You Know You've Spent Too Much Time at the Hospital When ...

You know the pre-op nurses by name. And they actually remember you.

We had our favorites again. Michael and Lance. Nicest guys in the world. Michael said if we like him so much, we should just ask him out to coffee instead of bothering him at work.

Thankfully, I didn't have much time to get nervous about the surgery. I was fighting some sort of virus all day on Wednesday, then Thursday was spent in panic mode. My thoughts were something along the lines of: Where is the card for Maddie's teacher? Do we still have flannel sheets for Nick's bed? I wonder if Alister McGrath checks his e-mails over the holidays? (It's a freelance thing.) How long will it take Lorenzo to fill my prescriptions? (Yes, I'm on a first name basis with my pharmacist.)

Of course, once I discovered early Thursday evening that we were expected to be at the hospital at 5:15, panic mode went up even more. Would Sam and Michelle really want the kids at 4:45 in the morning? Who could spend the night with them here? (Thankfully, the answer was Sam and Michelle saving the day as usual and taking the kids overnight at their house.)

Then at the hospital Friday morning, I actually fell asleep before surgery. That's how tired and relaxed I was. Michael had to wake me up to put in the I.V.

Surgery went well, was done in two hours, I was wrapped in gauze and the biggest ACE bandage I've ever seen from navel to armpits, and I was sent home, asleep in my own bed before noon. Unfortunately the first pain Rx did not work well and we had to fix that by mid afternoon, as I was feeling like someone took a chainsaw to my sternum, but that has been the only real issue.

What I didn't explain in my previous post, was that we (and by "we" I really mean Nate) hosted our summer staff Christmas party at the house last night (yes, last night). It was planned long before we had a surgery date, people (Brit) were flying in from Colorado, other people (Joel and Shannon) were getting engaged on the way to the party ... there was just no way we could reschedule. And they are all family anyway, so it was fitting that they come upstairs to my recovery bed during the evening to squeeze my hands (no hugs!) and say hello. (I'll have you know, Joel and Shannon, that it was my intention to bake you a heart-shaped cake reading "Dunn & Done," but that was a no-go.) Nate says the party was amazing (it sounded like it, from up here), so I'll take his word for it and I'm glad we didn't cancel.

Now I'm just recovering. Feeling better today than yesterday, getting up and around like the doctor told me too. Sometimes going back to bed (as I didn't really sleep last night--but I'll save that story for another post). Hopefully things will continue this way. Thanks for your prayers! And thanks to Steph and Brian for having the Merry Maids make our house beautiful on Thursday! Thanks to Sam and Michelle and also Diana and Dempsey for helping us with the kids! I appreciate you guys so much. -Tam