Okay, let's see now....

Phone the Province Newspaper (check), buy the ice packs (check), pack your bags (check), go to your appointments (check)..... oh darn, now I need a walker, and they told me yesterday I need slippers after all..... so that means yet another errand to run, but by noon today (check).... so now all I have to do is wait. Four more days; that's not too long.... or is it long enough?

I can step outside of myself and ask 'what's the big deal?' and in the last ten days there have been times when I thought I had actually, truly, succeeded.... that is until I speak to a nurse on 3-West and unbidden, out comes the question "how painful is the spinal?", or "what do other patients say about hearing the surgeon as he operates?"....

You know a funny thing happened on the way to the Forum.... I mean, the hospital... I mean, while speaking to the Anaesthetist AT the hospital....

For the first three or four days all I could think about was having a general anaesthetic and then not waking up.... I had to force myself out of the mind set that I would not wake up, to one of "of course you will, quit being melodramatic". You see, five years ago my father (who had suffered a heart attack, was 83 and had emergency open heart surgery) did NOT wake up; nor did my dear friend Sheila last August, but then again, she was almost 20 years my senior and riddled with cancer to the point her bowel had perforated multiple times.... In my mind's eye was a scale.... on the one side, my fear and on the other side, reason. Finally reason won out.... and just in time for my appointment at the hospital last week with Dr. Wong, my anaesthetist, and did he ever throw me a curve ball. "You'll be having a spinal" he calmly said, with a straight face..... as if he'd just said it was a nice day, or something equally benign. "What?" I was dumbfounded.... there I was, having struggled with demons for days, afraid I'd not wake up, preparing myself for the unthinkable, only to find I wasn't even going to sleep! Yikers..... I was so stunned I could barely think of anything to say, or more accurately, any questions to ask. I should have been prepared, though. I did read an article before seeing him that spoke of how spinals are more and more becoming the anaesthetic of choice for hip and knee replacements..... but it was like it went in one ear, and out the other....

I have now (sort of) come to terms with this news.... I mean, I can't do anything about it can I, so I might as well, huh? I've asked around. My GP told it's a breeze but was truthful in saying that due to my Fibro, I might feel it more than others. Gord, the husband of a friend who had major abdominal surgery just this past Monday and was given a spinal said it was a breeze.... and a nurse on 3-West sounded very honest when she told me she did not believe it was an issue ~ i.e. patients did not complain about it...

I will hold Dr. Wong to his word though, that he'll give me something that will take 'all my cares away'..... and I did make him promise he would have nothing to drink the night before and would make sure he was in bed nice and early :).... (I'm not kidding, btw). So I joke about it ~ out loud, and even to myself.... I'm counting on the surgery being much like most things in life ~ the fear is usually greater than the actual thing itself.

At this point, I'm starting to not even care, to be honest. I am tired beyond tired. Exhausted I think is the word. Case in point: I have two weekly pill containers. The larger one is for pills taken with breakfast, and pills taken at dinner time. The smallest one is used for first thing in the morning, and last thing at night. In the morning I take three pills ~ two Arthritis Tylenol and a Pariet, (a proton pump inhibitor). Twenty minutes before going to bed I again take two Arthritis Tylenol along with a sleeping pill. Yesterday, as I was driving an hour west to my first of three appointments, half way there I started worrying I had taken the PM pills instead of the AM pills, (i.e., I had taken a sleeping pill, that is how tired I was!) To counter my feeling of fatigue I opened the window, I put on the AC with the vent directed at my face... I cranked up the radio and started singing out loud...

The past two weeks have been brutal on me because I have been going like a mad woman trying to get everything done.... I suffer from fibromyalgia, one of the symptoms of which is sleep deprivation. Add to this the fact I am not getting proper sleep at night because of the pain I am experiencing. Even if I don't wake up, I am not resting. Dale has told me three nights in a row I have awakened him (from a different room) by crying out in pain.... So it is time... time for a new hip.... time to put this behind me and step forward, figuratively, and literally ~ time to get my life back :-).

Thirty years ago, as I was into hour 64 of labour, as I was being rushed down the hall to the delivery room I remember saying to someone ~ it could have been my sister, Anne or maybe a nurse - it doesn't matter who.... "Right now I don't care if I'm having a baby, or a monkey, I just want it to be over".... That just about sums up my feelings about this ol' hip of mine.... it's done it's best for me but no hard feelings, okay left hip, but I have to tell ya, your time is up.....

June 16 is the day after the day before...... Look out world.... I'll be ready for you!

Thanks for listening.