The Unknown

I've been pretty calm about the whole surgery thing. That is, until today. Today I've been freaking out a little bit. Not of the surgery itself, really.

I'm not an anal planner and I can typically--as they say--go with the flow. But with surgery scheduled for Friday, and me having ZERO knowledge of what is going on or what to expect, I am in the middle of a meltdown.

My parents are flying standby. (Their choice. I've had offers for people to BUY tickets for them--did I mention that my friends are amazing, generous people?) With standby tickets you DON'T KNOW if and when you will arrive to your destination.

So come Friday morning, my parents may or may not be here for the surgery. But that's fine because I DON'T KNOW when my surgery is. Just that it is on Friday, some time in the morning. I also DON'T KNOW how I'm going to react to the anesthesia. Or how long I'm staying in the hospital. Or how long recovery will take, or how worthless I'm going to be while recovering. Or how I'm going to be affected by the surgery physically or emotionally.

I DON'T KNOW what I'm going to do with myself for two weeks while I'm off work. Or how much this is all going to cost me in the end. (Twenty percent of a most outrageous sum, most like. . .) I DON'T KNOW if there is still fluid in my lungs, though I suspect there is since my cough isn't gone; which means that I DON'T KNOW if that's important or not. Because shouldn't my lungs be in full working order before they put me under and do unmentionable things to my insides? I guess out of all the things, this will be answered tomorrow, since I'm headed back up to the doctor to have it all looked at again. Yippee.

I'm so clueless about all of it, and it is making me batty and moody and emotional. And, I don't like it all already. I didn't realize that I was so scared of the unknown. I mean, I have mini panic attacks every once awhile about the future and how things aren't going exactly as I thought they should. But those usually pass... Usually.

Alumna Failure

In July, I moved from Salt Lake City to West Jordan. With the move came a ward change, naturally. Matti and I had the fellowship committee stop by our house . . . twice. In one night. It was fine, really, but anyone who knows me knows that I am not good at the small talk. Last night, I went in for a "get to know you" interview with one of the bishopric members. 

He was a pretty nice, but it was all small talk. He asked how many singles wards I had been in. I never thought to take the time to count--but I guess it's something like, nine? Ten if you count the home YSA ward, though, I wouldn't. Since I attended that ward more when I was 17 than when I was 18 and never actually had my records transferred there. Nine different wards in the ten years I've been in Utah. That's more than I would have thought, considering I lived in The Neighborhood ward for nearly three years. . .. 

Anyway, when I told him that I had gone to BYU, he was like, "Oh, really? You went to BYU and you didn't leave with a husband?"

"Nope. I didn't," I said in order to say something.

"Did you try?"

What?

What kind of question is that? And how am I supposed to answer? "Well, I stood on the corner with a billboard sign every night, but no one was really responsive." Not really knowing what to say, I felt the need to explain or defend myself, which afterward, I was kind of ticked about. Because there's absolutely no reason to feel ashamed about how my life has turned out thus far. 

"I did try--or I tried as best I could while working full time and going to school full time. And trying to find a chance to sleep somewhere in between." Honestly, my social life in college never really picked up steam until the final semesters when I lived at the Omni and actually had time to make a friend or two. My dating life has yet to pick up, but, there's only so much I can do about that.

So, just to be awkward, I told him, "Besides, gay guys love me. My friends' husbands tolerate me. But single guys? They don't seem to like me much."

He didn't know how to respond to that, so we talked about his son instead. . .. 

Over all, the ward doesn't seem a bad sort. Everyone seems friendly. The ward is run pretty efficiently--we already have visiting teaching assignments and home teachers and they are working on getting us callings. There are plenty of activities. He asked me if I attended activities often and I told him that I didn't know how to respond to that. If I said yes, they might put me on the activities committee because I like activities (I don't, really) and if I said no (the truth), then they might put me on the activities committee in order to try and force me to come to things. I did not see a winning answer. Luckily, he changed the subject. 

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In other news, a lot of people have been asking for updates. I'm--still--a little torn about how much detail to put out on the web. But it is much more efficient to just tell everyone at once here than individually. 

I have no problems talking about the fact that Ab, the tumor, is on my right ovary. But as soon as I say "ovary" people feel like they have overstepped, or I worry that I'm over-sharing. I'm sure if I talked about Ab being on my right elbow, no one would bat an eye. Including me. (Although, let's be honest, a 10 cm, baseball-sized tumor on my elbow would be really gross.) Regardless of delicacy, Ab and said ovary are scheduled to come out on Friday, the 19th. That's a week from tomorrow. 

The waiting is what is killing me. 

Everything else is fine. I'm trying hard not to think about what it means to be one less ovary. Like, it probably doesn't matter, but it's still different than having your tonsils or gallbladder removed. I can function fine without one ovary. I can even--theoretically--still have as many babies as I want with one ovary. (But only if I can do it by myself, since my insurance doesn't cover "infertility" treatments.) Still, there is a sense of loss that I'm largely ignoring and not thinking about more than I have to. I'll deal with it all once it has finally happened. Maybe when they cut into me, they'll see that Ab wasn't as destructive to my ovary as they thought, and it can stay. Maybe this particular ovary is what has been the bane of my very existence since I was 13 years old, and the removal will solve all my other problems. Maybe this is God's way of prepping me for what is shortly to come! Or maybe, this all just really sucks. Or it could be a combination of the two or whatever.

In the meantime, I've been trying to research what exactly my recovery is going to entail. Since my parents are flying in, I want to be up and moving and doing things. I want to show them the mountains in the fall! and have my dad fix up my house! And, I'm not sure how it will all be accomplished, given I'll likely just be in bed. Boo. That doesn't sound fun at all--except for right now, I wouldn't mind climbing back in my bed and taking a smallish nap or two.

Thanks to everyone for their kind thoughts, prayers, and support. Y'all are more worried than I am most the time, so... you know, chill or something. :)