Anxious?

The biggest question I have gotten the past few days is "Are you anxious about surgery?"

Very simply put - no, I am not.

I feel I will be in very capable hands and I have a few hundred or so people praying... so what is there to be anxious or nervous about? I can say that i'm dreading the stupid IV in my hand because that isn't very pleasant but i'm not worried about the pain of my surgery site. I'm also not looking forward to being hooked up everywhere so it takes 20 minutes to get unhooked just to go to the bathroom but I became a pro at that the last time around and can cut 10 minutes from that time! ;o) The next week or two will not be very fun that's for sure but I know I will be surrounded by friends and family so the time will pass quickly.

So what did I do tonight to get prepared? I kept busy by finishing up cleaning my house. Everything is put away, dusted, vacuumed... when my house is clean and things are tidy, I feel calmer so it was important to have this done before surgery. I have the dishes scheduled to wash overnight, I took out the trash, I packed a bag to bring to the hospital and laid out my clothes (ok that may sound dumb but i'm getting up at 4:30am). I firmed up plans with my mom about the pickup time tomorrow morning and learned a private room has my name on it (thanks AP!).

So right now i'm finishing up some email, writing in my blog, eating a frozen strawberry fruit bar, and drinking some water. I have 2 more hours to eat/drink all I like before not eating solids again until Wed so I may have to find another snack! After I log off, i'm planning on reading a little of My Sister's Keeper and then trying to fall asleep early.

Tomorrow morning my alarm will ring at 4:30a and i'm sure I will hit snooze a few times before getting into the shower. Then getting the last minute things in my bag, feeding the cats, making my bed, pulling some reports for work and then heading to the hospital at 6:20am. I have to be there by 6:55am and surgery is at 8:55am (weird times i know!). Then its off to lala land while they take out the rest of my thyroid and then a lovely stay overnight at the hospital. I will be back home Wed sometime and will hopefully post an update then... don't plan on an update the day of surgery because i'm not confident in my writing ability while on morphine!

That's about it... chat at ya in a couple days!

Fight Like A Girl

Good Day

Today was a good day :) Time flew by at work, there was no phone call from the mammo peeps, i've given my prearrival info to the nurses and have a surgery time of 8:55am on Tuesday, we had a yummy potluck at work (with super yummy brownies!), and I got my good luck/get well soon gift from the department! The girls had gotten together and decided a handmade quilt would be better than flowers and they were SO right! Various people worked on it and it is absolutely beautiful! While I go hypo i'm sure I will be cold as my body functions slow so now I have a warm and beautiful quilt to wrap up in! I am so blessed to have such wonderful friends and coworkers!

Quick Update

Still waiting on results of the mammo. If i get a phone call today or tomorrow that is not good news... if I get a letter in the mail by sometime next week, that means all is normal. I'm hoping I get the letter before my completion surgery on Tuesday so I have at least a little time to enjoy the negative films!

Other than that... trying to get things wrapped up at work and taken care of at home before being off for the next 6 weeks or so.

Work has been absolutely crazy lately because we've been working through a "shared service" arrangement with our downtown group. Basically this means integrating my department with downtown's coding department. It was a loooong period of discussion where I wanted to make sure that we would all have jobs and that the transition would be mostly smooth for everyone. I was sure that my girls would all have jobs but was actually more concerned they would cut out my management position for a while! Talk about anxiety... going through cancer treatments and worrying about loss of income and benefits! Thankfully we are all keeping our jobs and I will not be transitioning until after I get back from my surgical leave so it doesn't disrupt any of my benefit coverage. Again thankful that I work for a great company with wonderful people! We have our full info/paperwork meeting this Friday so it will be interesting to see the new compensation packages offered... Then during all of this we have 2 audits going on - barf! These are the least favorite part of my job! I hate having to defend WHY we coded a patient a certain way because sometimes things are subjective and always there are thousands of rules to remember. I'm getting things done before I go so I don't worry while i'm off and i'm trying to set up my girls with a solid plan so they aren't so disrupted by my absence. Right now there aren't enough hours in the work day and i can't stay over because of the hours i need to use in my personal day! I'm excited for the surprise potluck the girls have planned for tomorrow to wish me good luck...at least i think it was supposed to be a surprise! Oops! LOL

So on to everything else i need to get done... I did laundry this past weekend (had to after not doing it for 3 wks!) but I still have to put it away - UGH! I need to unload/load/run the dishwasher, clean out the fridge, dust, vac, and just put everything away. If I don't get this done before surgery it won't be the end of the world but it will drive me nuts when i can do nothing but sit and stare at it all day! I also want to make a list of the books I have to read and decide what order i'm going to read them in... i think i have 20 or so in the lineup. I need to get my pics printed from 3 Day 2008 so I can work on my scrapbook when i'm bored or can't concentrate to read. I need to find some LID compatible recipes for bread and pasta sauces so I can find people to make me some ;) Oh and I have to get a water filter, yoga DVD (know any easy ones?), and thermometer! I will probably have some paperwork for the merger mentioned above to complete. Oh and this weekend I have a meeting at Gilda's Club, a wedding shower out of town, church... Monday i'm actually working but may decide to work from home so I can cut out my hour drive and work on my to do list instead. Everyone thinks i'm nuts for working on Monday but if my first day of my surgery leave is the day I stay overnight in the hospital, I don't have to use 40hrs of my PTO before my leave pay kicks in - crazy!

So that's basically the peek into my mind at the moment... i'm a bit scattered so i'm sure this post reads that way too! Any suggestions/thoughts/comments on any of the above?

If Anyone Is Out There...

Tomorrow I have to go for a second mammogram... wait, what?! Yup you read that right - second mammogram. I got my first one ever last week to serve as a baseline because of my increased risk factors and on Thursday I got a call back saying I needed to come back for some more views of the right side.

So if anyone is out there tonight and tomorrow morning...please pray that they find nothing and that's its only because the first films were of bad quality. Not sure how I would deal right now if I found out things were going the other way...