We are down to no days to go…only 6 hours sleep and a wake up…and the surgery adventure begins!!  After coming through a landslide of extensive to-do lists (oh, you will get to know my penchant for a good list well!!), culminating events (usually involving a swirl of emotions and send-offs), intimidating pre-op exams, a brush with pre-surgery illness and a huge roller coaster of emotions (both mine and everyone around me) – I have landed in a place of readiness.

Does this mean that I know what is about to happen?  Not really.  Probably not at all.  But I’m as ready as I can be to go into it.

Does this mean that I am no longer nervous?  No.  Nervous!  But also excited to be here – finally!

Does this mean that I have a grand plan for my post-surgery time?  Nope!  I have a good set of guidelines, one of which is too avoid a specific grand plan.

Does this mean that I have control-freaked my way into a private utopia where only crossed “t”s and dotted “i”s dwell in perfect harmony and it is a beautiful site to behold?  Oh you damn well betcha!!!!

I mean, please, I can’t abandon all my old ways!  There’s no need to chastise me – just nod, smile and tell me I’m cute.  Please?

To document a few things about the lead-up to surgery:

I had the pre-op with my primary care physician first who did a bunch of bloodwork, an EKG and assessed my general health then cleared me for surgery.  In his words, this surgery is not quite on the low-risk list (I think because of the length and the amount of incision), but not on the high risk list of brain and heart surgery, etc.  The biggest concerns are infection and bleeding and both are well managed before and throughout the process.  He said that I could not be in better health going into the surgery and so my risk should be very low.

Then came the pre-op with the surgeon – mostly me asking a huge amount of questions and then signing the informed consents forms.  The nurse went through how the drains will work and how I will need to care and record them – it shouldn’t be messy or anything, but I have to say I’m a little squeamish about that.  And the care of the incisions (of which there are miles) is just going to take patience and layers of process.  Every day, we take off the binder and surgical bra and all the dressing, rinse in the shower, apply antibiotic, dress with pads, then underwear/bra, then protective tank top, then the abdominal binder – and all this with 6 drain tubes to manage.  Then, I believe, it will likely be time for a midnight snack and up and do it again?!

Some sobering realities from the surgeon – binder and bra are worn 24/7 for 6 weeks.  Won’t drive for 3+ (until I’m comfortable making a sudden move).  Drains may be in for 3 or more weeks – at least some of them.  It’s going to hurt to stand straight and I’m not going to want to, but then my back will start to hurt, so I’ll decide that I’d better work on standing up straight.

Switching over to the emotional lead-up…it so hard to not be struck by the bigness, risk, and just the mortality of a 10-hour surgery.  Combine that with the fact that this is a finishing move on a 10-year epic march and coming out of the most vulnerable state that I have ever been in – physically or emotionally – over the last 7 months…well, it’s hard for me not to be struck by that and it’s impossible that all those around me won’t respond from that place.  I have had just a staggering amount of emotion focused on me.  Mostly in love, care, support , hope and appreciation.  Also tinged with fear and risk and what ifs.  So many amazing things have been said to me and there are so many people sending their thoughts and energy in my direction it’s impossible not to think that it makes a difference!

Part of my being ready, though, was also to have to make a small climb out of the bigness of all this emotion.  Let the excitement back in and breathe a little lighter than it feels in the middle of that.  I can’t take the worry away from you all, but I can learn how to lean on where it comes from rather than let it stack my own worries higher.

And somehow, as I write this last thing before trying for 5 1/2 hours sleep – sitting in my all-clean bed, with my clean clothes and my Hibiclens antiseptically scrubbed body – looking at my completely checked and allocated to-do list – thinking about all the conversations and exchanges with my community of people — somehow, I know that I have become ready.   I am in a state of readiness.  Doesn’t matter what for.  Ready is ready.