A Day to Chill (mostly)

Officially done with all of our pre-op appointments, we had just Cayden's morning session of school and his blood draw at the lab to deal with today. Even though Cayden has only been at the hospital school for 5 days, as we met Cayden at 11:30 when they dismissed, all of the staff were wishing Cayden well for his surgery. I love the teachers and staff at the hospital school. Being a teacher is hard enough, I can certainly speak from first hand experience, but what a tough job that must be.

Down to floor one and over to the Stanford Lab. After waiting about 30 minutes for Cayden's name to be called at the lab, I began to wonder if they had given all the phlebotomists either lunch break at the same time or an early start to their weekend. There were only two other people waiting when we arrived, so a 30 minute wait at a big hospital like Stanford seemed downright silly.

With Cayden's 7 vials of blood drawn, we were outta there. The sun was shining and we were ready to get away from the hospital for awhile. First stop...In-N-Out! Yes! As I bragged about it on Facebook today, I had a few nasty grams and jealous posts from friends. Actually, to be perfectly honest, Kim wasn't nasty, she just posted "Not fair!" Sorry Kim, my cheeseburger, fries and chocolate shake were delicious. Too bad Dan tried to avoid another In-N-Out patron when carrying the tray with pop and ended up soaking the back of Cayden with Dr. Pepper. He's now acting as " Super Chinese Laundry Guy" and is trying to get the pop stains out of the sweatshirt. Did I mention the sweatshirt was a white one?

As we were getting ready to leave In-N-Out, pre-op for Cayden called. We found out that he will be checking in on Monday morning at 7:00 a.m. for an 8:30 surgery start time. Of course, they always have to ask the same questions about the meds he's taking. You'd think they'd know what he takes by now. Instead of her asking about each one she had on file, I whipped out my Blackberry and rattled off my list of 10 different meds to her.

After burgers, it was off to the mall to get Cayden a pair of Crocs to wear in the hospital. Do you have any idea how hard it is to actually find a pair of Crocs? Apparently none of the stores sell them unless you want a pair of Wal-Crocs. We had to go all the way to the Valley Fair Mall to find the Crocs kiosk to get him a pair. Dan was in desperate need of a pair of sunglasses, as those of you back in Washington apparently let go of your tight grasp of our sun, so we ended up with a new pair of glasses so he'd quit complaining about it.

With all of our "necessities shopping" and eating out of the way, we headed to Santa Cruz to wander around on the boardwalk and the wharf to get our minds off the surgery. It's funny how you remember things as a child. My grandma and grandpa Houston used to take my sister and me to the boardwalk when we were little. I recall it being such a BIG and really cool amusement park. Funny, it didn't look so big to me anymore, and the Giant Dipper roller coaster just didn't seem like it could possibly be as scary as I remembered it to be. Another thing I didn't remember from when I was a kid was all of the "interesting" people, and I mean interesting. All the same, it was fun to wander along the boardwalk and enjoy the warm day.

As Cayden often does these days, he pooped out on us while we were walking, so we decided to do the rest of our sightseeing from the car. Within a few minutes in the car, Cayden was out for the count and the phone rang again. This time, it was the Stanford pre-op calling to inform me that my check-in was at 6:15 Monday morning with a surgery start time also at 8:30. I started feeling pretty upset, trying to figure out how this would all work logistically. Cayden will be spending the night with Angie and Rob that night, so I started panicking about how I would get to see him that morning before I go in for anesthesia. Dan told me not to worry that we would get it figured out and there was no way that I wasn't going to get to see him that morning.

Since Cayden was asleep, and we were in no hurry to get back to Menlo Park, we decided to drive up Highway 1 along the coast and cut back over at Half Moon Bay. It was such a nice day and that stretch of road is quite amazing with all of the vertical cliffs. At one point we passed a beach obviously popular with kiteboarders. I swear there must have been 50+ kiteboarders out there at the same time. I have no idea how they manage to get around without crashing into each other and creating a giant tangled mess. I guess that's why I am not a kiteboarder!

Unfortunately, driving doesn't exactly do the job of keeping one's mind off of things. I spent much of the afternoon trapped in my thoughts today, feeling nervous and thinking that I can't believe there are only 3 more "wake ups" until the transplant. I continue to receive such wonderful messages from many friends out there reading my posts. Although I have not had a chance to reply to every one of them, I can assure you, these messages have meant so much to me. I know that when I am not strong, He sends many to lift me up and get me through. I have no doubt that the next few days (and nights) are going to be very difficult, however I plan to post even until the morning we leave for the hospital.

Tonight I am praying for peace and for everything to fall into place prior to surgery for Monday morning.