Eating My Way Through Seattle - The Night Before Day One

photo by Natalia Tsouklava.

This ship is now leaving the port.

As I approach tomorrow I have to look back at where this all started, back in July, when we first heard about LVRS surgery. At that time we actually thought that LVRS would be occurring shortly after we were told about it. Then we found out that I would need to be Graduate from Pulmonary Rehabilitation. After I graduated from rehab, we thought we’d be hearing from the surgeons rather quickly, but things work the way things work, and the ball didn’t get rolling until February. I actually think this is better because we didn’t have to worry about any inclement weather like freak snowstorms (like that one last week, for example).

But here we are, and tomorrow I roll into surgery ready or not, no turning back now. I have showered with the specialized surgical soap that the nurse gave me, so surgery is ON.

We spent the day at the hospital having blood draws, pre-op appointments, including that soap mentioned above, to shower with tonight and again in the morning prior to coming in. I also had another series of CTscans this morning. Tomorrow check-in is at 8:15 and they will be shooting me in the spine with an epidural for pain management, which I will be using for a while after surgery. I probably won’t be doing too much tomorrow other than groaning and getting pushed, prodded, gauged, metered, and "temped." But tomorrow is "Day One!!!!" Yay!!!!

The hospital will remember us, as the ones that will stink up the whole ward with Indian food! They all know that we plan to be having it for dinner (hubby will be bringing it in as soon as I feel up to it!).

It's a good thing they serve Indian curry in the hospital cafe, so they shouldn't be too surprised to have the scent up in the ward at times.

We spent last night and tonight eating at a great Italian sub sandwich shop called Sarducci’s that also serves crepes, a discovery we made in the university district.

They even bake their own bread daily and all of their sandwiches are made from it. Last night I had an oven heated Italian Sub and hubby had a meatball sandwich. It was heaven on wheels for both of us, especially since our favorite Italian sub shop went out of business at home.

Today at the hospital we were told that I should eat a dinner of good protein tonight, and then of course, no food after 11:00 pm tonight.

So rather than eat extremely spicy food from an Indian restaurant, we decided to go back to Sarducci’s again and try different sandwiches, saving the Indian food for after the surgery. This way, we could also get some of those great looking homemade crepes for dessert.

That was the ticket! Hubs had a Hot Pastrami sandwich and I had a French Dip; and from him, all I heard were a couple of mm- mm’s and a growl when I got too close. My beef dip was very good, but I think I preferred the Hot Italian sub I chose last night better.

Our dessert crepes both have strawberries, his with ice cream and mine with whipping cream, both have chocolate syrup dribbled all over and mine also has sliced almonds. (I also got a growl when I got too close to his crepe, so I kept my distance and watched him chow down on what looked to be a delectable dessert).

Now, it is about 8:30pm, and I am going to finish this post and start thawing my crepe (we brought them back and immediately froze them to keep them from getting too soggy) and then I am going to welcome in “Day One 2012 with style and strawberries, almonds, chocolate, and whipped cream on a crepe, and tomorrow life for me begins again.

By lunchtime tomorrow I should, be done, and all hosed up, learning how to breathe again, ready to kick up my heels once more!

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.