I'm feeling less sad lately. It seems like Kitty's memorial (that I was not able to go to) taking place made it that much easier to inhale again and start to move on.

The BoD has chosen my successor for the CA. My tenure ends at the end of January, and my successor is none other than my current chief deputy, Elaine Koogler, who has been training to do this job for the last nine months. I am very glad they selected her. I am both sad to see this coming to an end, and delighted that it is almost over.

I saw my oncologist last week. I am officially three years cancer free. I am not eligible for a Swine Flu vaccine since I am not actively being treated for cancer.

Three people got laid off at work on Friday, including one case manager. Since they were not planning on replacing Stan when he left, we are down to five instead of seven. One of us travels a lot to do presentations all over the country, and another of us does EAP counseling for one of our clients two half-days a week. So, in effect, there will be times where there are three of us on instead of five or six of us. This sucks.

Current Mood: moody

Kitty died today. I can't imagine the grief her parents and those closest to her must be feeling. I can hardly breathe, and this must be a small fraction of what they are going through.

Lo, There do I see my father standing before me, my mother, and my sisters and my brothers
Lo, There do I see the line of my people back to the beginning
Lo, They do call to me. They bid me to take my place among them,
in the halls of Valhalla, where the brave may live forever.
-13th Warrior

Peace, my dear Kitty. We will miss you.

Good-bye dear, dear Stan. I hope you find great joy and fulfillment in your new job.

Good-bye, Father Mark. Uhm... are you bored being retired yet?

Current Mood: depressed

Father Mark retired today. His last mass was... well, it reminded me of the stepping down part of Coronation for a Crown we particularly love. I kept wanting to shout "Noooo! Don't go!"

Mass was fairly normal in the particulars, but had some special parts. The choir had a piece of music composed for Father, and it was crazy beautiful. They sung a Gaelic blessing to the music while communion was being done and it had to be the single most amazing piece of music I have ever heard in church.

When mass was over, he gave back all of the sympbols of his job that he was given when he was made rector of this church 32 years ago. I was ok for most of it. A bible, a Book of Common Prayer, baptismal water, healing oil, etc and so forth. Then, he took off his chausible, and I totally lost it.

Before he started giving back all of the "stuff," he told a story about the causible he was wearing- it was the one he wore for his ordination, and he has worn it for every Thursday mass I have attended, but I don't think he has ever worn it on Sunday. When he was ordained, he was ordained along with six others, including the first woman to be ordained in this diocese. This was a Huge Big Deal, and there were TV cameras and lights, etc all over the place. Father Mark mused that when the six men who were being ordained did anything during the ceremony, it was no big deal, but when the woman did anything, the lights and the cameras went on. His chausible is gold lame outside, lined in red satin. Father Mark said this gold lame chausible would GLOW when the TV lights came on and was completely distracting from that first ordination of a woman. I am fond of this chausible. It has a wide band of red down the front, that is decorated with two stalks of wheat and a chalice with a communion wafer. *laugh* The very first time I saw that chausible, I vaguely wondered why the designer put an egg in an egg cup on it... ok, so it took me a few minutes to figure out it was a communion wafer... I used to be a Protestant, ok? I've never DONE communion with those little wafers until I landed at St. Andrews.

So, yeah. When he took it off, I was toast. Not that I was composed in the first place, but that just stuck a fork in me.

You'll always be my spiritual father, Mark. I love you, and I will dearly miss you.

As I am getting more involved with my newly found home in the Episcopal church, I have decided to start another LiveJournal that I am intending to be limited to invited friends. This journal is going to be devoted to various musings about my spritual journey. I would like to invite those of you who are interested and who might like to share some musings about your own spiritual lives (or a lack thereof), please let me know that you are interested in being invited onto the journal.

Please be aware that I intend and expect some pretty raw, frank writing to be done, and some hard questions to be explored. This will not necessarily be a "fun" journal to read or to participate in, but I hope it will be very educational and enlightening. Because of the deeply personal nature of this journal, I want to keep the friends group small, and to grow it at a slow pace. Don't ask to be added to my friends list because you have some obsessive compulsive issue with adding one more person to your own friends list, because you want to lurk and watch how I stumble around with coming to terms with my spiritual self, or because you just can't get enough LiveJournaling to satisfy yourself. If you are willing to share your own thoughts, challenge mine, ask the awkward questions or otherwise actually contribute to this journal being a place of considered thought and introspection, then please do wave your hand at me so I can add you as a friend. The journal will not be viewable otherwise.

http://lydianstone.livejournal.com/

On another note, Kitty is not doing well folks. Please keep her close in your thoughts and prayers.

Rae

Current Mood: worried

I'm feeling very sad today. I'm worried sick about Kitty and have been praying like a maniac for her. I am very afraid we are on the verge of losing a very special young lady. News about her does not imply that she is dying, but she is not doing well, and I am afraid for her- for all of us who know her.

My own recovery has taken a bit of a back slide. I went back to work two weeks ago, and am just the last couple of days getting to the point that I can stand being up and about for a full day. Also over the last couple of days though, I have gotten increasingly sore and having more just plain pain in my left flank. I have a part of my side that feels lumpy that was not lumpy before, and I am concerned that I may have managed to herniate my surgical site. I have e-mailed my doctor, but I have not heard back yet.

On a more emotional side, a co-worker who I am very fond of and have a great deal of professional respect for is leaving the company tomorrow. I have been tearful all week about it, and as tomorrow gets ever closer, I am more and more sad. It isn't going to be the same without him.

To make matters worse, the priest I have been working with at my local church is retiring, and Sunday will be his last day. I knew he was retiring when I started at this church, and I made a decision that I preferred to get involved now rather than waiting for him to leave. I am glad for that, because he has been SO good for me. He has taught me a lot, and I have grown to trust him very much. The entire parish is sad to see him go, and I see teary-eyed attendees at church all the time these days. I can't believe the time for his departure has actually arrived, and I feel completely heart broken. The diocese had found an interim priest for the church, but the arrangements with him fell through at the last minute. I am kind of glad. I only met him briefly and he seemed quite bossy and intent on "fixing" things in the church. He had no respect for the history of the parish. You'd think he'd have a clue about the inadvisability of that kind of approach. They have not found anyone else yet, and will apparently be using whomever is available to come in on Sundays for services until they find another interim priest. It may be decided tomorrow, or it might be decided a month from tomorrow. Originally, Father Mark's last day was going to be September 27, and the interim priest's first day October 1. I was having a little private joke to myself, realizing that the church would be without a priest for three days- the time Christ was dead. I wondered if they did that on purpose. Now, who knows how long it will take to find the right person?

Lots of losses of people I care about, and threats of more to come. This week has really sucked.

I've been meeting with the priest at the church down the street on a weekly basis, and saw him last on Thursday. He's a very interesting guy to talk to. He doesn't pretend to know all the answers, doesn't argue or try to convince me of anything. He provides examples and his own reflections on various topics, and leaves the door open to talk about whatever it is. He's helping me establish a more active and 'routine' prayer life, and is encouraging me to test the waters of a few groups- prayer groups, study groups, etc. within the church. He is very concerned about getting me hooked up with other people who he believes will be good spiritual guides and friends for me once he retires at the end of the month. I have grown quite fond of him despite our short time together, and I will miss him when he leaves the church.

Our conversation last time was mostly about "shit happens." We talked about Job (of course- how can you talk about this subject without talking about Job?), God's grace, His will and how we reconcile his love with awful things happening to people. Ok, so Job had it all, suffered horrible losses from Satan dorking with him, and lamented to God about how this could happen to a man who had did everything that God had ever asked of him, etc. God basically (in Tonwen's interpretation) rebuked Job for presuming to grok Life, the Universe and Everything as if he had the experience of God, and Job was suitably humbled by said rebuke. I told Father Mark that it was a good thing that this was not the Book of Rae that we were talking about, because my response to God under those circumstances would basically had been "EAT MHY SHORTS."

I struggle with the dichotomy of being the "pinnacle" of God's creation on earth on one hand, and being attributed with the worth of as a ceramic pot on the other. If God would have hit me with the "Who are YOU to think you *get* any of this?" I would have yelled back, "I'm your daughter you dumbass jerk! YOUR creation and vessle of Your Holy Spirit! THAT'S WHO I AM, so kindly answer my damned question!"

Imagine my surprise when the bulk of our conversation and his guidance related to it was, in a generic sense, the topic of his sermon this morning! I had to restrain myself from laughing out loud in the middle of the service. I kept telling myself that no, he did not write the sermon from our conversation. It was probably an old, favorite sermon of his that he was reminded of by our conversation and seemed particularly applicable to his parish at the moment. Then, when the service was over and I greeted him on the way out the door, he hugged me and said "See what happens when you talk to priests?"

The little rat. *snicker* I am actually quite touched- and rather relieved that he left out the whole "eat my shorts" business.

Dear GOD it's HOT! The house was at least cooling down at night before, but this last week has been hell on earth. Ugh. Every Summer I swear it is the last summer I will spend in this house, then the next summer rolls around, and here I am.

Recovery stuff is coming along. I can drive now as long as I am careful with my stick shift little RAV. I'm less apprehensive about being out in public- I had been downright terrified of being bumped into or ran over by a kid or some other thing that I didn't like leaving the house. That seems to be resolving with some time.

I got to go swimming today for the first time. It sucked. It was nice and wet and cool and lovely in that regard, but the very second my feet left the bottom of the pool and I was doing what some people could actually call swimming, my incision started aching and everything felt like it was being pujlled in directions it should not be going in. I survived, but it was not the freeing kinda experience I was hoping for.

I'm so restless in this heat I can hardly stand it. I want air conditioning!

Well, I am technically not supposed to drive yet, but I decided to go to church this morning. It is all of a half mile down the road with no stops and no turns aside from getting into the parking lot, so I decided to risk getting in the car (cuz I sure can't walk a half mile yet). It was an interested service. There were 10 people there. It was really a very comfortable service. Being the generally shy sorta person that I am, getting into going to church has been an interesting experience. I have felt so much like I'm in a fish bowl, expecting everyone to be watching my every move. Do I kneel at the right time? Genuflect appropriately? Cross myself? Stand up, sit down, go to the alter at the right time?

You know what? No one cares. Not even in a tiny group of 10 parishoners. There has not been one single instant that I have seen anyone even looking at me aside from the part of the service where we greet each other. No one has snickered at my obvious not-yet-has-a-clueness. They were warm, welcoming, and kind. They introduce themselves, and hug me or shake my hand. They smile, and invite me to move up a little closer in the pews. I like this church.

I have been a Christian to various degrees for most of my life. I have never felt comfortable in church. That is probably because I have spent my church life in churches of specific flavors of Christianity that have not fit me. I have always felt like I did not belong, that I did not quite fit the specific theology of the church, and those churches were ones that DID care if you stood up or knelt at the right time, and genuflecting or crossing oneself was very definitely noted- and discouraged. Them Protestant types can be so twitchy about that sorta thing! *grin* Those churches were places my friends and my family flourished, or at the very least, fit. I didn't, and it always bothered me that I didn't. I wondered if I was really a Christian. I could never figure out why I wasn't comfortable in a community of other Christians, and what that meant. You know how they say that kids growing up in dysfunctional families never know they are dysfunctional until they get old enough to see that their way is not the only way? Well, I was growing up in a dysfunctional religious "family" but I did know it. I was just never fortunate enough to run across a place I fit. I fit in this church. Maybe it isn't a perfect fit. There might be something better out there as far as specific churches go, but this Episcopal thing is the right place for me to be. I am going to get involved in this church for some period of time and see where it takes me.

One thing that really struck me in church this morning was that the vast majority of the group there, were sitting pack in their pews with one arm slung over the back of the pew, looking as if they were sitting in their living rooms. How cool is that? These people were comfortable where they were at. They acted as if they had been there their whole lives, and who knows- maybe they have been. They were not stiff and stuffy and looking as if they were there because they had to be (but I don't know how many people go to church on Thursday morning because they feel like they have to). They were at home, and that went a long way to help me feel like I was at home too. I like this church.

After the service, I hung out in the office for a half hour while Father Mark took a family on a tour of the church, then I met with him for more than an hour, talking about the Nicene Creed, and being angry at God and fitting in, and growing in a church. It was a good meeting, even if I did cry through most of it.

So, religious stuff aside, this has been a good day. I drove for the first time since surgery (as illicit as it was, it felt good to get the hell out of the house!). I was out of the house for three hours and did not immediately fall down on the couch when I got home in dire need of a nap. Who knows what tomorrow may be like, but today is a good day.

The last couple of days have pretty much sucked. No energy, even simple chores need a real puch to get done, and I am thoroughly sick of washing sheets. Between gack from my incision (despite using sanitary pads to "dress" the incision) and an occassional ostomy pouch failure, I am washing bed sheets at least every other day. I guess I should at least be gladd I don't have to do the scrubbing by hand!

My bed is feeling ungodly uncomfortable now, and I have no clue why. I just can't seem to find the right "sleep number" that will allow me to move from sleeping on my back to sleeping on either side where both positions are comfortable, and sleeping on my side does not feel like it is straining my incision too much.

I really want to stop feeling so damned tired.

That line between doing and over-doing that is!

I actually felt pretty good when I woke up this morning- kinda surprising after getting only four hours of sleep. I have energy today. A little anyway- certainly more than I have so far. I have not napped all day. Haven't done much more than watch TV, but I have stayed awake most of the day. I put my sheets in the laundry. I moved them from the washing machine to the dryer. I got them out of the dryer and folded the t-shirts I washed with them. Realizing it was getting dark, I took a walk around the cul-de-sac. Sans walker, and almost at a respectable pace.

That cul-de-sac is a lot bigger than it looks. Now the challenge will be to get my sheets back onto my bed before I want to go to bed tonight!

Ugh.

Things are progressing with my recovery. I can certainly look back to two weeks ago and point out stuff I can do now that I could not do then. So, why is it that I don't especially feel better? I want some energy. I wanna do something besides sleep and watch TV. Even going down the street for a burger for lunch is too much to handle. This sucks.

The incision is still oozing goo, but the steri strips are coming off, so it looks generally less enormous than it has.

I'm still sleeping almost exclusively on my back. I CAN sleep a little on either side, but both hurts after a short time.

I can't pick stuff up off the floor. I CAN tie my own shoes now.

I'm tired. I'm restless. I want to do something and have no energy to do anything. Bleh.

Home for four days, and glad to be here, but dear GOD this sucks so far. It's stinkin' hot, everything hurts, and my brain is being very difficult to deal with.

Pain management is actually ok- what is hurting is this unending stiffness from not moving enough, and on those occassions I move more, the pain it does cause and the time it takes to get that under reasonable control. I'm not any sort of pain medication hero. I take pain meds exactly as prescribed and at the most frequent interval possible at first. I know the best way to deal with it is to keep it under control to begin with. But, I am two weeks post-op, and I feel the need for fewer meds. That complicates things sometimes since even something as unsuspected at taking a shower can throw me back a few days in sensitivy to pain.

I can't sleep well. I can't move in bed without making things hurt, and I can only sleep on my back for now. I'm sleeping for about 3 hours at a time, then I lay awake for a couple of hours and then sleep again. At least I have Audiobooks on my iPod and can listen to some favorite stories.

My incision is leaking fluid, which my urologist checked out today and said is normal and to be expected. He said it should continue for up to another two weeks. In the mean time, I am getting ick everywhere despite trying to keep the incision covered with something absorbant.

I can't pick up anything off the floor, dressing myself a weird, *weird* exercise in imagination and flexibility, and cooking for myself usually means cereal or toast. Renata has been on hand all day every day since I've been home and is doing all of the cooking except some few expections, so it isn't like I'm starving (NOT!), but I am really sick of being feeble.

My urologist said the biggest part of my recovery is going to take about 2 months, and it will be closer to 4 before I can do pretty much anything I want. Considering that I am only two weeks into that four months, things are going pretty well, but I mean that in a highly HIGHLY relative manner!

Dear God, if I had to re-live the last 10 days I would seriously rethink running away from home.

Graphic stuff follows. If this grosses you out, stop reading now.

My surgery started 2 1/2 hours (or there about) later than scheduled due to the person my urologist was working on before me had a kidney packed full of kidney stones (when my urologist said those words, he held his hands out with his fingers curved as if holding a softball sized ball- I may never walk the same again!). Apparently they were not able to remove them all and were going to have to go in for a second surgery later. So, I was feeling very much like life could be worse going into my own procedure....

What had hoped to be a four hour max laparoscopic procedure turned into the longest time it has taken my urologist to complete a nephrectomy. After trying for four hours to get the job done, he gave up and cut open my side, joining two of the entry sites he had been working with. Unlike what he warned me about, he didn't have to take out one of my ribs, but that was about the only high point of the process. I had a lot of scar tissue from previous surgeries and he really had to dig to get the kidney out. There was nothing else wrong, which was a relief to hear.

The day after surgery I was ok. Not great, but relatively comfortable. The couple of days after were centered entirely aroung sleeping, pain control, and getting out of bed to walk, and peeing. Pain control was an issue- the urology staff and the pain management team did not see eye to eye on what needed to be done, and there were some inexcusable lapses in communication, resulting in not the greatest pain control I have ever experienced.

I was given more than 5 liters of fluid during surgery and more afterward. My body had all of that stored in it and didn't seem to want to let go of it. This thinned out my blood, so I was given two units abouth three days after surgery. I felt much better after that, and it's a good thing. That transfusion probably saved someone else's life. I was given some diuretics to help shed some of that fluid, but my body apparently decided to kick in its own resources as well, and I spent an entire 24 hours doing nothing but getting out of bed, peeing, getting back into bed, and ringing the nurse that I needed to pee again. I am not exaggerating. In a 24 hour period I peed more than 8 liters of fluid. Since pain management was not so great, having to get up and out of bed so often was just killing me. I BEGGED Them to put a catheter back in, but they wouldn't- too much risk of infection. *SNORT* Had I not had the transfusion, I never would have been able to get through that. As it was, pain meds were dying off half-way through the period they were supposed to be working *and that included the PCA ones...), and I spent the last two hours of each cycle begging for something else. I remember the nurse literally running into my room with the little medicine cup full of morphine elixr right at 6:30am, while I was laying there sobbing because I had to pee AGAIN and was too exhausted and in too much pain to get up again.

Things turned around after that day. Pain Management and Urology finally got their medication acts together, and the pee marathon had ran its course. I began feeling more comfortable, but one "good" day was usually followed by one or two not so good ones. Not even when Ihad my colon removed- not even when my j-pouch and permanent ileo done did I have such a long and painful initial recovery.

Now I am home, and spent the night in my own bed, only to discovered that I had no real clue how to get OUT of it this morning. It took close to three hours before I could wiggle around enough to let Renata pull me up to s sitting position.

So for now, I am leading a cat's life. Wake up, pee, eat, rest a little, take a bath, eat, have a nap, etc. I will be doing even better when I can sleep more comfortably in bed instead of on the couch!

I just got discharged this afternoon and am home. I'm tired and want to just veg in front of the TV, so no details for now, but things did not go as hoped (gosh, color me frickin' surprised). Surgery took 5 hours and 45 minutes, and they had to convert to open surgery from laproscopic. Kidney is gone, no tubes, no catheters, no other Borg-like hardware. The last 9 days have been just short of hell, and a few of those were clean over the threshhold. But, home is good. I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed. I hope I can manage it!

We open the kitchen door to the garage, and the garage door at night and blast a fan in the kitchen to help cool down the house. This has worked pretty well, but I have been afraid that one of the cats would get it in his little head to go exploring.

I was in the living room working on my laptop and I looked up to see a cat sitting out on the porch. It was Gawain. How did Gawain get outside? By going out the garage door. Unfortunately, he got spooked when I stood up and ran off into the darkness. I have called and called, shaken tins of kitty treats, driven around the neighborhood, and I can not find hide nor hair of him. My dear little kitteh has never been out of the house like this. I am very afraid that something awful is going to happen to him.

He's home! Five hours later... silly kitteh was hiding in the bushes out front.

36 hours and counting. All of this long while and now that the day is nearly here, I keep thinking of things I really want to get done before I go in. My bedroom is a mess and I have 2 new bookcases to put together (a third is already put together) to replace the three that are there and overloaded and worn out. I won't be able to do that for a few weeks after surgery, and I can not do much of that now- too much heavy stuff is bad for PICC lines, nephrostomy tubes, and herniating surgical sites. I need to do a couple of loads of laundry, pick up piles of stuff that has no designated home, and vacuum. It would be nice to get my bathroom cleaned too. Well, I have 36 hours...

I have updated my Advance Directive, it has been witnessed. My will is updated. My short term disability paperwork is printed and will be taken to my MD's office when I go tomorrow to get my PICC line dressing changed. And, I have seen a priest.

All of this is rather concerning to my friends, who are feeling like I am expecting to die on the table. I have no such expectations. Doing these things (with the exception of the priest visit) is something I routinely do when I am going to have surgery. Do I worry about dying on the table or from some complication afterward? Yes, every time. Sometimes more, sometimes yes. Sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for days at a time. Do I expect that I'm going to? No. At least it has not happened so far!

I had an appointment to visit with the priest at my neighborhood Episcopal church on Friday. We talked for two hours. About the church, about my spiritual journey, about whether his church and my current needs might be a good match. We talked about my health issues and my upcoming surgery. He gave me a few books and invited me to call him again when I am home and feeling up to meeting again. When we were done, he asked me to come into the church with him. He wanted to annoint me for healing. He didn't ask me if I wanted him to. He didn't ask me if it was ok with me if he did so. He saw a need, he had the means to address it, and he did.

There is a small chapel directly next to the sanctuary in the church. The oil he used was in a cupboard in that chapel. He took me to the vesting room and took out a stole, took me into the church and across the alter to the small chapel. He asked me to sit down, and I did. He told me about the oil, the little tin it was in and the wool inside that was soaked with the oil, and without missing a beat, he transitioned smoothly and and seamlessly to put his hands on my head and said a prayer. He touched my forehead with the oil and made a sign of the cross, and two tears that I had not even realized were there dropped down my cheeks.

It struck me that Father Mark has a very smooth manner about him. I mean, he teaches while he does "X." He demonstrates as he teaches. He moves from the secular to the sacred and back again as naturally as I inhale and exhale.

Although I have not been active in a religious community for a long time, I have had any number of contacts with those who have been called to the religious life. Pastors, ministers, nuns, priests, brothers... I have had the good fortune to talk with many of them. I have prayed with them, been prayed for by them, taught by all of them. Most of the time, these people *felt* to me like people. Just people. Some with amazing insight, some with remarkable compassion, some with love, understanding and tolerance that have been the very definitions of those words. Some, who seemed to fit their vocations like socks on roosters. There has only been one other time where I had a physical sensation of those people being something... else. Then came Father Mark.

I don't know whether it was my own emotional need, the weather, a hint that I am on the verge of a psychotic break, or perhaps something else, but when Father mark put his hands on my head, when he annointed me with the oil... well, all I can say is that something felt different. I felt him... deeper... than normal. I have no explanation beyond that at the moment.

I did decide to go to church on Sunday morning. I'm pretty shy and new social situations tend to be hard for me, so I decided to go to the 8:00 service, figuring it would be less heavily attended, and a little more low key. It was all of the above. There were less than 50 people at the service and I was the youngest of them by I would guess at least 10-15 years, there was no singing and no music of any sort. Father Mark had told me that the 10:00 service had more music. I didn't think that meant the 8:00 service had none. I will try the 10:00 service next time.

I liked it. Even without music. When I went up to the alter rail for communion, Father Mark put the host in my hand, and I got that feeling again. I didn't get that feeling from the person who followed him with the chalice.

I can't remember the last time I took communion. It had a strong emotional impact on me to have taken it then. Then, I felt like I was ready for Wednesday. Except perhaps, for getting my bedroom cleaned up.

1) Taking a real shower with no plastic involved.
2) Swimming
3) Sitting in a jacuzzi
4) SWIMMING. Like lap swimming. For, you know- exercise.
5) Getting through a work day without gritting my teeth to do it.
6) Getting OFF of Fentanyl
7) Playing Quidditch again
8) Not holding my back all the time
9) Getting rid of the PICC. Around two days and already being obnoxious!
10) Not leaking pee all over everything
11) Sleeping on my left side

Five and a half days...

Six and a half days to go.

Have I mentioned lately that I work for the swellest people on the planet? The company I work for is a small group. We're a close knit lot, and the Powers That Be are amazingly compassionate, kind, and accommodating people. They have certainly been very flexible with me, letting me work from home while recovering from medical madness, and generally making it very clear that they care about what happens to me. Today I think was the cherry on top. This is the first day I was at work this week, and the president, CEO and clinical director have been traveling this week. They flew into Pensylvania today and while driving to Allentown, hot, tired, and stuck in commuter traffic, the president called me at work. He said they were all worried about me and concened about the whole IV infiltration thing and wanted to make sure I was doing ok.

That was all. He gave me a ring from across the country because they were all worried about me and wanted to check in.

*sniff*

Thanks guys. You're the best. And no, no one I work with reads my journal, but they really are the greatest.

Now for the invitation part.

I am inviting all of my friends, family, and coworkers who feel so inclined, to send me any quotes, titles or lyrics of favorite songs, titles of books or movies, scripture verses (any faith is welcome), poems,or whatever that you find to be especially inspirational, motiviational or uplifting. If you would like to send anything to me, email it to houndofzeus@pacbell.net and I will print it, put it in an envelope with the rest that I get from work, and will read them after surgery is over.

Six and a half days...

The PICC line is in. The CT scan was done,and all is set for surgery one week from tomorrow unless my urologist gets a cancellation, and which I have been asked to be moved up into any vacated surgery slots.

Today was not awful. It really wasn't.

The nurse who did the PICC line was a chipper, experienced woman who was very smooth and efficient. She kept up a reasonable for me amount of casual chatter while she set up, then settled in to focus on what she was doing when she was ready to start. Once the worst was over, she resumed the casual chatter. it took about a half hour from beginning to end to get the thing in, and she did specifically use a high-pressure PICC so it would survive CT scan contrast injections. The lidocaine injections hurt and there were about four of those, and she hit something that made me jump and squeal, and she thinks it may have been some scar tissue. Aside from that, it was an uneventful procedure. She gave me a very cool gadget to slide on my arm to protect it during showers, so I don't have to have any more adventures with ziplock bags and waterproof tape.

They took a chest x-ray to make sure the line was where it needed to be, then sent me back to the CT lab.

I am convinced that I am FAR too susceptible to single trial conditioning, at least where traumatic experiences are concerned. I can't count the number of CT scans I have had that were uneventful, if a bit of a pain in the butt with IV issues, but nothing as horrid as yesterday. I no sooner got on the table this afternoon than I started shaking and tears sprung to my eyes. I had to start humming to myself and doing my own little mini psychological intervention right there to convince myself that what happened yesterday was NOT going to happen today. In fact, it was fine. The scan is done.

The PICC site hurts a bit, and my other arm is sore from the infiltration yesterday. I can move it freely but it is still a bit lumpy in places lumps should not be and my skin is sore. Tomorrow will be better. The really good news is that I will not have to get poked again during surgery prep and they will be able to give me a little sedation before taking me into the operating room. I get so anxious being taken in drug free because I am such a hard stick that they usually have to let the anesthesiologist do the IV after gassing me enough that I don't care what they are doing. I don't like going through all of the "move over here, lay this way, put your feet here, stretch your arm out here," light adjusting, monitor setting, etc that goes along with the immediate prep before the anesthesiologist comes in. I really do much better with just a bit of anti-anxiety juice. The IV will NOT infiltrate after surgery, they will be able to give me high powered antibiotics that often burn without me feeling a thing, and they will NOT have to poke me to draw blood every morning. Yaaaay! There is much dancing in the streets. Well, strike that. Dancing hurts Piddle. Rejoicing there is much rejoicing.

When my alarm went off this morning, Gawain (the larger of the two younger cats, who now outweighs the older boys) came and laid down next to me, kneading my shoulder, purring, and rubbing his face on mine. It was a nice way to spend the few minutes after hitting the snooze alarm and before the alarm goes off again. He is such an affectionate kitteh. He is very good for my blood pressure.

I was 8 years old and watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. I was at my grandmother's house, sitting in front of the television set, legs crossed, and hands pressed to the screen (and my grandmother yelling at me that I was going to ruin my eyes sitting that close), and feeling an excitement I can't recall feeling to that degree before in my life. That was the day I decided I wanted to be an astronaut. That was a dream I kept right on through High School, and an all too brief stay at the Air Force Academy.

It was a long, hard road figuring out that I was not astronaut material regardless of how much I wanted it. But, I still get chills laying in the grass staring off into space, or watching Apollo 13.

The world needs heroes. These guys were, and are, mine.