I cope with stress by gathering information. That's how I keep from giving over completely to anxiety. If I just know enough stuff, then I can prepare for anything. So I read. Back in 1995 when I was pregnant with my first child, I checked books out of the medical school library. These days, it's far easier to learn a great deal about PAO.
I know where they'll make the incision. I know that the surgery typically takes about 3 hours. I know I'll get an epidural (how ironic that after giving birth 4 times, I'll finally get an epidural!) I know I'll be in the hospital for 3 days. But knowing all of this data doesn't really tell me what will happen TO ME. So I wait, and I read and I prepare.
Today I called Dr. Peter's nurse to get the results of my blood work. My hemoglobin is 15 and my hematocrit is 43. Everything else they tested is "in normal range". Those two numbers were the ones I was worried about so I can check worrying about them off my list now. I also asked about medication and what I should bring to the hospital. My concern now is whether anybody is actually going to pay attention to the list of stuff I'm already taking and make sure that it won't interact badly with the stuff they are going to give me. I'm already weaning myself off the Xanax because I won't take that while I'm taking narcotic pain medication. How ironic it would be to survive a major surgery only to succumb to the same lethal cocktail that carried off Heath Ledger.
My plan now is to read up on living with a walker or how to manage on crutches or whatever other search terms I can think of. I'm terribly aware that my mobility, and therefore my productivity, are going to be excruciatingly limited. I think that might actually be the hardest part of this whole thing. I expect the first few days to be pretty difficult as I learn to manage the pain and recover from the effects of the actual surgery. But once I'm out of the hospital, it will be all about trying not to make myself crazy by holding myself to the same standards as I did when I had the use of both my legs.
I was thinking today that even the simple act of watering the flowers in my garden is going to be a challenge. Jarrah will not take kindly to me not being able to pick her up. I'll miss going to yoga class. But I have to think it'll be worth it. Right now, I can do very little. I hope that on the other side of doing less, I can eventually find a place where I can do what I used to.
Of course, I did my reading during and afterwards. I'd done some before because I'd had chest pain a couple of years ago that we never really identified as heart related and an inconclusive stress test. During is when I figured out it was a heart attack. Afterwards is when I learned all about stents, catheterization, worried if having multiples, them next to each other, etc. was good, bad or indifferent (it's OK, no extra worries).
ReplyDeleteMourning that you are no longer who you were is the process you and I face. Learning that this is our new reality. It may have big consequences or small, but it will have consequences, our bodies have demanded it of us. Our brains just have to catch up. We will learn our new sense of self, adjust and go forward. But, we will never be the same nor ought we be. That's OK. We'll be fine in our new self because it is just an adjustment of our old self.