Nautilus

I am a nautilus. I am rolled into a ball, a coil with ever tightening concentric circles that get smaller and smaller, each chamber smaller than the preceding chamber all the way to my core.

My id lies in my internal structure. Inside my shell, in the place where I am found, tightened within my own private little world I can seek my own pleasure from the inside out without having to expose myself to the outside world that wants to rob me of my strength.

And when I am forced into the environment, when I need to go out, I can just grow another shell of protection, compartmentalizing a new place for myself to step into; a new booth from which to view the outside world. In this booth, I sit and watch others as they go about their daily lives laughing and frolicking, never the wiser that I am behind my partition watching them. I crave to be out there playing. There will come a time when I will be freed, my shell will be removed and I will burst forth, out into the sunshine again, where I might breathe the same air that everyone else breathes. I won’t feel any more pain.

But for now I stay curled up within my world, my only visit to the outside world comes from the need of sustenance and to tone myself to retain my inner strength. Until my time comes I can only dream of the outside world and access my memories of days once lived in the sunshine experiencing the freedom of movement. I can go out, but it is only for a brief time, and then I must return to my safety zone.

I crave the top of a hill, the sweet scent of the breeze that carries a snowflake in the icy air. I crave the ocean, the scent of the sand and the salt water, the spray that whips my hair against my cheeks.

As a nautilus I am safe within. As a nautilus I can remain curled up, restoring some sense of who I was, with thoughts of returning to the sea, all in my own time.

sunrisebird ~vaka haunui~ Duncan Morrison

For now, when I venture out, my existence is captivated by my thoughts and frets about making it back into my shell in time to find my peace, my air, and my place to dream. Yet my dreams are of venturing out finding my peace again and then dreaming while I am out there.

All in due time.

The Countdown

I find myself at a lack of words right now

..and that doesn't happen very often.

What this means is that I am feeling a bit overwhelmed, because I just found out that I am going to Seattle on Mar 5^th, for the day long testing.

The countdown to bigger things has begun....

Day One draws near.

Snack Me.

My test was today, Thursday Feb 16^th, 2012. This test is one of those long-named word diagnostics. I believe it was called a Myocardio Perfusion Test.

This was the dreaded Stress Test. Remember the one where I envisioned Regan flailing on the gurney, blood spraying everywhere?

Well it wasn’t like that at all.

I will admit to feeling bewildered for a little while. Especially when one considers that I was told that I had to fast: no caffeine, no nothing. All I could have was little sips of water. This alone is hard to bear for a person who regularly drinks double shots of espresso. Sigh.

But I made it. I was doing well until I checked in and was sent to the 3rd floor. As I was about to walk onto the elevator I heard my name called and I turned and there was my Golden Heart#1 (the one we'll call Susan, waving to me and wishing me well in my test! Out of all the people in the hospital, here she was, waving at me! Wow, and I waved back).

Of course, I had been sent to the wrong department. Then I was sent back to the woman that misguided me, and she redirected me. When I got to the correct department, they asked for my paperwork, which of course, I had none, since I was just sent there. So again, I was returned to the front desk a third time, and this time she sent me around the corner to the “booth.”

These are the booths that have a chair and a counter and on the opposite side of the counter sits a person at a screen with a key board, and stacks of papers and pens on chains, not the big flowers taped on their pens like at the front desk. You know you are entering into Accounting Zone, and you sit down and prepare to sign everything away, because even if your insurance balks at the last minute (you won’t know this for at least 5-6 mo. when the decision making actually takes place); you still need the procedure done today so it is very easy to sign everything now.

After signing 7 or 8 times I was asked to verify my birthdate, and then to extend my right arm outward and a plastic bracelet was snapped on and the tag cut off. I now belonged to the hospital, and was being directed back to the front desk for a fourth time.

The woman told me to go into a different room to watch a video about the procedure that was going to be performed on me. At this point I need to tell you, that it was only the day before, that I had found out that the test would take 3-4 hr to complete, so finding out about the video quickly became a new sources of bewilderment for me. Being sent in to watch a video of the procedure that was going to take place quickly became my 2nd source of bewilderment. A video? In my mind anything that takes a video to prepare a person, can’t be small. All this time I had thought that my stress test would be one of those treadmills tests that last about 45 min from going in to coming back out…..Nope, not today.

As the video started, my vision of Regan slowly entered my mind when the video talked about a machine hugging my body and that I wasn’t allowed to move at all for 15 min or so…. And these people would start shooting hypodermic needles into my IV… oh man… yikes….

I have to say that I am very lucky. I have discovered another Golden Heart in the Gym. We’ll call him John. John also works up in the Cardio diagnostic center that was conducting my test today, and he is the one that originally enlightened me yesterday as to the proceedings of my test and the duration of time it would last. John is familiar with the type of test that what was being called for. He discussed it with me and made it easier for me to understand the process before I found out this morning. So my only real surprise was the video, of course it had the visuals, and had I not been pre informed, I might have freaked out even more once I realized that I had to watch a video of the whole thing in the first place.

Once I got back in there, they gave me a gown with no discernable garment shape which had snaps all over it and I finally figured out the the snaps constituted the shoulders of the gown and was able to make clothing out of it.

Everyone was very nice, polite and friendly. I mean they had better be, I was in Nuclear medicine!

First, they IV’ed me and taped a Y shape port into the affixed IV line now taped to me and I think he injected something nuclear into me….. and once I was on hospital O2 (directly from the wall, something new for me), they snacked me. I was given cheese and crackers and cranberry juice, to get my digestion working to help move the chemicals through my system. It was explained that the food would get my organs working and they would be farther away from the heart and not impede the images, or something like that. OK.. Then I waited about 20-30 min for this to take place.

I watched some scenic flip book travelog on TV, about Oregon like the shows that air on Easter… Then all of a sudden John showed up!

We talked for a bit and he handed me a remote control for the TV. He let me know that he had talked to my tech and that they had tried to inform my Dr’s in WA, that my high speed pulse may not need the drug push to elevate me, but it was to no avail. My surgeons in WA have a protocol to follow, so I was good with that. What it meant was that I would not need to walk on a treadmill to elevate my pulse, and that they’d inject me to do it.

So John made sure I was comfortable and he went on with his daily work. It felt really nice to know that there are people that I see down on the first floor in the Gym that actually go out of their way to stop in when one of their charges is up in the hospital having testing. Who does that? My Golden Hearts do!

So I watched Star Trek New Generation on TV in the waiting room.

My tech came and retrieved me from TV and I was taken into the testing room for images of my heart. Things were taped to my body (they look amazingly like the snaps on the shoulders of my gown), and then I was laid back on the table, and the big machine was moved up over me. It lasted a total of about 7 min of exposures. No problem, I almost dozed off. Then I was told that this part had now finished and I was wrapped in hot blankets and taken back out into the lobby for more TV.

By the way, I happened to have been the only person there today, so the remote was mine, all mine.
I waited another ½ hr or so, before they came out and retrieved me again. This was the big one, where they would be injecting me with things that would speed my heart up.

This part of the test is where two techs work as a tag team, one on a screen the other running the test. Together they work in tandem, and they have to be on the ball for this. Watching and timing everything perfectly or it doesn’t count. And believe me, when it involves a persons heart beat you really don’t want it to “not count.” These techs were savvy and they were both very nice women and we all got along quite well. There was laughter and bright attitudes which I found very helpful.

I’ll tell you this about the drug they used, the techs said it was referred to “Exercise in a bottle”……. And I say “Boy Howdy, isn’t that the truth!”

They gave me one drug that pushed my heart beat up to the speed they needed and when it was obtained they then injected something else (don’t ask me). After a prescribed time it was over….But during that time, I was instructed to inform them every single feeling I had especially chest pain, tightness, arm pain, jaw pain (all those scary symptoms they advertise on TV) plus anything else I felt during this time…

Well, I feel everything..so I wonder just how much they really wanted… and I let them know when it felt like I could feel all the nerves in my face wake up and wiggle. And when my scalp tickled I told them too. But I had none of those dreaded symptoms so that was good. It was quite strange to feel my heart beat inside my chest without my having done it with my own movement on a treadmill though.

Since I do run at a fast heartbeat this test was quite easy for me and I was up at the required heartbeat very quickly with no need for the atropine that is sometimes used to boost the heart beat speed up. I am glad for that. I also didn’t need a nebulizer treatment that many do need since some of the drugs interfere with breathing. I sailed through it. My O2 saturation stayed up the whole time!

After my heartbeat race, I waited in the room for my heart to go back to normal, and then once again I was taken back to the waiting room, but not before we discussed websites, blogs (I told them about this blog) and jewelry making. When they returned me to the waiting room they told me that this time I could have coffee!

YAY!

So I was ‘snacked’ once again, in addition to heaped with wonderfully heated blankets. This time on TV, I noticed that “The Talk” was on and that told me that one o‘clock had been reached. I saw no clocks anywhere on the walls though I am sure that every screen had the time even if it was 24hr time or gmt.

Another half hour or so and I was retrieved a third time. We went back to the first room of image- taking and repeated the process so they could see how my heart operated after being stressed.

This time I laid down, the same as earlier, but for only half the time and then the bed was lifted and I completed the time in a sitting position, and then it was all done.

It did take quite a while, but none of it was as bad as I had envisioned.
It was just . plain . weird.

I walked out to my car, my day now completed and the only residual effect was that my arm vein hurt a bit, and I had a slight headache, but that’s nothing.

I came home, took some Advil, rested for a moment, and then I called Seattle to inform the case manager that the test had now been completed, and went back to my life….

I had fantastic people working in me all day long, And they really helped me get through a test that may have been a bit frightening and I have my now 3rd Golden Heart, John to thank for giving me the “head’s up,” before I found out the hard way.

And finally, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Tillamook Cheddar Cheese, Premium Saltines and Cranberry juice! A wonderful way to “Snack Me.”

I really don't like fasting.

My Golden Hearts

I have to say that there comes a time in our lives when we realize that there are true Golden Hearts out there. These Golden Hearts are not the ones that are closest to us, they are Golden too, but I am referring to those that devote their lives to others, especially in their lives and with their professions.

Most people that choose their professions and lifestyles do so for the money, the income that it brings into their families and lifestyles, so that they can enjoy their chosen existences. And if they don’t get the income they feel they deserve they will drop their profession of choice like a hot potato and walk away indifferent, if not nonplussed, seeking a new outlet for financial gain. Don’t we all want that, to some degree? Not necessarily. But a very high percentage do.

Many people do what they like to do for their profession even if it doesn’t bring them the highest possible income. Many do what they love to do and that’s to help others.

No one ever talks about what happens when a person gets to the point where they rely on others to help them.

Let me tell you about my Golden Hearts. Two times in the past several weeks others have come to my aid in ways that may seem too subtle or non-issues to most people, but to me, they became my Golden Hearts at that very moment.

Last week at the Better Breathers Club, I was sitting in my chair listening to the guest speaker talk about lung issues. We had a large group and most of the chairs were filled. The Better Breathers Club is facilitated by our staff at the Cardio Vascular Wellness Center, particularly the Pulmonary Rehab group. They set it up, they do the scheduling, they bring in food, drink, prepare the room and 'run' each meeting. They do all of this in addition to maintaining their regular scheduled daily work load, and are quite busy on any given day.

I was sitting in my chair and as the speaker was discussing the program I realized that I felt some burning in my chest. Nothing big, but it was the tightening I sometimes get when I am not getting enough air. I didn’t realize it at first, but after a couple of minutes it dawned on me that perhaps I was running out of air. I really didn’t think it possible because I had already switched tanks earlier after spending 2 hrs working out and at chair yoga. I had been halfway to the café when I felt this before and decided to return to the Wellness Center right then; rather than continuing to the café in hopes that I wouldn’t run out there. I knew that as far as I went outward, I would have to walk that same distance back to get more air and that wouldn’t be good for me. So my lunch partner sat down and waited while I returned to swap another tank before we went out to eat.

I thought I had been good for the rest of my day at the wellness center with my new tank of air. Sitting in my chair, I pulled the cannula out of my nose and held it up to my upper lip and felt no flow of air….

In a flash my brain is calculating how many steps I have to go, carrying the tank back to the gym where more air is located…. In my mind, my tank had now become 3 X’s heavier than it was before...

So that means I’d have to carry it out of the meeting room, down the hall past the lobby and through the big double doors, and down another hall to the room adjacent to the wellness center area where the tanks are…. I knew I had the strength to get there, but I would be in very poor condition when I got there, and that it would hurt, and I would need to sit down for (I don’t know how many) minutes until I recuperated. All of this went through my mind in a flash, just as it does every time I run low on air.

Sitting there in the meeting with this realization, and then calculating distances through my mind, I started to set myself up. I reached down and pulled the flap down on my tank to view the regulator to check my level of O2 and saw that it was down deep in the red zone, meaning it was empty.

This was not going to have a good outcome, because not only would I have to get up and weave my way out of the room during the presentation, I would have to endure the distance, too. I have to say that the very last thing on my mind is to have any conversation, much less, interruption or anything to cloud my mind, because at times like this, I am suddenly cast into survival mode.

Most people do not know this, and are unaware of how this works when a person is out of air. Sometimes the mere thought of it is enough to cause the feeling of not having air, even when a person does have air. The big difference is that when officially out of air, confusion will set in quickly, because in survival mode what is most important is getting what a person needs as soon as possible to get them back to where they are supposed to be.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed movement on my lower right side and I looked over and there was my Golden Heart, let’s call her Susan, and she was talking to me.

She had been sitting in the back of the room, enjoying the meeting as we all were, and I guess she had seen me pull my cannula out to check the airflow, and look my regulator, and she jumped into action without saying a word. She knew what to do and didn’t wait for me to look around with “that look” in my eyes. She notices things! She follows through!

She knew immediately, and she came up to me, bent down opened my case for my tank and muttered something like, I’ll get you a new tank just sit right here.” I am not sure exactly what she said, my brain was already starting the grip of survival, but I knew what she was referring to because I had heard her say "another tank" and "be right back." And she was gone out of the door. About three minutes later she was back with a new tank of air, connected me up, and life continued on…

Not many people pay attention to the small things like that. She is a Golden Heart.

She made herself available, even though she had so many things to do that day, she actually stopped everything when she saw that one of her ‘people’ was about to be in distress. She averted my distress. How can I say thank you to her enough times?

My second Golden Heart was even more subtle than this one.

Another respiratory therapist, let’s call him Robert, was in the process of working with a new client. Each client completes the 6 min walk when they first come to Pulmonary Rehabilitation. This is how they are assessed for treatment and for therapy and for supervised exercise programs.

Before clients start each day, and during the course of their workout a series of tests and readings are made. After graduation from Pulmonary Rehab., we do our own testing, but while in pulmonary rehab these tests are continual and all results are written down and archived for future reference and for the patients individual plan for wellness and sent back to their referring Dr.s. Every person goes through this. And during the 6 minute walk each person wears a portable EKG and a pulse oximeter. All of these will be able to assess their needs, for oxygen and their level of exertion. The patient walks around the track while the Respiratory Therapist walks behind the patient pacing them at their rate of speed and take notes (I guess).

This particular day, one of the Respiratory Therapists, the one we’re calling Robert, happened to have a new client that he was working with, on the 6 min walk. I had been working out and it had been a particularly hard day for me.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, people with COPD will wake up with breathing issues that will follow them throughout their day. Whether it is air pressure, temperature changes, particulates in the air, who knows? But it happens. It can be very frustrating because a person can be having a fantastic roll of days where they actually think they are getting better, and then out of the blue this nasty disease will remind them that it is not so, in the cruelest of ways, by waking in the morning very short of breath. It can be very frustrating.

I was having one of those days. I had been doing great, getting lots done. My errands were easy to achieve, and I was looking forward to a great day, only to realize as I sat up in bed, that I was already short of breath. When I took my morning meds I had a hard time inhaling one of them. Hmmm. When I got to the gym I mentioned it and was told that others were saying the same thing. OK, so at least I am not the only one.

I did my workout as I normally do, adjusting it to my lower breathing threshold of oxygenation and I had found myself quite winded after my workout. I was sitting in the Pulmonary Rehab section taking a breathing break before moving onward to my Chair Yoga class, and well, I must have looked like I was in distress or something, because as Robert rounded the corner with his patient he looked at me and instantly became a Golden Heart..

He probably doesn’t even know it, but while he was working with his patient in the midst of his client’s 6 min walk, he saw me sitting there, looked me in the eye and shot me the thumbs up…… which I reciprocated by returning it.

You see, he was checking to see if I was OK, or if I was confused by a lack of oxygen, because he knows the pattern of a person who’s in distress. A person in distress may not seek help, in fact they may not respond at all, but by non response it does not necessarily mean that they are OK, it might mean that they are ready to flop over.

chair yoga

I fully realize that had I not returned his thumbs up, that Robert would have put his patient on hold to come to my aid; because that is what Golden Hearts do.

I have been reminded more than once now that there are people that actually have given their hearts and minds to those that they work with.

Two times now 2 people have stepped up to the plate without being asked. This is how I know I am in the right place, the best place for me and my breathing issues.

I find it comforting to know that I can move a single muscle, a flinch, a recognized nuance in a way that isn't right and if a Golden Heart happens to be nearby they will jump into action, whether it be to ensure that I can continue along, even if it is merely an affirmation that I am still here in the present.

Great people They are.

Time Warping

Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012

Next Thursday the 16th of February, will be my final local test. As soon as I am done with that test I will be calling Seattle and we will be making the "all day appointment" at the University of Washington Medical Center. It will be an all day affair with another full series of Pulmonary Function Tests, another Stress Test, and any other tests they can find; including a nicotine test in case I still smoke and haven't mentioned it to them yet (ahem, not). After the tests are completed I will be meeting the surgeons and then I'll have my pre-op appointment. So perhaps we'll be driving home with a surgery date, too!

Here is comes. I am glad that I still have a week before the final test here because I want to prepare for it with more time on the recumbent exercise bike. I was told that for the surgery, I really need to focus on bicycling and arm and core building exercises... I say, what's left? Eyelid exercises?

Oh, and of course, the local test here is going to be a stress test, one of my most dreaded tests. No food, no caffeine, no nothing for 12 hr, only little sips of water allowed.

Sorry for the lack of levity tonight. I am pretty tired... waiting, waiting, waiting.

I know that tomorrow will be better. I will be spending 1/2 of my day at the hospital: working out for an hour, followed by an hour of chair yoga, lunch at the hospital cafe (which I hear is fantastic), and then after lunch it's the Better Breather's monthly club meeting for a couple of hours. So I will probably be a bit tired after all of this; but I am looking forward to it.

Slowly but surely I am getting there. It's funny when I look back. For so long I have been wanting to get this over with, now that I am actually looking at it happening, part of me wants time to slow down.

No Room For Wrenches

Feb 1st, 2012

Tools are good for keeping things maintained. Every tool has a place to be. Wrenches are usually numerous, and there are many types.

Each type has a use.

This is not about the wrenches we use to tighten things or to loosen things. These are a different type of wrench.

And do not mistake the term wrench to mean “to wrench something from one’s grasp” though at times this terminology can come inevitably close to what I am referring to here.

I am referring specifically to a type of wrench that has no use.

The throwing wrench.

The throwing wrench has no purpose but to be thrown. It has no nut to hold, no bolt to fit. It isn’t used for anything. It has no adjustor wheel on it. Ironic that for having no use in a tool box, nothing to fit onto, it probably has the widest latitude range of any of the wrenches.

Yes, the throwing wrench.

A throwing wrench can be of any size, too. It can be so teeny tiny that no one can even see it, or it can be so large that no one can ignore it. A throwing wrench at times can also be related to its cousin the proverbial fly-in-the-ointment.

But one thing is for sure, one cannot get by without feeling it or its ripple effect as a bystander, once a wrench has been thrown. For what goes up always comes down.

And let it be known to all, everyone gets a wrench thrown their direction every once in a while. If you say you haven’t ever felt that wrench, you lie…like a rug, or you actually are one that believes that denial is a river in Africa; or you are just plain oblivious.

Sometimes denial and obliviosity ride side by side. Ignorance is bliss, but not obliviousness or denial. They’re just plain ol’ things that some people can’t admit to. But even to deny a wrench being thrown constitutes that wrenches in fact, do exist, and the denier probably just got hit by one, which rendered the denier to be just as plain as everyone else. So much for those rivers in Africa. You might as well have said that you have a special wrench than to say you’ve never experienced a wrench at all. At least more people will believe that you know what you are talking about.

I’d like to say that I won’t be getting hit by any wrenches in the next several months, but that’s not likely to happen. There are never any free rides. We pay for what we get and we get what we pay for. I’d like to think that my next several months will breeze past me with no fouls called, no bumps in the road, no air turbulence and especially no wrenches hitting me in the head if at all possible. At least let me have my way when I call them little teeny tiny wrenches. We don’t have to worry about my denial, mainly because I know they exist. I will try not to become exasperated when my loved ones see those wrenches as huge Open-end adjustable Plumbers wrenches, if they do appear to be that way to them. Let me see them as being small.

So here’s my first wrench:

I got my “Call of My Life” last week. I was told that we would be proceeding right along now, and that I needed to have one more cardiac test, and that the case manager would be (both) faxing and writing up an order for this one last test to be done locally (a catheterization or something like that). Of course, in my mind what I see is a scene from the movie The “Exorcist” when Regan is in the hospital and the heart test is being run on her, the needle jabs into her heart and she freaks, ripping the catheter out and then the bleeding starts, blood squirting everywhere, Regan flailing on the gurney….. this whole scene broadcasts through my mind in an instant flash. Of course, I know that’s not the same test I will have, but my mind still goes there, because that’s the imagination I was born with. So be it. I talk myself down again.

So I was told that I would be getting the call to come in within a day or so…….that was 8 days ago, and today we checked from our end, going backwards. No one has been told anything, no one seems to know anything, even though the case manager said she was going to write it up as soon as we were off the phone a week ago, Tuesday. When we ask about it at the Cardiac unit, we are looked at with blank eyes. I could have been a vase of flowers and received a better reaction. Don’t get me wrong, no one was upset, not even me. Everything was just blank.

It’s OK really, because once that test is done, the future becomes inevitable. They say I can still back out of surgery if I want. What?

I won’t be doing that because where have I got to go? Downhill? But that doesn’t stop the fright from invading my senses. I can avoid thinking about everything until the phone rings again. I am not immobilized either; today, after I came home from the gym, after we had checked the status of this test that never materialized, I did call up to Washington to let the case manager know. She’ll probably immediately send another order, and call me back, too. So I am not putting my head in the sand, not at all. I just have the liberty of having my head turned the other direction until I hear more, because the case manager’s voicemail says that she will always return calls by the end if the following day. So I have one more day of not thinking about it. I have the liberty of enjoying this teeny tiny wrench for at least 24 hrs.

ummm Baba ghanouj and Samboucik

I’ll make a good time of it. I think I’ll embrace this little wrench and have sambousek complete with accoutrement for lunch tomorrow in celebration of my 24 hr reprieve from the future.

The Call Of Life

January 24th 2012

Now to describe the feelings I have today.

In the morning I had conversations with my spouse about how all the things that are going on affect him. He likes to fix things and wants to fix me. He feels inept to it. He is our life line, and we depend on him to hold things together for us. He gets frustrated. He’s had to be away at work, but he wants to be here.

Depression sank in for the both of us, leaving us both feeling powerless.

Even though I can normally be just as dependable and can control the works in my current state, sometimes I am so weakened that I am limited in what I can do. So I used to be super mom. I was also a single mom for many years and I have great experience managing a family. When we married I was happy to hand over the control panel to the fixit man. I stayed with the financials and the domicile lighting dept. and he took over the structural dept. and engineering aspects of our family. It has been a great balance. But now his commuting has been taken its toll on him, while at the same time, I have become unable to do a lot of the things I used to be capable of handling. My strength has faltered so much that even raking, or gardening has become impossible.

We had this conversation while sitting in a restaurant eating lunch and I felt my eyes burn as the tears started to collect. I am the one that gets his resentment, and he feels terrible about it, because I am the next one in line, and our daughter is innocent on all counts, because even if she understood, she’d still be innocent as she is not strong. My husband and I hold this all together, we are the glue for each other. Even though the three of us are molded into this family, my husband and myself keep this all cohesive, just so that our daughter can go out to her program and return each day and feel like a contributing member of the family. Even through all of this she knows something is not right. She also knows that I will be leaving soon for several weeks and that she will be staying with a friend. She cannot communicate so we are unclear regarding her fear levels about all of these transitions she will be experiencing.

We got back from lunch, and talked some more, and finally as my husband laid down for his sleep (prepping his body to resume its graveyard cycle for the remainder of the week), I settled in on the sofa under a blanket to watch some TV and listen to the pouring rain outside. Everything is flooding out there, and it’s been raining incessantly for almost a week now.

I was almost asleep when the phone rang. We have caller ID that shows on the TV screen and it said “University of Washington.” University of Washington!!!! My call! This is the call I have been waiting months to receive!

I jumped up, as usual, the O2 line followed, being that it was partially wrapped into the blanket, and as I tried to go around the coffee table the O2 line lifted up over the table, knocking a glass of water over, spilling it onto a laptop computer and a leather calendar…..

I got caught on the edge of the desk, and then again 5 feet short of the phone, when the line caught on the edge of the refrigerator and around my ankle. All I wanted to do was to get to the phone before the call went to the answering machine.

I was clawing at the air in order to reach the phone, and finally, I made it!

I talked to the case manager for about 10 minutes and I think I got everything written as she was telling me about what was going to happen.

Thoughts started to flood my mind. Here comes surgery. Things will move quickly now, even if they don’t, now that the wait for this call is over, they will seem to move quickly.

I started to cry, out of relief, happiness and fright. All this time I have waited to hear; all this time I could put off any feelings of impending surgery, as it was always out there in the future. Well now the future has arrived at my doorstep.

I woke up my husband and we cried together.

Now I face the hard part.