'Twas the Night Before Surgery...

Hello everyone! Tonight is the night before surgery, and I'm a little jittery. I wanted to update my blog before surgery, though, in case it's a while before I get back here. I just realized that I never got my Mexico photos up. Sheesh. But I have been a little busy...

Let's see. I went skiing on Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday after hearing that I might not be able to ski for a while. Even though I could maybe ski groomers after three weeks, I think I'll just wait until I can ski whatever I want. It's just too tempting; I know if I went up with the intentions of skiing groomers, I would somehow make my way over to the moguls. So wait I will. And allow some healing to come to this poor little body of mine.

I had sushi for dinner tonight for the first time in MONTHS! It was great! The spicy stuff still hurts my tongue, but it was well worth it. Mmmmmm yum!

Last night I had this ridiculous dream. First off, I forgot to go to the pre-op part of tomorrow and just showed up for the surgery. Instead of not eating after midnight, I had eaten a granola bar and a cheeseburger. And I had forgotten my films in my car in Fort Collins, to which only I had the keys. What a mess.

I am getting REALLY tired of feeling under par. I realized that since my last treatment, I haven't had a single day where I felt really good. I've had a cold wandering in the wings for the past week or so, and now I feel downright sick. It's not awful, and I did call the surgeon's office to see if it's OK. They said they'd reassess tomorrow, but that the surgery is still on. Thank God! Even though I'm very nervous and scared for tomorrow, I don't want to postpone. But with surgery, I'm sure I won't be feeling top notch for a while, and then not too long after I'll be starting radiation. I just have no clue as to when I get to feel GOOD, or even GREAT, again. It's a bummer (to say the least) to feel icky all the time. Tired. Sick. 75% of normal. Downright yucky.

"I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired" would be a good motto for me.

I spent the day today trying to feel decent and getting things ready for surgery and recovery. I shopped for food, picked up my prescriptions (I've been to the pharmacy more times in the past 6 months than in my entire life, I think) and packed my things for tomorrow. It's going to be a really long day-- we'll leave Fort Collins at 7:30 for my pre-op stuff at 9:30. And surgery is scheduled for 1:15 or something. That should last an hour to an hour and a half from what I've heard, and then an hour or two for recovery. Then we trek back home, and hopefully get there by 6:00. Oy!

I was so happy to finally have a surgery date and to know for sure what my surgery was going to be. And while yes, that is nice, I am now feeling anxious and scared. I don't know why; I charged into chemo like I owned the place. I think it's because I haven't experienced much pain in my life (and for that I am blessed), and that worries me. And I really would like to be active again now that my body is on the mend, but I have to wait to be healed. And I am not looking forward to having a surgical drain hanging out of my body, and having to measure whatever fluid comes out of the wound. (Ew.) And I just heard from a friend (who happens to be a surgeon) that if the surgeon makes her incision around my nipple, I will lose feeling in it. That better not be true. And after this surgery, I may be disfigured to an unknown extent. And most of all-- tomorrow I will know if there's cancer in my lymph nodes. While I have embraced any and all knowledge and information regarding me and this dumb cancer, I face the answer to the lymph node question with trepidation. I am very VERY afraid to have cancer in my nodes.

Mostly, I am tired of the cancer stuff. I see myself as having finished "the hard part." But there's still about 8 more weeks of stuff, and then after that I suppose I'm supposed to piece my messy life back together. I want to go back to how my life was and be happy with it, but I worry that since I am not the same person I was just 6 months ago, will I still enjoy it? Cancer provides more questions than answers. I guess what I really want is to feel "normal" again; not tired, not anxious, not in pain, not weak.

What I need to do is somehow force myself to realize that tomorrow is another major step in the right direction. A step towards healing. A step that physically forces cancer out my body. A step towards the future and leaving this miserable excuse for a twenty-something's life in the past.

Regardless of my feelings, however, tomorrow I WILL have surgery (unless for some reason they think I'm too sick or something). And I'm sure in about a week I will look back and say to myself, "well, that really wasn't so bad." Luckily for me, I have the type of memory that is able to forget a lot of the bad stuff. Plus, I do have a sneaking suspicion that I'm just being a big baby about it all.

OK surgery. Ready or not, here I come. Wish me luck!