Envision It...

I can envision myself a week from today sitting in my hospital room, my husband by my side, watching movies and enjoying my pain medicine.  A week from today my prophylactic mastectomy will be behind me.  I will have jumped the first and biggest hurdle in my BRCA journey.

January has been an insane month.  Not to focus on the negative, but let’s just recap the challenges I have faced this month.

1.       Dealing with the hospital and my deductible.

2.       Dealing with insurance and my deductible.

3.       Having to pay my $2,500 deductible up front and then learning from my plastic surgeon’s office that I owe them $400 and they want it now.

4.       Getting the flu.

5.       Being nauseous from tamiflu.

6.       Coughing my lungs out.

7.       Working, even with a 101.5 temperature.

8.       Getting work caught up for while I’m out.

9.       Getting sick again with some sort of upper respiratory thing.

10.   Cough some more.  Can’t breathe.

11.   And then the drama of the Young Previvor’s Group being deleted from facebook.

As I read that list, all of those things seem so trivial.  But when you add to that a prophylactic mastectomy, things can make you a little crazy.  I’m trying to stay positive and look on the bright side.  My deductible is paid, in full.  My plastic surgeon is paid.  I’m off the tamiflu and the zpack.  All I need to do is get rid of this cough, which is (thank you, Lord) getting better each day.  Work will be there when I get back.  The show will go on.  I’m starting to believe that all of the stresses I’ve encountered this month happened because I needed something to stop me from thinking about my surgery.  Really, I’m at the point right now where I just want to get it over with.

The mama J is coming down on Monday.  I work two half days next week, then I am off on Wednesday, and then it’s surgery day!!

I had my preop at the hospital on Wednesday.  For the most part, it went well, except for my mini breakdown.  I started off at registration filling out forms and signing papers.  Then I was led upstairs to the preop area and met with two nurses.  They made me feel comfortable by making me laugh.  When I whipped out my lunch bag filled with all of the medication I am currently taking, it took the nurse about 15 minutes to enter everything.  I went from no medication a year ago, to a laundry list of it today (most of it was from my cold).

The nurse had to take my blood, and I asked her to use my right arm.  A few months ago I tried to donate blood.  The girl was new and tried to get blood from my left arm, missed my vein and was digging around inside of my arm to find it.  It hurt so bad I nearly ran out of there crying and hadn’t given any blood.  The nurse on Wednesday tried to get it from my right arm, but I moved.  And it hurt.  So another nurse took it from my left arm and was so fast and asking me questions about my family history, but everything became just mumbled to me.  Then it hit me.  I’m about to have surgery!  I never had surgery before!  I broke down and cried.  The nurse hugged me and Jason was so supportive.  I cried for just a minute.  Then I did my Jack Shepard from Lost routine and moved on.

After the nurses finished with me, I was sent down for a chest x-ray.  Since I’ve been sick, the doctor wanted to make sure that my lungs were clear.  They are!  Just need to stop this cough!!

So, I am going to enjoy this weekend with Jason and Charlie, relax, get well and prepare for next week!