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Time to step back to 8 days ago and bring you along with me into the wonderful world of transsphenoidal bliss.
Surgery was scheduled for 12:30p.m. last Tuesday, which means, of course, no food or drink after midnight. (Surgery patients are Mogwai…) Knowing this limitation, including the restraining order from coffee the next morning, I had a good hefty snack at 11:00 Monday night and downed a few tanks of water at 11:59. Okay, it was probably 12:13am Tuesday morning. Technically after midnight, but I figured it was a risk I’d just have to take.
I’m an avid breakfast fan, and I expected the morning to be completely focused on my gurgling stomach and lack of caffeine. But somehow, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Sure, I was thirsty and I wouldn’t turn down that cinnanbon, but it seems that the human mind can pretty easily trump those acquired tastes or simple needs with the ever-present thoughts of “Some dude’s gonna cut your head open in 4 hours and 37 minutes. Some dude’s gonna cut your head open in 4 hours and 36 minutes.” and so on.
Having successfully checked off the 527 items on my to-do list at work the day before, it was now down to just making sure that I did everything the hospital said to do on the day of surgery. Bring comfortable clothes, leave your wallet and any jewelry at home, be sure to bring your tumor – simple stuff like that. As you might have guessed, my mind doesn’t react well to this slow-moving limbo. It was a very, very long morning waiting to leave.
I gave Jasper an extra big hug before he went to school that morning, but not in a way to let on that I had any doubt that I’d be back. Kids pick up on these things, and I could tell that even though it hadn’t been the focus of our conversations, it was prominently on his mind. He knew it was a big day. So let’s talk about Transformers. Or his Razor scooter. Or anything other than what Daddy was about to do. And deep down, I had the voices inside me battling with competing thoughts of “You’ll regret it if you don’t say your wisest parting words now” and “Be cool. Don’t say anything about anything” and “You should have made a video for when he’s 16″ and “Jeez, Dave, quit letting your fears make these voices deep inside you have these battles of competing thoughts.”
We got to the hospital and of course my Mom and her pastor were already hanging out and waiting for me in the admitting area. We got to sit there and make idle chat for maybe 5 minutes before they called me to come on back. Oh sure – you feel like crap in a normal doctor’s office and you’re going to wait 2 hours before they call you. But surgery is, understandably, on a tighter schedule. I felt fine, at the moment, and only had 5 minutes. There is no need for the April 2003 issue of Golf Digest in that waiting room.
Terry got to walk with me down the hall and into the pre-surgery corridor where they then gleefully gave her some rice-a-roni and a nice parting gift with orders to go find her comfy seat in the surgery waiting area. I could see the tears welling up in Terry’s eyes, as this was “it.” I wanted to just suddenly drop everything, grab her hand and make a break for it. I’m supposed to watch out for and worry about her, not the other way around.
We said our awkward “seeya later’s” and “loveyou’s”, hoping to avoid that unmistakable eye-glimmer that showed what we both really wanted to say was “holy crap, this better not be the last time we say that.” It’s at this point where your reassuring optimism that you’ve both tried to carry on the surface can’t trump the fear that you might be on the cusp of becoming that guy in that soon-to-be-famous story of the fluke anesthesia reaction or the one where the surgeon said “oops.”
Then you get to step into a closet no larger than a phone booth (remember those?) so you can get naked. Everything off. Except, of course, for your gown.
At no other place in our society does someone tell a grown man to step into a gown and not think twice about it. Volumes have been written on the hospital gown, I’m sure. So in the name of space, let me just restrict my commentary to this: if the goal of the invention of the hospital gown was to make sure that it wasn’t to be confused with lingerie, congratulations. For a skimpy item of clothing, it goes way, way past “unsexy.” If humans had tails, hospital gowns would automatically cause those tails to tuck between our legs. It is the official relinquishing of control. You have just given permission to anyone walking around that place with an official name tag to do all sorts of things to your body that you’d really rather pass on, thank you very much. Hooray for the gown.
I was then escorted through a room full of everyone else hoping no-one would see them in their fashion statement to my own private-ish little curtained off area, and got off of my feet for what I knew would be the last time for days to come. And for possibly the 17th time, I answered questions about my medical history, allergies, living wills and emergency contacts.It was at this point that in walked the pastor of the church that Terry and I have recently started visiting. (ooh, sorry – Rector, not Pastor. I’m not used to that whole Episcopal thing yet.)
I have learned that in a hospital, members of the clergy have a top-secret clearance that allows them access to areas even wives and parents could never dream of being. Carte-blanche visiting. No place is off-limits. I think one even checked with me halfway through surgery to see if I needed a Yoo-Hoo or something.
Don’t get me wrong – it was actually a very well timed visit with a slight calming effect. As I mentioned in my faith diatribe a few posts back, I have a lifetime of family involvement with ministry but have personally always stayed on the sidelines. This has made me picky over the years. Very picky. And if I cannot find a church where the pastor is that perfect mix of kindness, wisdom, sharp humor and an actual human being, supported by a whole slew of other prerequisites revolving around the practices and politics of the inner workings of that church, I won’t go. And it hasn’t been that important to me to embark upon the sacred quest to find that perfect mix. As long as I practice my faith in my everyday life, I think God’s gonna understand. So I have more often than not found myself quite leisurely enjoying the Sunday paper as my wife and child head out to further their own spiritual growth. Our recent visits to St. Thomas’ have, however, changed my routine a bit. That’s my spiritual journey, however, and one which I doubt will get too much detailed coverage in this or any other public blog.
Regardless, Rev. Eaves was a welcome visitor at this point. Although it was a bit strange feeling quite under dressed, that thought didn’t get too far. As I might have mentioned, I was about to have brain surgery. And I have a tendency to be slightly anxious or at least minimally preoccupied with such looming concepts. So we had a nice brief conversation while various nurses and almost-doctors were running around looking very important and doing important hospital-type things in the background. A quick prayer, and she was off to work her comforting magic on my waiting room entourage.
The anesthesiologist introduced himself and once again asked the list of medical history and allergy questions (doesn’t anyone ever write my answers down?) He explained one or two things that were being injected into my permanent arm bling (the IV), and then finally said that this next one was the anesthesia that would put me out.
I’ve heard stories of the wild things people say and do on anesthesia, like riding down the halls on their stretcher goosing the nurses, or singing showtunes and laughing at the fact that they have a thumb. And you also hear that anesthesia works fast, and when they ask you to count backwards from 10, you never make it far. So as he injected the final cocktail of la-la syrum, I can remember managing a very well-spoken comment about my aversion to needles or perhaps his choice in pens, and then someone in the distance was saying, “DAVID? It’s all over. You did great!”
It was that quick. No counting backwards from 10, no room getting fuzzy, no sudden urge to channel Ethel Merman.
You know when you’ve been sleeping. There is a time that passes of which you are aware, even when you are not conscious. That internal chronometer is completely unplugged under the influence of anesthesia. There is no battery backup. Snap, it’s 6 hours later. The undoubtedly tiring, worrisome and extra slow 6 hours that followed in the surgical waiting area simply did not ever exist in my world.
But the fun had just begun.
One thing I’ve learned over the last few days is that if you charted out your recovery on a graph, it certainly would not go in a straight line. I felt better Sunday morning than I did Monday morning. But Monday afternoon and evening were great. And then this morning, Tuesday, I woke up feeling like Superman and then must have eaten a bowl of Kryptonite Flakie-o’s for breakfast that knocked me flat for half the day. And the rest of the afternoon, eh, not bad.
No matter what, my brain doesn’t want to shut off. I guess it’s the workaholic inside me. And as long as I have my laptop, I probably won’t be resting the brain and the body at equal intervals. I’m not very good at this sitting around and doing nothing business.
One week after the surgery, and my lip is still incredibly numb. The smile still doesn’t uncover any upper teeth. To put it in 3D animator’s terms, it feels like the rigging on my face is incorrect and that the points (control vertices, in Maya) on my lip are not being properly controlled by their cluster handle. (Yeah, that’s animator geek talk for “my lip don’t work right, y’all.”) That’s going to be one of my big questions – how long until I can smile without looking like I’m trying to hide my Bubbalicious? My follow up visit with Dr. Wilson is next Monday.
Starting to head downhill on that recovery chart again, so I’m going to stop writing for now. Not a very informative or entertaining entry, but an entry nonetheless.
To think, just one week ago I had just arrived in ICU with a freshly carved noggin. Put in that perspective, maybe I’m not just sitting around doing nothing…
My first full day home from the hospital, and the most frustrating thing is that I came up with a genius title and intro to today’s blog entry earlier and I totally forgot it. I guess things could be much worse, huh?
Still, I spent the majority of the day in a big haze. I managed to get by most of the day without taking any pain killers, but I finally gave in this afternoon. No biggie. My brain wanted to go full speed, and so I sat in our La-Z-Boy most of the day with my laptop, going over the 172 emails that had accumulated. (Don’t worry – no sense of false self-importance here – I’d say 160 of them were junk.) But I did at least check all the emails, go through the ComedySportz forum, and talk to Shannon a couple of times about the most unbelievable client we’ve ever had. Actually a lot more than I though I could accomplish.
That being said, 6 days after surgery, I’m moving at about 2 miles per hour, even if my brain WANTS to go faster. My upper lip is still numb, though most of the swelling is gone, and when I smile it refuses to uncover any of my upper teeth. My teeth still feel like they’ve been shoved a couple inches up into my skull. Overall, I feel like I’ve been hit by a Mack truck. And talking with anyone, visitors or even on the phone, wears me out in only a matter of minutes. Maybe 15, maybe 2. Don’t get me wrong, I love it – just don’t be surprised when I say “Ding! Time’s up!” in the middle of our conversation.
My goal, here, is to continue to chronicle the recovery, for friends, family, and those facing a similar path somewhere out there. DISCLAIMER: Don’t feel obligated to read this at any point – I can’t help but shake the feeling that some might feel that if I’m writing, they should be reading. Nope – I will continue to appreciate all support and interest, but will expect nothing. That’s the only way I’ll ever feel comfortable even blogging in the first place.
Although I don’t yet feel like going back over the last few days in these pages quite yet, I will update everyone on a couple of things:
The vision in my right eye was noticeably better after the surgery. It’s not all fixed yet, by any stretch, and is still worse than the left eye. But it seems the smudgy fog cleared a bit, allowing for me to more easily see some finer things that I hadn’t before. And where I failed 90% of the colorblind tests in my right eye pre-surgery, I went online to find some tests and maybe got through about half of them this time. That’s significant, especially when the neurosurgeon had said that there was no guarantee of any improvement, even if it was somewhat likely. (Yes, Jerry, your “I Can See Clearly, Now” musical Hallmark card is very stuck in my head at the moment…)
It’s way to soon to tell if there is improvement in the area of headaches or sinus issues. As you can imagine, having some guy attack your head with sharp objects and cut things out doesn’t sit well with your body. Thus the recovery. I think it’ll be a few months to properly assess that progress.
As of today I have not heard anything about the lab pathology of the tumor. My surgeon’s nurse reassured me that if there is anything that we need to know about it, they’ll call, and everyone continues to assure me that these things are almost always benign. But ya know, until they actually say, “Mr. Gau, your tumor was definitely benign,” that reassurance is not going to carry me very far. There’s that need to know that the lack of information isn’t due to the fact that it’s been sent to the Institute for Highly Unusual and Seemingly Benign but Outrageously Rare and Ridiculously Deadly Growths (IHUABORRDG). I think it’s located just outside of Portland.
And a final note, at the risk of sounding repetitive: Thank you, everyone, for the emails, notes, flowers, cards, visits, prayers, calls, drives from Tennessee, perfectly chosen reading materials and foods of all types. I have no doubt that my progress to this point is due in great part to your massive outpouring of support. I’m sorry if I have not yet responded to everyone. That’s gonna take some time.
More on those endless hospital hours in the posts to come. Plus, a visit with the late Bob Keeshan (known and loved the world over as Captain Kangaroo) and ways to eat all the chocolate you want AND lose weight!
(Okay, not really. But it sounded better than “wait’ll your hear about when they removed the 5 miles of gauze packing tubes from my nose!” )
…and I’m finally home again. Released this morning, Sunday 2/25, 5 days later, because I was feeling so good I was kickin’ back, drinking some coffee, listening to a mellow Jack Johnson playlist and reading the Sunday paper reclined in my hospital recliner chair.
Let’s call that the exception, not the rule, at the moment. Great to be home, so happy to be with my family. But yeah, I still feel like the personification of crap.
I’ll blog more this week about the experience. Plenty more to come, and I’m sure I’ll have quite a bit of time. But when they say I’ll need rest, they’re not kidding. I feel like I’ve been slammed in the middle of the face with 200 pound nerf dart of botox. Yeah, it’s that weird.
Okay. Happy time at my computer is up. Bleaugh. But although it’s scary as sin to have the safety net of the hospital taken away from me, especially as the overnight approaches, it’s so, so good to be here.
Take that on ALL levels.
Here we go. I am surprisingly calm this morning, albeit quite hungry and thirsty.
A few details: I’m going in to St. Mary’s at 11am today 2/20. My surgery is scheduled for 12:30pm. It’s supposed to last 3-4 hours, so at best I won’t be out until around 4pm or so. I’m supposed to spend the first day in ICU, which I understand is family visitors only. Then it’ll be a couple more days in the hospital after that. So that puts me coming home Friday or Saturday, depending how they define a “day” there. How long it’ll take me to blog after that is still up in the air. 
If ya wanna visit the hospital after I’m in a normal room, that’s fine with me. And if you can’t stand hospitals and really want to not be there, by all means that’s fine too. Please don’t anyone feel obligated, ’cause I may just look at you, smile, and then go right back to sleep. I already know all of the love and support out there, so really, whatever you want to do is fine.
That’s it. Time to get off this computer and get ready to go.
I’ve told my son many times that you can’t be brave unless you’re scared first.
I’m very, very brave.
Peace & laughter, y’all. See everyone in a few days.
Spent the day today soooo busy that I hardly even had time to think about tomorrow. I did somehow manage to get my entire list accomplished, at least for work. Still have a few things left on my to do at home list, as I count down the moments to my last allowable gulps of water before midnight.
Terry made an AMAZING celebration dinner tonight. We had Filet Mignon in a bearnaise sauce with asparagus and these incredible asiago(?) cheese pancake bread things… I’d ask her exactly what they were again but she is enjoying a well-deserved snooze on the couch at the moment. And of course, since we won’t be able to enjoy Fat Tuesday together as a family, we had Chubby Monday, complete with king cake. And in a Chubby Monday miracle, both Jasper (my son) AND I found a baby in our slices.
If you don’t know anything about king cake, that sounds a bit sick, twisted, and worthy of a police investigation.
I am now 12.5 hours from actual surgery time, and yes, I’m up typing on my blog instead of sleeping. Anxiety can do some odd things to you. Guess I’ll just roll with it a bit and spew out a few things.
Found out a few important things today. First, apparently Tylenol is NOT on the list of forbidden headache drugs the week before surgery. Read your fine print, kiddies, and you just might not have to put up with a migraine after all. @#$%&*!
Second, I will not have to shave my mustache before surgery. Now I may wake up afterwards without it, I’ve been told, if it happens to get in the way. But you see, I keep hidden under this mustache a freak of nature. An upper lip that flaps in the breeze, that is so large that small children use it as an umbrella. Or at least, that’s how it feels when I’ve some form of fuzz on my lip for the majority of the past 20+ years.
Third – this surgery lasts about 3-4 hours. Apparently the actual procedure part takes only about 20 minutes. And the rest of the time is for, ummm, the great mustache shaving debate, I guess.
Fourth, if your child gets strep throat, you probably will, too. A BIG thank you to my sister for not coming down from DC to hang out with me and my family at the moment.
Fifth, which I actually learned on Sunday: Wednesday is the beginning of Lent. For Lent I’m giving up a tumor. Not sure if that counts, really, but since I have had it a long time, and the journey to get rid of it is quite difficult, maybe God will let me by with this one and I can pick right back up with those Dove dark chocolates in a few days.
I probably learned a bunch of other things today as well, but won’t remember to talk about them until the anesthesia kicks in.
Thanks yet again to the tons of support – calls, emails, blog comments and kind words – that friends were able to share today. I can’t say enough how much that means. I even got to see an old and very close friend / teacher today, which really warmed my heart. Ed always, every single time, fills me with laughter and such a good perspective on everything. He’s the one who taught me about the Zen of rock balancing, as demonstrated in the photo at the top of this blog. (Yes, that’s my photo, and I did balance those rocks…) If you’ve never done it before, I can’t recommend it enough. Nothing focuses you more.
And even as I was typing this, yet another close friend made me smile with a comment on the last post. I swear, all of this is what’s keeping me going forward into this with the peace and laughter that I need.
Before I got a chance to read to my son tonight at bedtime, we had a bit of a talk about how he wasn’t going to catch my tumor. They’re not quite like strep. Then he pushed me down and lay down on top of me in a big hug. And that is how he fell asleep tonight. And I couldn’t move for the next 20 minutes – not because he’s gotten so big (and he has – he’s 8), but because I couldn’t think of anything in the world that could possibly make me smile bigger and feel safer.
Everything really is gonna be alright.
Apparently, not everyone is perfectly comfortable discussing this kind of stuff. That may seem like an obvious statement, but what comes as a surprise to me is that it’s hard to predict sometime from where the awkward conversations are going to come, and from whom the gems of encouragement will flow naturally. I’ve had people I don’t know beyond a simple introduction say some things that really warm my heart. I’ve had some who I consider very close friends not be able to say much more than “Sooooooo……. You doin’ alright?” And of course, everything in between.
However, I know that no matter the ability to eloquently say the perfect thing at the perfect moment, everyone who has taken the time to write something to me or come up to me to say something has nothing but the absolute best intentions to wish me the best and help me feel a bit more at ease with everything. Thanks.
But it’s not just you, oh generalized friend. If you were recently somewhere with me and you thought I’d say something to you before taking off, but suddenly I was gone, please don’t be offended. I have moments where the jokes can flow, and I have moments where I just need to cut the conversation way short and disappear. I know I’m not always the most easy-flowing conversationalist in the first place, so imagine what this roller coaster ride can do to me.
Which brings me to my next thought: “Jeez, get over it. It’s not like you have cancer of the everything.” That thought pops up a lot, in my own head. And I can’t help but wonder if other people think it, too. SO many people go through SO many things that are SO much worse than this. What makes this so worthy of all this anxiety and need for support? I almost feel like a therapy poster child just waiting to blossom. “Oh, poor me, I’m the victim.” And that is an attitude that seriously rubs me the wrong way.
So that’s an interesting conflict. I obviously feel the need to seek all the support I can get from my friends and family, and even to publicly write all of this otherwise inner-monologue for anyone to read. Yet the little devil floating over my shoulder is poking me with his pitchfork and spewing nastinesses like “Wuss.”
Apparently I’m pretty good at not caring too much about that floating demon because I’m still writing. I’ve never been good at focusing on myself, and I’m still not. But I think that when you get a paper cut, it freakin’ hurts. A lot. And to say “get over it, it’s not like you lost a finger” may be true, but it doesn’t diminish how much the paper cut still hurts and sucks.
My sincere amazement and respect and awe for those facing cancer treatments or who are cancer survivors, or AIDS sufferers, or millions of other seriously life-threatening and debilitating issues. My writings about my little tumor are in no way meant to be a comparison. But you know, it’s still brain surgery. It’s still freakin’ scary to me. And I’m gonna still keep on working through it the best way I know how. God forbid anything worse happens to me or a family member or friend in the future, let’s just call this good practice to be better able to handle it then, or counsel someone to do the same. Bottom line, it sure can’t hurt.
I’ve got a checklist a mile long for everything I need to accomplish at work tomorrow. I’ve got the business up and running nicely, and Shannon & Dave (the other animators at Shave) handle more of the actual design and animation work than I do these days, and thankfully so. I even have an amazing bookkeeper taking care of a lot of the financial details every day for the first time since I started the business almost 8 years ago. But I just can’t shake that feeling that if I’m not there, all the tedious crap that I do every day is gonna fall through the gaps and the world will implode. Not true, no doubt. But it is certainly another wonderfully fun outlet for my well-practiced anxiety.
Thanks to all who continue to think that these ramblings are worthy of your time.
How’s that for a grabber of a title?
First of all, let me preface this with the quick answer: How would I know? My qualifications to discuss this topic as an authority are quite limited. I am not the learned theologian in my family, by any stretch. My father was an incredible Presbyterian minister, my mother earned her graduate degree from the Presbyterian School of Christian Education, and my wife is also an ordained Baptist minister, with dual degrees from Union-PSCE and was winning bible trivia games when she was 5.
I’m the PK. The preacher’s kid. Sure, I was at church all of my youth. But that doesn’t mean any of that knowledge stuck. My favorite part of church was getting to eat the leftover communion bread. There are many 5 year olds today that would beat my pants off in bible trivia. My interests and educational pursuits have always been elsewhere.
Don’t get me wrong, though. I feel that I have a very firmly founded faith. And of course, having been raised a Christian (and a liberal one at that – yes, you CAN say those two words in the same sentence) that means that my faith is based in the Christian teachings and philosophies. I do, however, very strongly believe that there is a unifying thread between all of the major religions, as far as the philosophies of how to live your life, how to love others, and how to give thanks to and for that which you cannot see. We all essentially believe in the Golden Rule, and those who act out against that rule in the name of their faith have really lost sight of their true teachings.
But what is faith as it relates to facing a scary unknown, like impending surgery to remove a tumor? You see, part of me feels that since I do have this belief in God, and that since I do have this solid faith in God’s omnipresence watching over us, that I should then be automatically comforted that everything’s going to be alright. I should easily trust that this whole tumor thing is all for a reason, and that the end result is going to be just fine, so I should just be whistling happily as I coast towards surgery singing “lalala…”
Well, that doesn’t seem to be how it works. My creative brain continues to think of all of the very unique ways that things could go wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not obsessing over it or even losing sleep over it. But I gotta admit, it is impossible to turn off the “what if’s?” So, does that mean that my faith isn’t strong enough? Surely even the most devout Monk has worries before facing a triple bypass. Right?
I think that part of it lies in my belief that God always answers prayers. Always. But the problem is, they may not be the answer you were hoping for. That’s a bit scary, isn’t it? I mean, I can spend every last minute between now and Tuesday praying that the surgeon doesn’t accidentally give me a third nostril. But if God, in all of His wit and wisdom, decides that this would be best, then I have to accept the answer of “nope – sorry, Dave. Can’t do that one for ya. But enjoy the new, deeper breathing.”
What I have found, however, is that every day, I continue to get more and more support from friends, family, friends of friends, and even people that I just don’t know that well. Stories of people who have been through the same thing, or at least something on a similar level of scary, and are fine. Stories of people I don’t even know sending me good energy or having a feeling that things are going to be fine. Or just kind words from people who don’t quite know what to say but are expressing it in the best way they know. And all of these things seem to have the cumulative effect of making me feel that things just might, MIGHT actually turn out okay.
I’m a little more able to allow myself to keep moving, going through the normal steps of the day, and let Tuesday come. It’s a little bit of just not thinking about it, but that has a lot to do with feeling comfortable enough to let that happen. And that comfort seems to have come from my own introspection, my past experiences, and a lot from the love and support of those around me.
Is my brain quieter about the scary parts? Not really. But I’m still gonna sleep okay tonight.
I have faith.
I sincerely believe the fastest way to heal is through laughter. There are medical studies abound to support that theory. I’d much rather have a conversation joking about how this tumor is actually named Raoul and we have to convince him that on Tuesday he is moving to a tumor farm where he can run around free with all of the other tumors, than have someone stare at me totally dumbfounded after hearing the news of this event as if I just told them my head was going to implode shortly and I want them to have my liver.
That being said, here’s a plug. I’ll be onstage performing short form improv at ComedySportz this weekend. Saturday, 7:30pm show. Come on out and laugh either with or at me.
I’m just learning how to use this blog software. Today’s lesson: what to do if you want to completely lose your entire post before posting it. Sighhhhhhhh. I’ll write it again, but trust me – the previous version was much better written and worthy of Pulitzer.
Wednesday’s blood work and MRI went off without a hitch, thankfully. Not even the slightest bruise in either arm. I guess that’s what you get when you have someone who actually knows HOW to stick a sharp object in your arm. The nurse who did my blood work was awesome. I let her know that I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be going through this process and that I may get a bit woozy. She slyly kicked into high gear, engaging me in constant conversation from that moment all the way through the very end. I knew exactly what she was doing, and it was quite comforting. And to have no heroin junkie bruises? Bonus.
Valentine’s evening brought the most wonderful time, as Terry and I went out to Comfort, an awesome downtown restaurant. We had amazing food and a great, relaxed and fun time. (Yeah, that’s right, over 10 years of marriage and we can still date! ) And of course, we split a bottle of wine, which was excellent. But as the hangover king, I should have anticipated the slight headache the next morning. No problem, I thought, I’ll jst pop a couple of Excedrin and…
BUZZZZZZZZ! (Picture that Family Feud “X” right over my face) I just learned Wednesday that you can’t take any blood thinning medicine, aka aspirin, ibuprofen, Excedrin, etc… – ANYTHING that could relieve a headache – within 7 days prior to your surgery. So I had to ride it out. And of course, That didn’t happen. It turned into the worst migraine I’ve had in years. I left work by 1:00 and that was it until this morning. I was a pathetic, dark-loving ball of head pain, worshiping ice packs and heat pillows all afternoon and night. The last thing I needed was to lose a whole day before surgery. Way too much to do before then, both at work and just mentally. But there it went – write Thursday off as a complete waste.
On hindsight, though, I wouldn’t change a thing about my perfect Valentine’s date. Not one thing.
I’m making my list of questions to ask Dr. Wilson before he cuts me open on Tuesday. He was kind enough to say that I could feel free to call him with any questions that pop up before then, and that there are no stupid questions. I intend to challenge him on that.
Which brings me to my final point for this post: when one finally graduates and gets one M.D. degree, do they automatically bestow, forcibly require, or surgically attach a bow tie to your neck? Both my neuro-ophthalmologist and my neurosurgeon are finely clad in the most doctorest of bow ties – http://www.neurosurgicalva.com/claude-wilson.htm Although my original ophthalmologist, Dr. Bundy, simply had a regular necktie. Maybe the secret society is punishing him for something…
After all of this is over, I will have to be sure to send all of them a brand new bow tie as my thanks. Maybe with some kind of unique pattern on it (Looney Tunes, flying brains, etc…). Any ideas for that pattern are welcome.
