We Interrupt this Broadcast….

To bring you the latest update. Where to begin? A lot has happened over the past few weeks - too much to try to explain, but it all lead to where I am today. Today is the first day of my disability leave when I am supposed to be getting everything in order for my surgery next week. Instead I am trying to decide if I should go ahead with the surgery as planned or postpone it for a while. I thought I was ready for this, ready to go ahead and lose my bladder- that’s what I supposedly spent the last 4 months preparing to do. And when the date was pushed to the end of July rather than early in the month as I had anticipated, I was disappointed and frustrated. But now that I have taken a step back and re-evaluated the situation, I am glad that all my doctors seem to take their vacations in July.

July 31

That’s my date. A bit later than I had hoped, but coordinating the schedules of 4 surgeons in the summertime is a bit like, well according to the secretary at the Department of Surgery, “getting an audience with the Pope.” Since I’ve never tried to do either of these things, I have to take her word on this. I’ve already entered the next planning stage – deciding when to start my leave from work, figuring out what needs to be done around the house beforehand, scheduling flights and caretaker time after the surgery, etc. Fortunately Pat and I just returned from a 10 day vacation to Banff and Jasper (Alberta, Canada) and while I can’t say that we “relaxed”, we did have a fabulous time – spent out days hiking and enjoying the Canadian Rockies. While early June was a bit chilly, it was the perfect time to see the wildlife – just out of hibernation, but not annoyed with the tourists. We saw white tailed and mule deer, goats, sheep, elk, moose and bear, lots and lots of bears. And the baby animals as well – fawns, lambs, and even a mama bear and 2 cubs. I took tons of pictures – will share some soon. All in all we had a great time – like I said we were busy so it wasn’t like sitting on the beach with a book for a week, but it was the perfect change of pace. We planned this vacation knowing it may be the last time for a while I am comfortable traveling (though who is ever really comfortable with port-a-johns???)

I’ll write more later, just wanted to send out the “save the date” info.

July it is

Apologies for the delayed update – technical glitch behind the scenes which locked me out of the website for the past week. Didn’t make much of a difference though because I didn’t have any information or news to share until yesterday. After several phone calls and frustrated messages, I heard back from Dr. Nauta’s assistant. She said he was finally able to arrange a conversation between himself and the other three surgeons he wanted on my case. Now that they were in agreement about what needed to be done, we were ready to schedule a date.

As we had previously discussed, July seemed to be the best option for many reasons. We decided to try for a Thursday since this was Dr. Nauta’s scheduled Operating Room time and so we knew this piece of the puzzle fit. We ruled out July 3rd because of the holiday and decided to try for either of the following two Thursdays – July 10 or July 17. The problem now will be coordinating the schedules of 4 surgeons to make certain they can all be available. Because Dr. Nauta is Chief of Surgery at Mt. Auburn, he does have some clout and I think this will make some of the other doctors a little more flexible with their time. At least I’d like to think so.

In addition to Dr. Nauta who will be doing the majority of the operation, the other doctors include my urologist, Dr. Karian, a neurosurgeon, Dr. Wells, and another general surgeon, Dr. Vittemberger who was actually the first surgeon at Mt. Auburn to operate on me all those years ago. He still recognizes me and says hello in the hallway when I see him.

I should get a final date from his office by the end of this week, but I feel much better knowing that we are this much closer to getting this over with.

OK, late night, much to do. Back soon.