Calm-ish

As I write this, there are just five days to go until my surgery. Also, I have two black circles, drawn in permanent marker, on my tummy. They’re a short distance from my navel and covered with a sort of transparent medical sticker. These circles are potential places for my ostomy, and they were put there during a big pre-op meeting I had at the hospital earlier this week. So, while I count down the days, I also have this to continually remind me of what’s next.

(One circle is just above the other, like this : and I was saying to Lori that there’s a ‘colon’ joke in there somewhere. I just haven’t figured it out yet)

So yes, we met with various folks at the hospital in Winnipeg about what’s coming. There was the usual re-checking of my vitals as well as weight and height. There was a questionnaire about my general health. Side note: I love that they keep re-checking my height. I feel like, at 42, I’ve done about all the growing I’m gonna do. (I’m sure when Lori proofreads this post she’ll tell me why it’s necessary). We also met the NSWOC or Nurse Specialized in Wound, Ostomy, and Continence. She was very positive and understanding, and walked us through what life would be like on the other side of surgery. I’ll get a lot of ‘in-house’ training in the days after surgery, and afterward some visits at home by a home care nurse.

I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to say about life with a colostomy in the weeks to come. The NSWOC also added, as an aside to Lori, that maybe she’d be willing to learn these care procedures as well, in time. We grinned at each other, because, well, Lori already handles this kind of thing professionally. As a home care nurse! But, we’d agreed at the outset of this journey to keep her status as a medical professional quiet. We certainly aren’t going to lie, but for the most part there’s been no need for it to come up, either. When she’s in the room with me for a meeting or consultation she wants to be my wife first, and not accidentally change the way we’re spoken to or dealt with.

(I have some experience on the other side of this scenario, from when we went into the hospital for Lori to have our babies; at the time, the other nurses were her co-workers, so they tended to slip into work lingo with one another and leave me completely out of the loop with what was going on)

After the NSWOC we met the anaesthetist, who got more into the mechanics of the surgery itself and what they’d be doing to knock me out. I’m talking in sort of a casual, offhand way about these meetings but the truth is that I was pretty tense for good chunks of them; obviously all of this was a lot to process (how many times have I said that in the past ten months?) and some of the information I could barely face directly.

So. Things are more-or-less in place for this coming Thursday. I’m feeling calm-ish, but also sighing heavily every few minutes because I’m thinking too far ahead and trying to reset and come back to the present.

I want to take this moment to once again thank everyone who goes out of their way to comment on the blog, whether online or in-person; thank you all for the encouragement you’ve offered. Kindly spare a prayer or a thought for me as I embark upon this difficult leg of the journey, and please do the same for my family as they support me and we all try to figure out life after surgery.

Oh, and uh, don’t expect a blog entry next week.