I have to go to sleep 10 times before I can wake up and check in for surgery. I guess because we have to be there so early in the morning, counting nights seems more accurate.
We are preparing for surgery the best we can. I’ve stopped taking my micro birth control pill because The Pill can increase the risk of blood clots. (It wasn’t doing us any good anyway.) He’s researching foods that best promote healing.
Cognitively, I couldn’t be more ready. I know what’s going to happen, I trust my doctor and I know this is the best thing for my family. Bring on Phase 2! Physically, my body is desperate for this help. I think my brain has forgotten what stable feels like. Stable has been replaced with “this hurts less than that.” Emotionally, I have no clue what I’m in for. There is no way to prepare myself for what 12 weeks in a wheelchair will really be like. No way to know how the medicines will make me feel or if my timetable for returning to work makes sense. Cue the support team. I know family and friends will get us through.
And they’re not waiting until surgery day to start. Good friends are coming from Des Moines on Sunday to help us pack and clean. My sister will arrive Thursday to help with packing and moving. And she’ll stay awhile — “until you’re comfortable with me not being there,” she told me yesterday by phone. My mom will get here in early September and my friends from Des Moines will be back for a long weekend in September, too.
Only 10 more nights. Eleven nights from now I’ll be in a new house and there will be metal inside me where there had been only bone. Just 11 nights and I will be on the road to recovery — a real, true recovery that will give us our life back.
Separated at Birth 