t minus twenty hours

I woke up at 6:30, my surgical arm uncomfortable, and spent a while tossing and turning, hoping that I might find sleep again through the mild pain and aggressive nerves fluttering in my stomach. It's interesting how that works - the second I am conscious, they kick in. With a deep tickle churning in my guts, sleep comes haltingly to me. I am nervous to the point of needing a word more forceful than nervous or anxious because those words feel right for preparing to give a speech or ask for a raise. Waiting for this surgery feels like something else entirely. I know I will be fine, but the particulars of the surgery itself are crazy interesting (Science - shit's amazing) but strange and scary. Parts of me will be discarded, others sent for study by doctors and doctors in training. The contents of my breast is to be sliced and passed around, and I'm glad that this is the case, but it isn't a scenario for which one can be emotionally primed. It isn't like giving a speech at all.
Tomorrow we are due to check in to the hospital at 5:30am. I will meet my new surgeon (explanation after the jump), my plastic surgeon will draw all over my sleepy naked self - a map for my rearranging. Nurses will come throughout the two-hour prep time to ask me my name, whether or not I have asthma, hypertension, or bleeding disorders just in case the answers have changed in between their visits to my bedside. At 7:30 I will be wheeled into the operating room where I will stay for 10-12 hours while incredible medical feats, like the sewing together of blood vessels under a microscope, are undertaken. I don't actually feel scared about living through the surgery, but the reactionary part of my brain is ticking - it's possible - a fact that is reinforced by being instructed to bring a Designation of Patient Advocate form (instructions for Jason and the medical staff in case I end up in a vegetative state or die). Last night as we drove home from the wedding I had a piercing sort of thought that I kept to myself. When we moved into this house, Jason took out a life insurance policy. It seemed a little morbid to me, but I was won over to its sweetness - he so hated the idea of something catastrophic leaving me in a lurch. I appreciated it, looked over my own meager budget, and said "some other year." Now, not because I think we will need it, but because there is a glimmer of the possibility, I wish I had been so practical about my love for him.
Instead, I am thawing a slice of our wedding cake that he may or may not know was saved so that we can celebrate our first wedding anniversary, one day premature. 


*Friday morning at 8:03 my phone rang; my surgeon's nurse was calling to tell me that he had "something very important to do Monday morning" and he could not do my surgery. I could reschedule and wait 6 weeks to have surgery with him, or have the operation completed by a different surgeon. After an enormously frustrating and stressful day, I was able to at least talk to the new surgeon and have my concerns about her level of experience allayed, so everything is ok now. But seriously, most of Friday was nightmarishly stressful and I am mad at my first surgeon for how he handled the situation because it all stemmed from his failure to communicate with his scheduler and he couldn't even be bothered to be the one to call me about the very sudden change and he was very unapologetic.