Days before ..

The weekend before surgery was one of the most hectic and fun weekends of my life. Friday night I went out with Michael and we partied hard. Saturday PT2 and Rice flew in. We had dinner with Mr and Mrs A and then I went out and partied some more with a group from school. Sunday I went to church then Rice came over and made the best dinner ever – chicken (dusted with smoked paprika, cooked in bacon fat, with apricots and dates), calamari and orzo. Yummerific.

Sunday night I think I relaxed a bit and got a few chores out the way – not enough though. Monday I had an anesthesia clearance appointment. I was extremely worried about this. I had people flying in to see me and everyone praying and pulling for me. What if they found something in my blood work that could prevent surgery? What if? What if?

At the appointment they went over a living will with me – S C A R Y S T U F F and then drew some blood for blood typing and cross matching. I also had to give a urine sample so they could do another pregnancy test. I had done one at my pre-op appointment on April 5 but they needed results that were within 10 days of the surgery.

After that, I went to lunch with Natalie and PT2 then took a nap before heading to the airport to pick up my mother. We left the airport and headed straight to the mall – my mother is a shopaholic. After the mall, we came home and had dinner and tried to relax.

Tuesday, the plan was to head to campus, get some stuff done there then head to the pharmacy and grocery store. Laundry was on the to-do list but it never got done. Tuesday night Natalie came over and cooked curry chicken, stew chicken, turkey, rice and mashed potatoes. My plan was to cook a lot of food and freeze it. I didn’t want my mother to have to worry about cooking while I was in the hospital. Additionally, if I needed a lot of care when I got out, making meals would be one less thing for her to worry about.

After dinner, MH came to visit. MH has a name from my old blog. I need to look through my archives and retrieve it. I cant think of anything that it could be right now. He almost cried and almost made me cry. It was a touching visit. Later, Michael called and said he was outside. That was a surprise. I didn’t expect him to come over. Now, here is a sidenote. Now this shouldn’t be a sidenote but alas I am in rambling mode so it is. At my anesthesia clearance appointment, I was given an antiseptic (2% chlorexidine gluconate) to shower with on the night before and on the morning of surgery. There were strict instructions that it shouldn’t touch my face, hair or genitals. That made me a bit curious. It is brain surgery, after all; you would think they would give me something to wash my hair with also. I remember reading someone else’s blog where he mentioned having to wash his hair with the antiseptic.

My mother, Natalie, PT2 and I had a big laugh about this antiseptic. I needed to be at the hospital by 6am. That meant leaving home by 5:30 which meant waking up by 4:30/5:00. I wasn’t going to go to bed before midnight so that meant showering around 11:30pm and then waking up at 4:30 and taking a second shower with the antiseptic. I love taking showers but seriously, who the hell wants to shower at 11pm, jump in bed and then shower 5 hours later? Nobody apparently, because they all refused to stand in solidarity and do the multiple showers with me. Anyway, that was side note because I was in the middle of my shower when Michael sent the text to say he was outside.