I've got too many words and have had no clue how to put them in the right order for the last few weeks.
Surgery is scheduled for 7:30 Monday morning and I am terrified. I've done the best that I can manage to get into shape for it. My bloodwork looks good. I'm a lot stronger than I was five months ago (but nowhere near what I was two years ago).
I'm scared that something will go wrong again. I'm scared that I'll hate my new body as much as I hate the current iteration (it's about the scars and the weakness and the mutilation, not about the weight). A lot of women who get reconstruction get something close to their original shape, profile, clothing size back. That's not going to happen for me. My proportions are changing drastically. I'll look like a fat frankenbarbie - no nipples, no navel, new scars (although hopefully much neater looking scars than what I have now).
Random trivia - since they are transplanting tissue including skin from my abdomen to my chest, some of those nerves will stay intact, so anything I feel on my chest will be registered as happening on my stomach for a while. They say that within six months to a year my brain will remap itself and things should feel like they are in the general vicinity of where they actually are. I'm kind of looking forward to that process in a weird science experiment way.
The last six weeks or so have been unbelievably busy. Our big annual conference at the beginning of October went well. Bob and I stayed in a hotel in the city for a week. I came home and studied an insane number of hours to take a professional certification exam (I passed on 10/13). Then I went to Vegas for another conference. I still haven't unpacked from that one. Too tired. Then I went to Healdsburg last week for a meeting. I still haven't unpacked from that one either. Too tired. And I'm not going to need any of the clothes in either suitcase until sometime in February at the earliest, so maybe they'll just sit until then.
My last day of work was Wednesday. Now I'm just trying to get the house ready for me to be comfortable in recovery. We thought we were prepared last time. There are a lot of things I learned that we can do better. And I know I won't really be prepared this time either. But at least I'll make some things easier on us.
One of the things that the surgeon wanted me to do last time was "take three 10 minute walks around the block every day", which is probably great advice if you happen to live in a flat neighborhood with blocks. We don't. We live in a four story house on a really steep hill. There's no place to walk. So on the advice of my physical therapist, we bought a really good quality recumbent exercise bike which should be taking up residence in the living room some time next week.
Tomorrow and Sunday I'll be setting up my office as a bedroom. It's where I slept last time (closer to the bathroom and kitchen than the master bedroom) but we did it in a really haphazard way last time. This time I'll move all my clothes down, organize my meds, and make room for other random stuff I didn't think I'd want or need last time.
I spent yesterday and today doing paperwork. I caught up on all the bills and got new tags for my car and finally filled out the advanced directive paperwork that I should have done a year and a half ago. Everything in the house can basically exist on autopilot for the next couple of months if I'm not up for dealing with it.
Bob's going to be a bit busier this time with his life than he was last time, but I think it's going to be good. I've got a few people lined up to babysit me so he can get out of the house to work a couple of playoff games and finish his last few classes of the semester. He's scheduled to start classes at Cal State East Bay in January, but by then I should be pretty independent when he's not around.
We were lucky in a lot of ways in the last year, his schedule was really light and he was able to go to every appointment with me and do all the caregiving/household stuff when I was unable to contribute. That was great, but it was also bad because for so long we had nothing to talk about but cancer, and really not even much to say about that since he's been here for every second of it. That's not healthy either. I am so glad he's got his own things to do that have nothing to do with me right now. It's better for both of us.
In the last week I've given in to two of my major vices - streaming dumb television and playing (and even paying for) stupid games on my phone. I did that intentionally, and I expect that's how I'll spend most of the weekend. It's just better for my head right now to have these distractions in place. It won't be fun breaking those habits again in a couple of months, but I'll jump off that bridge when I get there.
So that's it. No plans for the weekend except for low key dinner with friends the next couple of nights, finishing getting my temporary bedroom ready, and watching Netflix.
We'll be up at 4:45 and heading out the door by 5:15 Monday morning. Surgery is scheduled to start at 7:30, which based on experience means they'll actually start cutting around 9, and they have the O.R. booked for about 8 hours. (Which is long, but a lot less than I originally thought.) I'll be in the ICU for 48 hours afterward and then if everything goes well I'll be moved to a regular room at Mount Zion in San Francisco some time on Wednesday.
I've asked Bob to update my FB account for me on Monday night. Some of you with his phone number might need to nudge him to actually do it. :)
Surgery is scheduled for 7:30 Monday morning and I am terrified. I've done the best that I can manage to get into shape for it. My bloodwork looks good. I'm a lot stronger than I was five months ago (but nowhere near what I was two years ago).
I'm scared that something will go wrong again. I'm scared that I'll hate my new body as much as I hate the current iteration (it's about the scars and the weakness and the mutilation, not about the weight). A lot of women who get reconstruction get something close to their original shape, profile, clothing size back. That's not going to happen for me. My proportions are changing drastically. I'll look like a fat frankenbarbie - no nipples, no navel, new scars (although hopefully much neater looking scars than what I have now).
Random trivia - since they are transplanting tissue including skin from my abdomen to my chest, some of those nerves will stay intact, so anything I feel on my chest will be registered as happening on my stomach for a while. They say that within six months to a year my brain will remap itself and things should feel like they are in the general vicinity of where they actually are. I'm kind of looking forward to that process in a weird science experiment way.
The last six weeks or so have been unbelievably busy. Our big annual conference at the beginning of October went well. Bob and I stayed in a hotel in the city for a week. I came home and studied an insane number of hours to take a professional certification exam (I passed on 10/13). Then I went to Vegas for another conference. I still haven't unpacked from that one. Too tired. Then I went to Healdsburg last week for a meeting. I still haven't unpacked from that one either. Too tired. And I'm not going to need any of the clothes in either suitcase until sometime in February at the earliest, so maybe they'll just sit until then.
My last day of work was Wednesday. Now I'm just trying to get the house ready for me to be comfortable in recovery. We thought we were prepared last time. There are a lot of things I learned that we can do better. And I know I won't really be prepared this time either. But at least I'll make some things easier on us.
One of the things that the surgeon wanted me to do last time was "take three 10 minute walks around the block every day", which is probably great advice if you happen to live in a flat neighborhood with blocks. We don't. We live in a four story house on a really steep hill. There's no place to walk. So on the advice of my physical therapist, we bought a really good quality recumbent exercise bike which should be taking up residence in the living room some time next week.
Tomorrow and Sunday I'll be setting up my office as a bedroom. It's where I slept last time (closer to the bathroom and kitchen than the master bedroom) but we did it in a really haphazard way last time. This time I'll move all my clothes down, organize my meds, and make room for other random stuff I didn't think I'd want or need last time.
I spent yesterday and today doing paperwork. I caught up on all the bills and got new tags for my car and finally filled out the advanced directive paperwork that I should have done a year and a half ago. Everything in the house can basically exist on autopilot for the next couple of months if I'm not up for dealing with it.
Bob's going to be a bit busier this time with his life than he was last time, but I think it's going to be good. I've got a few people lined up to babysit me so he can get out of the house to work a couple of playoff games and finish his last few classes of the semester. He's scheduled to start classes at Cal State East Bay in January, but by then I should be pretty independent when he's not around.
We were lucky in a lot of ways in the last year, his schedule was really light and he was able to go to every appointment with me and do all the caregiving/household stuff when I was unable to contribute. That was great, but it was also bad because for so long we had nothing to talk about but cancer, and really not even much to say about that since he's been here for every second of it. That's not healthy either. I am so glad he's got his own things to do that have nothing to do with me right now. It's better for both of us.
In the last week I've given in to two of my major vices - streaming dumb television and playing (and even paying for) stupid games on my phone. I did that intentionally, and I expect that's how I'll spend most of the weekend. It's just better for my head right now to have these distractions in place. It won't be fun breaking those habits again in a couple of months, but I'll jump off that bridge when I get there.
So that's it. No plans for the weekend except for low key dinner with friends the next couple of nights, finishing getting my temporary bedroom ready, and watching Netflix.
We'll be up at 4:45 and heading out the door by 5:15 Monday morning. Surgery is scheduled to start at 7:30, which based on experience means they'll actually start cutting around 9, and they have the O.R. booked for about 8 hours. (Which is long, but a lot less than I originally thought.) I'll be in the ICU for 48 hours afterward and then if everything goes well I'll be moved to a regular room at Mount Zion in San Francisco some time on Wednesday.
I've asked Bob to update my FB account for me on Monday night. Some of you with his phone number might need to nudge him to actually do it. :)
