it would even entail. What the heck was I thinking??...

Well, what I was thinking was, "I want a baby darnit! So whatever it takes, right? - Might as well not prolong the inevitable." Ha...

From there, the next couple of days flew by as I coordinated with the surgical nurse to prepare for Friday. Mounds of forms to complete, pre-surgical blood work to schedule, pre-surgery phone interviews and questionnaires to complete, and then the real fun began the day before surgery. As soon as I woke up that morning, I had to start on a clear liquid diet (blah) until midnight, and then nothing to drink at all after that. The highlight of my clear liquid diet though was the Citrate of Magnesium I had to drink that afternoon to flush my system...

Bottoms Up!

The remainder of my evening consisted of many helpings of jello, chicken broth, sorbet (yum!), juice, and water. Needless to say, I went to bed feeling more than hungry that night. The next morning was go time. I woke up in good spirits, actually worked for part of the morning, and then headed to the hospital with my husband to check-in for my scheduled surgery time of 3pm. As we drove to the hospital, it all still felt rather unreal. Really, seemed just like another car ride to run an errand or something. But, once we got to the hospital, parked, and started walking in... the reality that I was about to under-go surgery slowly started to set in. And now, I started to get a lit bit nervous...