Soooooo, big news. (No, alas, not THAT big...). I finally got my laparoscopic surgery date set. D-day is May 18th at 1:00PM.
Oh good God.
The call came a week ago. I suppose it was partly because it was Thomas' birthday week and I was already suffering from a hefty dose of mental angst, but hearing the date - writing it down in ink - made me feel thoroughly light-headed and decidedly sick to my stomach. For quite some time.
Surgery confirmed.
SURGERY!!
After the last one (which ended so poorly in so many ways), I'm just a wee bit gun-shy. After much deep soul searching and introspection I've determined that it's not the surgery itself that's freaking me out (I will, after all, be asleep through it this time, not to mention the fact that there's absolutely no possible way that there will be a dead baby at the end of it). No, it's the very idea of being in a hospital again that has me shaking in my boots.
The sights, the sounds, the smells - putting myself in the hands of brusk, busy nurses and doctors who won't understand what I've been through and therefore can't possibly fathom my anxiety. Being in an operating room. Remembering. Being in a recovery room. Remembering - remembering, remembering, remembering.
It has to be done. I know I'll regret it if I don't. But oh Lord, I have no idea how I'm going to muster up the necessary courage.
Thank goodness My Beloved will be there with me, even though it sickens me to have to put him through this (stupid fucking body that won't fucking work!!!!). As hard as it was going through what I did when we lost Thomas, it had to be a thousand times worse for him because he had to helplessly watch me physically suffer - and he had to worry too. Which he did. A lot. A whole lot, poor boy.
The night the nurses and the OB came flying into my room to respond to my dangerously high blood pressure and rising fever (neither of which I was aware of, in such a stupor was I) my poor, poor Beloved nearly had a stroke. He had been asleep on an awful make-shift cot at the end of my hospital bed and he flew out of it like a man on fire, his face drained of colour and his eyes literally popping out of his head.
He was terrified. He'd lost his son two days earlier and, for the second time, thought he was going to lose his wife too.
What hell must that have been? It makes me want to cry just thinking about it. Remembering.
See? It's the remembering bit that does me in.
I know the lap is a very quick, very simple and very minor surgery, but nothing minor has ever happened to us at the hospital and wrapping my head around this is going to be very hard.
Even now just writing about it I'm feeling a little woozy.
Oy. This is so not good.
5 comments:
I am going to be one of those people you hate for a moment...please forgive me.
Try to remember that what happened to you was the exception and not the rule. Statistically, you are submitting to a safe procedure. I know it's hard to remember that the odds are in your favor when you've come out on the losing end a time or two, but the odds are in your favor. Try to hang on to that. OK?
I understand that it's scary whilst being something you have to do. But I am glad that you have at last got the date. You WILL get through it.
And I am also moved when I think of my husband worrying about me as well after my son died. I didn't have surgery like you did, but I think he did think I was going to harm myself for the first few weeks.
Ummm, when I was afraid to go in for my lap, or any surgery, I spoke to my Doc and they had someone speak to me ahead of time, and help me through it.
You have the time to work through it, plus maybe he could prescribe some lovely anti-anxiety meds ahead of time so the day before and the day of surgery will be easier?
I am glad to hear that the date is set for your surgery. Of course I wish you didn't have to have it at all, but I know that it will be so good to have it taken care of.
I completely understand how you feel. I had retained placental tissue after William's birth and was scheduled for a D&C (it took almost two months for this to be figured out...quite an awful story, really, but I won't get into it here). My doctor agreed to do "one last u/s" just before the surgery. I not only had myself convinced that the surgery would have to happen (no good news comes in the hospital) but I was also pretty sure that it would all end tragically somehow. To my complete shock, I got the "all clear" and the surgery was cancelled.
This felt like a tiny turning point for me--to have something turn out well.
I believe whole heartedly that all will be well for you, too.
I remember groggily asking someone to stay with my husband as they wheeled me away - and hearing the doctor laugh (in a shocked, not dismissive way), "She's worried about her husband!" I guess that's love, huh?
At least, at least we have that. I'm glad as well that you finally have the date. I'll be thinking of you, and your Beloved then.
Thanks so much for your response to my post yesterday - for the first time ever I actually FELT the warmth of an online hug.
{{{{HUGS}}}} to you
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