Almost Go-Time.

So my plans for a relatively relaxing pre-surgery day were shattered by about 9am this morning. Having not slept much throughout the night but (of course) finding myself sleeping relatively well when my alarm went off, I ended up staying in bed about 2 hours later than planned. That goal of finishing cleaning my bedroom and bathroom? Fail. That goal of posting the last few (non-essential, but still) announcements for the online course I'm teaching? Fail. That goal of finishing up a few writing projects? Total fail.

I was told to come into the hospital for pre-op labs and and MRI this morning and, having done both of those things a zillion times in the past year, I figured I'd be in and out in about an hour. Not so. They had me fully check-in and register in advance for tomorrow, which involved a quick insurance and identification check (then I thought we were done...), followed by a 70 minute medical history "interview" which was periodically interrupted for things like an EKG, a shit-ton of blood draws, and a visit from an anesthesiologist. My shockingly good and content mood this morning was squashed pretty quickly the more details I got about tomorrow. The visit with the anesthesiologist pretty much did me in -- anesthesia is probably the piece of this that is on the top of my list of fear points at the moment. Though the chick I talked to was incredibly sweet and reassuring, I hated pretty much everything she said to me. I had been told (granted, quite awhile ago) that I would be sitting for the surgery, with my head tilted forward. Instead, I will apparently be on my stomach for the entire 4-6 hour procedure. Because of this, it's pretty much 100% that I'll have some pretty significant facial swelling and potentially bruising as well. If the facial swelling is significant when surgery is done, they won't extubate me immediately (as is the norm after surgery), but rather they'll sedate me and keep the breathing tube in until the swelling goes down -- which could be a number of hours, if not overnight. Quite frankly, this freaks my shit out.

After that unexpected marathon appointment, I had to rush down for the MRI that I was already late for. Again, I've had like 6 MRIs in the past 10 months, so I'm typically pretty confident in what to expect -- buuut that would have been too easy for today, right? The nurse (who, for the record, looked like she was about 9 years old) came out to get me, brought me back (in my super sexy scrubs), sat me down, and I proceeded to explain my metal heart implant to her no less than 4 times (not kidding) with her staring at me with a thoroughly glazed-over look, repeating the phrase, "so, you can have MRIs?" Jesus. Then the best part: without saying anything, she starts putting big, puffy stickers all over my forehead and both sides of my face. In a tone that was perhaps a little more sassy than was warranted, I asked her what she was doing, given that I had never had stickers of any sort during an MRI. "Oh! It's just this thing we have to do," she said nonchalantly while pulling out a thick blue marker. "These will show up on the MRI and will help your surgeon plan his approach for the surgery. I'm just going to draw around them so they know where they go tomorrow in case they fall off tonight." Um, tonight? "Oh yeah, you'll leave these and the marker on for the rest of the day and night." Fucking seriously?

It's not a particular secret that I'm a ridiculously self-conscious person, so walking around with eight round stickers with blue marker outlining on my face...? Yeah. FML. With everything that's about to go down in the next day, this is the moment when I really had to work hard not to cry. (Ridic.) The MRI was a total of about 15 minutes (as opposed to my normal 45-60 minutes), and she pumped me full of the contrast dye at the very beginning, so I got the perk of feeling nauseated the entire time I was in the tube, rather than just at the end (can you tell I'm feeling particularly pitiful and negative tonight? Word.). Yesterday I posted something about being a little worried that the cyst would have shrunk since my last scan, thus complicating the surgery process (the bigger it is, the easier it will be for him to remove..... [Em and Som, calm down with the TWSS]). Well, the might-as-well-still-be-a-fetus-you're-so-young nurse came in when my scan was done and exclaimed, "Holy crap that's a big cyst".... so apparently shrinkage isn't something I need to be worried about at this point.

Then came the best part: walking out into the MRI waiting area and then through the main hospital lobby, with my stickers. So many stares. A couple sympathetic looks. Several children pointed. One child screamed in terror. (Okay, maybe that last one didn't happen, but I felt like it might.) The only redeeming grace of that moment was when I walked up to the Starbucks in the hospital lobby to grab a bottle of water -- I was clearly trying to hide as many of the stickers as I could (it's a rare occurrence, but oh how I wish I had bangs right now), clearly not making eye contact, and probably pretty obviously trying not to cry. The woman behind the counter gave me a nod of approval and said, "You know, it's really kinda cool actually. Sort of looks like a Lady Gaga costume." Nicely played, barista. Nicely played.

My dad and stepmom were delayed getting in (apparently not great weather in Denver, where they connected), so I went home for a little bit instead of straight to the airport, felt sorry for myself for a few minutes, and then left to get them at the airport. The rest of the afternoon has been spent at one of my favorite little restaurants (Cucina in the Aves for you SLC folk), running errands, and so on.

From about 1:30 this afternoon on, I've officially been in the anxiety/freak-out/miserable stage of all of this. I am so tired of thinking about this and talking about it and playing out ten million different scenarios in my head. I just want to go and get it over with and wake up tomorrow afternoon knowing that, whatever obstacles are ahead, the procedure itself is over.

I'm finding that one of the most challenging aspects of all of this is trusting that the people who will be involved in the surgery tomorrow actually know what they're doing. Because this is all a first for me, it's hard to remember that it isn't a first for them. Before my heart procedure this summer, I was often caught describing the device they were going to use to close my ASD as "a random piece of metal" -- and I was continually, gently, reminded that the device wasn't actually a paper clip and a piece of leftover fabric, but instead a very well- and carefully-developed and -tested piece of medical technology that had been used repeatedly and shown positive results. Similarly, I've found myself visualizing my surgery and seeing things like a surgeon all done-up in his scrubs, entering my brain with a butter knife and a flashlight. I keep having to remind myself that though this is my first brain surgery, my surgeon has done this many a time before. Though this is my first time having general anesthesia, the anesthesiologist has administered these medications to hundreds of people.

As hard as it is, I've been calmly reminded over the past couple days that one of the biggest shifts I need to make between now and tomorrow morning is seeing this whole production for its healing properties instead of its potential for damage. Recovering from this is going to suck beyond explanation, but there's a chance that I'll feel so much better afterwards than I have for the past six years. These people know what they're doing and I just have to find it in myself (somewhere) to trust that, and to trust that whatever outcome we end up with, it is what it is and we'll go from there. That's exceedingly hard for me to even type, let alone live, given the raging control freak that I am, but this is one of those situations where I really just don't have any other options at this point.

The most positive piece of today was early this morning when my phone rang and it came up as an unknown number, which I typically don't answer. I went ahead and answered it and it was my neurosurgeon (not his nurse, but the surgeon himself) who just said that, since he and I hadn't spoken directly since I decided to come back to Utah, he wanted to call and "check in" on me -- he asked how I was doing, if I was ready, and if I had any other questions I needed him to answer before tomorrow. Holy hell, right? I was impressed, to say the least. The primary question I had for him at that point was the "what are you doing to my skull" inquiry -- it wasn't at all the answer I was hoping for, but apparently he's planning on taking out a 3-inch piece of my skull for the surgery. That's all I'm going to say about that since it's gross to think about. Either way, I was glad to touch base with him this morning and the fact that he called me totally unannounced like that further cemented my certainty that coming back here was absolutely the right decision.

So that's where things are at the moment. Tomorrow is the day and I'm simultaneously completely scared out of my goddamn mind and also so fucking sick of waiting -- I just want to go and get this started (and finished) and be done with it. I feel like I'm going to explode right now and am doing my best to keep myself distracted.

I have to be at the hospital at 6am tomorrow morning and the surgery is set to start at 7:30am (so, 9:30am Michigan time). It's supposed to take 4-6 hours, and then I imagine it'll take me awhile to wake up. I'm hoping that my stepmom Celia and/or my BFF Emilie will do at least a couple blog updates throughout the day, but for sure one of them will post something in the late afternoon confirming or denying my state of aliveness.

Cross fingers, toes, eyes, arms, legs, braid your hair... send good vibes... think good thoughts... pray... whatever it is that works for you. Hopefully the next time I post, it'll be some story about how ridiculously awesome pain medication is and how the first thing I said when I was waking up from surgery was "that's what she said."