Surgery tomorrow

I haven't updated for awhile.. I think I've been trying to avoid all that is going on.. I reached a point a couple weeks ago where I didn't want to deal with it anymore, and why should I? Then I realized that is probably a very normal reaction to dealing with cancer and I'm sure I'll feel it again down the road.

My surgery is tomorrow and I'm definitely feeling a little anxious. I haven't been sleeping well the last several weeks, and although I have been seeing some of my friends and family lately, I'm feeling very isolated. I'm just really tired. I want to go to sleep and wake-up and have this all be over. If only that were possible!

I have to say that I am very grateful to everyone who is praying and thinking good thoughts for me. Knowing that you are there helps me to face the next challenge. As far as surgery, I am confident in my doctors of course, and I know things will be fine. But for today, I wish I could just stay in bed and hide away from the world. I'm leaving work early this afternoon and have to go over to the medical center for the lymph node mapping. Tomorrow morning I have to go get the guide wires put in, so the surgery itself won't be until later in the morning or even early afternoon. At least I get to go home tomorrow and not have to spend the night.

It seems like there is a lot of things I have to do tonight.. stupid stuff like bring the fans in from the garage because it's going to get hot, and put the garbage in the bin because garbage day is Thursday, but I need to get it all ready to go for someone to take it out on Wednesday. I also need to find some CDs I want to listen to during surgery and convert them to mp3s and put them on my iPod. They said I could listen to music in the operating room. I'm also trying to decide if I want them to use some healing statements. I kind of do, but I feel a little silly asking them to do it. Both my surgeon and the anesthesiologist have told me that they have done it before and if I want that, they are happy to do it.

I wanted to eat lightly today, but I didn't get around to making sure that I had anything light in the house. I've decided for lunch I will have a tuna sub at Subway and soup for dinner.

I also have to remember to take my work laptop home so that I can do some work later this week or weekend to make up for the 2 days I took off last week and for any extra time I might need off next week. The bummer about this being a new job is that I don't have much sick/vacation time built up.. only 18 hours.

Last week I ended up taking off Thursday because I could not sleep the night before. I was literally wide awake the entire night. Around 5 am I sent an email to my boss saying I wasn't coming in because I had appointment in Olympia later in the day and I needed to get some sleep so I could drive.

Friday was my pre-op appointment. I was going to work at the beginning and end of the day, but it just wasn't worth it for 2-3 hours. I still spent the entire day in Seattle. The meeting at SCCA went fine. It was nice to sit down with my surgeon and talk about how the surgery will go and be able to ask questions. It was in a very relaxed atmosphere. When I went over to the hospital to meet with anesthesia, that was completely different. You are just 1 person in a long line of people coming in that day. I felt like I was being processed. I was able to connect with the anesthesiologist resident when I told him about my experience at the simulation center a couple weeks ago. So, that was something. The nurse though.. it was completely ridiculous. On a positive note, when I went over for the chest x-ray, it took about 10 minutes.. in and out. So that was good.

I'm going to wear my "hey cancer" t-shirt tomorrow as my form of protest against having cancer. Maybe that will brighten someone's day.