I’m Really Not Fine

Since I was diagnosed with my vestibular schwannomas brain tumor, life had been going really well. I’m aware of what to expect in surgery, I have a surgery date and I’ve been following through with the pre-op appointments. My headaches seem to be more frequent and more painful, plus both my ears and my jaw hurts, but other than that everything seemed to be going well. I’m hoping that will all be relieved after I recover, or at least most of it. If you ask me, I will tell you “I’m fine.”

And then last week happened. On Monday, I had a phone appointment to go over my prescriptions and previous surgeries. Tuesday, I had a phone appointment with a physician’s assistant to go over my surgery and how I would feel afterward. He wanted to make sure I understood that there was no guarantee I would retain any of my hearing in my left ear. And he told me that I would likely have nausea, vertigo and maybe vomiting right after surgery. Also, I should expect pain where they removed the area of my skull to remove the tumor.

After the phone call, it suddenly hit me that this was ahead of me. I thought I was ready, but I hadn’t really prepared for it. I was leaving God in control and forgetting that I was a participant in this traumatic experience. God hadn’t left me, I just hadn’t checked into my part of this story.

I have been doing lots of preparation. My lists have been made. The first list I prepared was my list of what to bring to the hospital. I’m not a fan of staying overnight in a hospital and even though I’ve had two babies and several surgeries I’ve kept it down to only a few nights. This time will be at least two nights and I’ll be about 80 miles from home, so I’m putting some effort into this.

I think that this will be my first time in ICU, at least as a patient. That definitely was not on my Bucket List, but I will be spending a day or so there, anyway.

So I fell into a feeling sorry for myself kind of mood, that lasted several days. I’m grateful that my husband, mom, and my youngest sister will be there for my surgery. However, I spent some time feeling like my adult children should be there. I know they have busy lives and young children and they live hundreds to thousands of miles away. When my mom had her brain tumor removed, my two sisters and I held each other and cried outside of intensive care. I really wanted my children, at least my daughter, there. But I’ve had to let that go.

Had my confidence in God being in control of my life, made me forget how crazy it is that I have a brain tumor? And two surgeons will be cutting open my skull and removing the tumor, as best as they can. Every doubt and every fear took over.

My sister reminded me that I am human. In a few days, I pulled myself together. I decided that I would stop lying to everyone when they asked how I was doing. No more “I’m fine.” Now I admit that my pain has been getting worse, that this is hard, even though God is in control.

There are less than two more weeks until my surgery. I have plenty of things to do before then, including things that most likely would need to be done in the first few weeks following surgery.

• Make a final trip to get groceries.
• Pay/cover the bills that will be due between now and the beginning of December.
• I want to at least start thinking about the Christmas presents I will be getting for the grandchildren since some will have to be shipped.
• Clean my house one last time.
• Finish organizing my sewing/office room.
• Wash more pillowcases, since I’ve read that I may go through a lot of them due to blood and seepage from my wound.
• Drive back to the hospital to have my blood typed and matched within a week of surgery.

There are other things that I’ve completed:

• I drove to the bank to get some cash in the house just in case
• My bangs have been trimmed.
• I switched most of my summer clothes out for fall/winter clothes.
• A phone call was made to attempt to see what this surgery will be costing me. I’m going to have to wait for the bill.
• I purchased the laxative my doctor said I needed to have once I was home from the hospital.
• Thanks to a reminder from my mom, I purchased a birthday present for a grandchild that has a birthday a few days after my surgery.
• All pre-op appointments are nearly completed. Besides my two phone appointments, I also had blood drawn and an EKG. I expected to have my blood typed and matched, just in case I need a blood transfusion during surgery. Unfortunately, I drove 90 minutes to be turned down because I was too soon. Oh, well.

My confidence in this whole thing is back up again. I am human and having a brain tumor is the worst thing that has happened in my life. But I will survive it by acknowledging this is really happening and as always, God is in control.

[mc4wp_form id=”393″]