Preparing

As Bella's birthday draws closer, so does my surgery.  My mom pointed out to me that I've always sort of had the timeline of this would happen, then that would happen, then Bella's birthday and then surgery.  Well, here we are.  And I suppose as I should have expected, the anxiety is mounting.  Surgery in and of itself doesn't scare me.  I've had two surgeries in my life (I had my tonsils out at 17 and my appendix out at 20) so it isn't the scary unknown that it can be for many people.  What is scary and unknown is the aftermath.  I have no idea what to expect from the pain, the recovery, or even the result.  I'm not a terribly vain person but I've definitely had visions of some less than ideal results of this surgery.  (To be clear, I mean the results regarding my appearance, not the results regarding eradicating the cancer.)  The honest truth is that I am scared about the cancer aspect too, a little bit anyhow.

I am focused on Bella's birthday and some wonderful out of town visitors about to join us, but my mind is starting to move ahead (as it tends to do) to what I need to do to prepare for surgery.  I need to detox my body.  I need to make sure I am not going in already "hot" (as my acupuncturist says) with bodily inflammation going on.  I also need to make sure that I don't have aches and pains elsewhere distracting my recovery.  So I will plan to eat an anti-inflammatory diet in the week prior to surgery, and visit some of my support team (acupuncture and chiropractor to be specific).  I also need to plan for the help and support I will need after surgery.  This is something that I am not excellent at as I tend to want to live in semi-denial and procrastinate this task.

Meanwhile my heart and mind continue to sit with my friend Tika.  She had her surgery yesterday.  She elected to have a double mastectomy (to just be done with it so to speak).  It was successful and showed no lymph node involvement.  So good news there.  I only hope her heart aches a little bit less each day as she deals with the loss of her husband.  She is also getting amazing amounts of support to help her spiritually and financially.  I hope her needs are met and then some.  From a selfish perspective, her loss has made me realize I should probably find a support group of some sort.  Cancer is a beast to deal with day to day and it has been a huge comfort having a friend who was going through the same basic process.  Although there is part of me that believes she might appreciate connecting with me and talking about something other than her loss, I don't think we will quite be able to laugh and be inappropriate like we used to.  Yet.

Back to the preparations for the big birthday bash.  I hope this celebration brings me the same joy that Nick's birthday did.  I could use that right now.  I do always have these little bright lights to bring me joy!  (Bella and Mia being silly girls in Costco.)