Tomorrow is d-day! In
fact in nine hours I’ll be starting surgery.
And because I know that when you get anaesthetic, you lose all sense of
time, it will be like one minute later and I’ll be done surgery. That’s pretty magical! Of course I will be in pain when I wake up
(not so magical).
Today was a busy sort of day, with meetings and trying to
get loose ends tied up in order to leave work for four weeks. And doing some cleaning up and this and
that. In fact it’s almost midnight now,
and I need to get up at 5:00. But, I
figure I’ll be asleep for a lot of the next few days, so why not stay up
late.
I just drank my last glass of water, nothing to eat or drink
after midnight for me. So that’s the
last liquid I’m sending the way of my left kidney...next time it will be someone
else drinking water and giving my kidney something to do. I guess I will have to stop thinking about it
as my kidney.
I talked to a lot of people today, on the phone, via email,
in person. People are saying such very
supportive things to me, I am very thankful.
My kids both called; one from
Saskatchewan and one from New York City. It’s
good to know people from all over are thinking about me and praying for me and
the other people in this chain.
It’s been a long process of getting to this point. All the thinking about it over the years,
then the appointments and tests, and then telling people and hearing a lot of
reactions, then all the months of waiting to get matched and scheduled. And it will all boil down to this time in the
operating room where it actually happens.
Well, there’s some adrenalin pumping here…I guess the nerves
have finally kicked in. I am nervous
about the operation, I hope it will go well.
I am nervous about how it will feel (painful is a vague term until you
are actually in it). I wonder what it
will be like to be a patient in the hospital; to have a breathing tube and
catheter (although the breathing tube will all happen when I’m under
anaesthetic), to have my abdomen inflated
and deflated. And I wonder what it will be like to have one
kidney…. Lots of unknowns.
In spite of the jitteriness about the unknowns, there is a
sense of peace about the knowns. That
this is what I want to do. That this has been and is a good decision for me,
and other people. I have great confidence
that God is with me, helping me to be a giving person. And I have great confidence in my
surgeon. By this time tomorrow I will be
on the road to recovery!