Two Weeks from Tonight
Two weeks from now, I will be lying in a bed in a hotel room, tossing and turning and watching the minutes creep by on the clock while I console myself with the thought that I will have plenty of time to sleep while the surgery is underway.
The meal that I forced myself to eat at the restaurant will feel like a brick in my stomach, and I will find myself wishing that I hadn't even tried to digest food. At the same time, the admonition of "no food or drink after midnight" will provoke within me a panicky urge for both.
Ultimately, the night will pass and the morning will bring with it the early, hasty departure for the hospital. Once I've checked in there, I will change into a bare-butt special and place my folded clothes into a "patient's belongings" bag. Don will kiss me as a I cry quietly, and then he will head for the waiting room pushing my empty wheelchair and carrying my eyeglasses in his shirt pocket. Once there, he will drink the first of many, many cups of coffee as he settles into an easy chair to pass the long, slow, agonizing hours that I will mercifully will not remember.
After an hour of prep, 8-or-so hours of surgery, and an hour of vomiting (and wiggling my toes, please, dear God, please) in the recovery room, I will ask for my family and Don will reappear, my glasses in hand (long story -- I gave him a very hard time when he rushed to me after one surgery without them; hey, I wasn't in my right mind, and besides, I can't see a thing with my glasses!); he will be accompanied by Mom and Dad. There is no better feeling than the overwhelming comfort of seeing them there, my husband and my parents, after the ordeal is behind me.
And, with that, surgery #15 will become a memory, a story to be relayed over and over to the sympathetic ears of well-wishers. I will begin -- again -- the long climb out of the hole, otherwise known as recovery.
It is a journey that I know so well, and maybe the intimate knowledge of what lies ahead makes it harder to face. I dread the weakness, the grogginess, the nausea, and, of course, the pain. I dread the way it takes me days to feel like I belong in the world again. Most of all, I dread the homesickness for my children and my home that swells over me in suffocating waves of longing.
I just want to get this behind me!
The meal that I forced myself to eat at the restaurant will feel like a brick in my stomach, and I will find myself wishing that I hadn't even tried to digest food. At the same time, the admonition of "no food or drink after midnight" will provoke within me a panicky urge for both.
Ultimately, the night will pass and the morning will bring with it the early, hasty departure for the hospital. Once I've checked in there, I will change into a bare-butt special and place my folded clothes into a "patient's belongings" bag. Don will kiss me as a I cry quietly, and then he will head for the waiting room pushing my empty wheelchair and carrying my eyeglasses in his shirt pocket. Once there, he will drink the first of many, many cups of coffee as he settles into an easy chair to pass the long, slow, agonizing hours that I will mercifully will not remember.
After an hour of prep, 8-or-so hours of surgery, and an hour of vomiting (and wiggling my toes, please, dear God, please) in the recovery room, I will ask for my family and Don will reappear, my glasses in hand (long story -- I gave him a very hard time when he rushed to me after one surgery without them; hey, I wasn't in my right mind, and besides, I can't see a thing with my glasses!); he will be accompanied by Mom and Dad. There is no better feeling than the overwhelming comfort of seeing them there, my husband and my parents, after the ordeal is behind me.
And, with that, surgery #15 will become a memory, a story to be relayed over and over to the sympathetic ears of well-wishers. I will begin -- again -- the long climb out of the hole, otherwise known as recovery.
It is a journey that I know so well, and maybe the intimate knowledge of what lies ahead makes it harder to face. I dread the weakness, the grogginess, the nausea, and, of course, the pain. I dread the way it takes me days to feel like I belong in the world again. Most of all, I dread the homesickness for my children and my home that swells over me in suffocating waves of longing.
I just want to get this behind me!
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