A Final Pre-Operative Update

Technically speaking, it's almost one in the morning and I have to be up at six to go to the hospital for the first of day in a stay which will be somewhere in the two- to four-day range. And for the surgery itself. Mustn't forget that. But I got to thinking about this blog and how I really haven't been updating it like I should be (two back-story entries down, something like eleven to go…and no mention yet of my mindset with the procedure itself imminent) and my ability to write post-surgery can be described best by the word 'questionable.' As a quick side-note, though, I have updated the technical settings of this blog to allow my mother to post updates, which I imagine (I hope) will come throughout the day.

Which is why I'm writing now.

I figure that it doesn't really matter how much sleep I get tonight. After all, they'll be sticking a needle in my arm tomorrow morning (I hate needles) and then it'll be lights out for a few hours. And then I'd assume there will be the traditional post-anesthesia nap sometime in the afternoon. Perhaps some ginger ale to drink, too. Ginger ale after surgery is always a plus.

But…it's tomorrow (well, today, technically…it's after midnight).

My surgery is actually today. Which means that yesterday was the final day of my life when I didn't know what wearing a frame was like, the final day of my life with a crooked and frame-free leg, which, if you think about it, is kind of a bigger deal than it sounds like.

So, Natcher, you're having somewhat major life-changing surgery this morning, about seven hours, in fact. How does it feel?

I don't know. When I woke up yesterday, instead of thinking, "Oh! It's Christmas! Is my stocking in my room or has it been stowed safely downstairs away from the reach of the ever-hungry golden retriever?" I thought, "I'm having surgery tomorrow and I don't know what it will be like." And then, for the first part of the day, going downstairs for a light breakfast and examining the stocking, getting in the car to go to church, sitting in the pew, cramped by several relatively large fellow church-goers, I felt sick, I was so nervous.

As mass continued, though, I did start feeling less sick—it's amazing what Christmas carols and hymns can do. And by the end, when we were leaving, my mother offered to let us light a votive candle. With a prayer for strength and for faith, I lit my candle.

The rest of the day was fairly quiet. I tried to work through some more college applications and am mostly done now (as in, six down with the final application barely started). We opened gifts (I got new scarfs, some money for my Kindle, which should be helpful for the hospital stay, and books, both in English and Latin, which makes me very happy). We tied ribbons on the dogs. We ate dinner. We watched the Muppet Christmas Carol.

Also of note: my family more or less lives on a lake. There's a path which goes all the way around that the city paves in winter. I've made it all the way around on foot something like five or six times (maybe more). Months ago, after the surgery was scheduled but well before the seasons changed and snow arrived, I informed my father we were going to walk all the way around the lake on Christmas Day, seeing as it was my last day walking and all.

So we walked all the way around the lake.

According to my mother repeating the TV weather forecasters said, this year marked the coldest Christmas in Minnesota in something like twenty years. The temperature hovered below a toasty ten degrees or so Fahrenheit. It was cold enough that my mother offered me her warmer, longer jacket to wear and our English Cocker Spaniel, who, if he finds out anybody is going on a walk, will have several heart attacks and a stroke if not taken along, wore a jacket (since he's gained some weight recently, it barely fit). His initial enthusiasm for the walk also seemed to freeze, since less than halfway through he started heading rather decisively for home.

And, yes, it was cold outside. My cheeks, which remained uncovered throughout the walk, were still pink half an hour after coming back inside. The cold easily ate through my jeans, though my feet were protected by a pair of boots. But, really, it was my last chance to go around that lake for the next six months or so. Of course I was making it all the way around.

About the boots, though… The pair I wound up wearing was extremely loose on me. I first put on a pretty tight-fitting pair. Unfortunately, the boot was rubbing up against bone growths on my ankle, which would have made it difficult for me to make it around the lake. So, at the first available bench, my father offered to see if we could switch shoes. As it turned out, the pair I was wearing fit him okay and the pair he was wearing fit me okay and, more importantly, accommodated my ankle.

What I did not account for was a three-mile, hour-plus walk in really loose boots resulting in some fairly substantial blisters on the bottom of my feet (thankfully, really just the right foot, which will be very, very, very non-weight-bearing shortly). Since blisters are apparently cause to cancel surgeries, I'm not supposed to mention this tomorrow morning.

But still. I made it around the lake.

Considering the probable state of my mobility tomorrow, that's something.