Separating the Saucer Section(s)

(Hey, if it made me smile, then it's going as today's blog entry title. For those who have never watched Star Trek, just wait, there's going to be a movie musical reference in a bit.)

It's 6 a.m. I've been up since 5 and slept somewhere from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m., and then 2:30 a.m. to 5. Washed about a gazillion times with the special soap (die germs!) and am pretty much good to go when we're actually leaving, which is 6:30.

I've got my "Rod call/text list" ready, my "stay at the hospital" bag ready, my "stuff Rod will have to carry all morning until I go into surgery" (aka the "distraction") bag ready (ipad, iphone, headseat, charger, sudoku book, Hebrew grammar workbook pages, glasses........)

Am I ready? Eh. As I'll ever be, I guess. Got prescription lidocaine cream slathered all up and down my left arm (for the notorious IV insertion ordeal) which means I've got plastic wrap covering me from elbow to fingers. (If you deprive it of oxygen, it works better. To hold it all together, I put a latex glove on my left hand and threw on one of Rod's work shirts (pink plaid.) So now I'm really warm but not worrying about that particular pain will totally be worth it. And I look kind of funny.

The other place I've put the cream is where (I'm guessing) the four injections will go for the sentinel node tracer material. The injections have to be done about an hour before the surgery because.... well, I'm a little fuzzy on the details but I know it has something to do with how Dr. McIntosh finds the sentinel node when she gets into surgery. This area, too, is covered in plastic wrap, held in place by my camisole. But since that will have to be wiped off by Dr. D'Amico when he draws on me at about 7:10, I hope it has time to get to work and stays in effect until 9.

Yesterday on Facebook I posted a status that said I was determined to enjoy my birthday by using Scarlett O'Hara's famous line, "Tomorrow is another day." Then late last night I was reading my "Ten Minutes of Torah" that I get via email each day. The portion this week is about how daughters of a father who has died without male heirs are given their inheritance by God, and the rabbi who is writing compares the whole situation to the O'Hara girls inheriting Tara. Coincidence? Probably.

But in one my favorite all-time movies, "Hello Dolly", Barbara Streisand asks her dead husband for a sign that she should marry Horace VanDergelder and Horace says something like, "Money is like manure. It's no good unless it's spread around helping young things to grow." And of course, that was the exact line her husband has been fond of saying. So she had her sign.

Is "Gone With the Wind" my sign? I kinda hope not, since it is not one of those movies I would watch over and over.

But if the doctors have got my front today, I know you all have got my back.

Love,
Rebecca