surgery

Well, another new experience before my 40th birthday. Stay awake for a minor surgery. This is only my second surgery ever; the first one I went under for. So, being completely alert this time was quite interesting.

I felt very calm the whole time leading up to the procedure. At one point Mr. and I got separated as he took care of billing and they led me off to prep for surgery. But then they wanted him there, and I didn't know how to get ahold of him, and he didn't know where I had gone. Briefly I felt frustration and worry begin to rise, but then I remembered that Jesus was there with me. I seemed to hear Him say, "You don't have to be in control. I am." And He was right. And there wasn't anything I could do about it anyway. And things came together just fine. We found each other and got to visit a bit and give big hugs and good good-byes before I went off for the final prep. Nice.

While I was in the room waiting to go into surgery, I heard other patients there doing the same. But they were in various states of anxiety. Our beds were all near each other, but we couldn't see anyone, because they had drawn curtains around each of us. One rather loud man hummed and sang and asked the nurses lots of questions and asked for a paper and rattled the pages and tossed in his bed restlessly. He was a bundle of nervous energy.

When he was wheeled away they replaced him with a woman. I could tell she was Aussie from her accent. She was actually a nurse by vocation so she dealt with the situation by trying to control it. She didn't tell the nurses what to do, exactly, but let them know that she knew how things should be done. She was also diagnosing her own symptoms. (When they took her blood pressure she told them ahead of time that it would be high, because she was nervous. When they had trouble finding a vein for an IV, she told them it was hard because she was dehydrated.)

I was sorry that they were all so scared. As I looked at the white curtains surrounding me, I realized that, with a bit of imagination, they could pass for the drooping branches of a weeping willow surrounding me. Of course. That special place I go to hang out quietly with Jesus. And suddenly I was in surroundings that were very familiar and comforting. We just talked. I cried at one point, but it was because of the topic that I was "discussing" with Jesus. But the strangeness and scariness of the hospital just melted away. I passed a good hour that way.

As I said, being awake for the surgery was fascinating. The shots in my chin for the local anesthetic were the most painful part. The most disturbing part was feeling tugging and pulling, even though everything was numb and I didn't have any pain. Made me wonder what all was going on down there. (They wrapped a heavy cloth over my eyes, so I couldn't see anything.) And I actually wanted to giggle at one point because as the doctor was putting in the stitches, the loose end of the thread tickled my nose. (Lots of stitches under the skin, and 10 on the top. Must have been a rather large incision.)

The doctor was very kind. Although he was a plastic surgeon he warned me ahead of time that he would not be able to avoid scarring completely. He wanted to be aggressive to be sure to get all the cancer out. I appreciated his candor. I will follow up with him on Monday.

So, the two most challenging things since then have been eating and laughing. It is hard to eat when you are trying to avoid moving your chin. Did you realize how active a chin is in the chewing motion? Also, I can't open my mouth very wide, so I kept dropping food and dribbling soup down my bandages.

Then, Mr., trying to cheer me up, popped in one of our favorite TV shows to watch. But we had to turn it off before we were 5 minutes into it. It made me laugh, but laughing made my chin really hurt, and the more I tried to stop laughing, the harder I actually laughed, which increased the pain in my chin. Which, believe it or not, also made me want to laugh.

So, anyway. That's it. I really don't feel bad at all as long as I only drink milk shakes and avoid laughing. ;-)