Monday 6th October

Today is my birthday!

Special for me (and some others, of course 🙂  ), but simply another day for so many others – like the hospital staff.

Operation day. Finally. The next ‘station’ on this journey has arrived.

And I can’t say that I feel any different really, except maybe a bit apprehensive, which is, I think, totally normal. I mean, I am facing an operation / surgical procedure (whichever sounds less dramatic).

There’s some silly movie playing on tv with a dinosaur chasing random people (who really can’t act) – and which just fell on its face. It strikes me that life is like that. All sorts of different people have their own dinosaur chasing them. Sometimes it will fall on its face. At others, it will seem to be looming.

Today, my personal dinosaur will be dealt a hefty blow and will do more than fall on its face 🙂

I’m glad, in many ways, that the day of the op has finally arrived – for me, but also for those around me. I think waiting for anything can be stressful in different ways. If you have to wait for something that you know is not pleasant and may even be perceived as threatening, it’s worse. I’ve been mostly fine, but seeing the strain on the family has not been great. They can’t control it and understand it really only as something that will cause me pain – and that is horrible for them to have to deal with.

So, today is a ‘double-edged sword’ kind of day: happy and exciting because it is my birthday (always an important event in my life!); and stressful because of the op. All will go well, I have no doubts. There will be pain involved, which does not impress me, but it will be manageable – and is unavoidable.

That is what concerns me the most, I think – the fact that I am perfectly healthy right now and, in a matter of hours, will be sore and changed irrevocably – for no reason that anyone can actually see.

That’s the way it is though. The way it has to be.

So, Happy Birthday to me! And ‘Yeehah!’ for the next battle in the war.