One Month To Go Mark

From the moment I woke up this morning, I was very aware that today was March 26th. As I lay there, I wondered...what would I be doing at this exact time (5:30 a.m.) one month from now? Would I be on my way to the hospital to check in? Would I already be there waiting? How would I be feeling? Nervous or petrified? How will I do knowing that Dan will be with Cayden just prior to surgery? Since I am checking in at the adult side of Stanford, will I even get to see Cayden before we both go under? I've thought about that one a lot. I want to be able to be with him for a bit before it's time for the big event. I suspect Cayden may have to go into the hospital the night before to receive both platelet and fresh frozen plasma transfusions prior to surgery. This was pretty much par for the course while he was both at Mary Bridge and Stanford the last time. His spleen traps a lot of the platelets, so his platelet count is about 1/3 of a normal person's count, which happens to be much better than it was prior to his vascular surgery in February. What this means for him is that he has a hard time clotting, which, as one could imagine, is not a good thing when going into a major surgery.

You know, I really haven't had much experience with surgery, wisdom teeth taken out and a ruptured ovarian cyst last year (no, not at the same time!), but what I do remember is that I start shaking uncontrollably before they give me the anesthesia in my IV. I'm thinking an anti-anxiety med might be in order!

On the 19th, I have my appointment with my surgeon, Dr. Esquivel, who happens to be the head of the entire liver transplant program. On my "itinerary" it says that this is the time to ask the surgeon specific questions about the actual surgery. First of all, I have to laugh at the reference to "itinerary". To me, a big travel fan and honeymoon planner on the side, an itinerary implies that you are going on a trip and should be doing something fun...hmmmm, surgery prep, fun? I just can't wrap my brain around that one. Anyway, I haven't decided how much specific information I really want to know. I like to think that I do much better when I have ALL of the information, I'm thinking in this case, less info might be better for me (see my post regarding to my "squeamishness"). We'll see about my state of mind when the time comes. I'll get back to you on the 19th and let you know what I decided to ask and what I decided to leave a mystery!

I've vowed to myself that I will do nothing school-wise tomorrow. My next week is so full of school stuff. I know all my school friends are now on Spring Break mode, but I already stayed in the building until after 6 tonight trying to get organized, so I think a day off is definitely in order.

That's it for tonight!