The Morning Of Surgery

I'm having surgery in 5 hours. I've been up for the past 2 hours, sleeping a total of about 3 hours last night. I felt prepared. I had come to terms with the possibility of being the one in five that doesn't get relief, I had come to terms with the horrible pain I will feel when I wake up. I had thought about the possibility of something going wrong, and about something going horribly wrong. Overall, I had felt positive and confident about whatever may come my way.

Last night, that all went away.

I've been so nervous about so many things that I couldn't sleep much. Feeling worried about the moment I wake up - what if I'm alone and in horrible pain and can't call someone. What if something goes wrong. What if I woke up during surgery. That's a big one that kept me up. The thought of something going wrong with the anesthesia and waking up while they're drilling into my skull but being too incapacitated to get any ones attention. I know these are all very unlikely, but I've had unlikeliness happen to me before.

I have not been allowed to eat or drink after midnight and do not think I've ever felt this sick and dehydrated. I'm sure it's partially nerves but nerves or not, I've been dry-heaving, wishing desperately to vomit, for the past hour. My head is hurting but I'm trying to not take pain meds because I just know they'll make my stomach feel worse. I called my surgeons office during the on-call hours this morning to see if I could even have some ice chips. I'm holding the phone in my hand waiting for it to ring me back but it doesn't. I count the minutes that go by. 5. 10. 15. 20. At 24 minutes I call back. Maybe the answering service took my phone number down wrong. Nope. But she'll re-try the page. Who's on call by the way who's not calling me back? Oh, it's my doctor. The guy who will be drilling into my skull later. An astounding vote of confidence goes out to him. It's now been 31 minutes in total and no call back. "Maybe he's already in surgery for the day" I try to assure myself. But then, isn't it a slightly retarded idea to have him be the one on call?

So I wait. Typing here trying to vent my frustrations with a bucket on my lap just in case one of these dry heaves manages to produce something. I doubt it though. I feel like my insides are made of sand. I've gone much longer than this without drinking something, but knowing that I CAN'T drink anything until I wake up from surgery in probably 9 hours makes it unbearable.

My cat jumps on my desk and tries climbing into my puke-bucket being all cute. I notice he has water droplets on his whiskers and feel envious of him. I'm jealous of a cat right now. Fail.

41 minutes and no call back. In 19 minutes the office will be open and I can talk to the receptionist and then hopefully one of the nurses. I'm trying to plan out my morning, allotting as much time as possible to things like showering and walking the dog to make the time go faster. My head is hurting and I feel dreadful.

Call already!