How to prep for surgery

Important: Follow all the directions, get your x-rays, your blood tests, your EKG, even go the extra mile and get an echocardiogram just to make sure your heart is pumping properly.

Rather important: Make plans for recovery and caretakers to wait on your every wish, providing you have any wishes beyond going to sleep until it's all over.

Most important: The do. I did the do as promised and the "new" me is posted. Not radical, but a nice little difference that should perk me up when I face the mirror.

Other things to plan: Unload the computer from work. Have a leisurely dinner (last decent food for awhile, remember). Remove tags from the recovery wardrobe freshly purchased from Walmart, easy enough since it's all sweats and tags are peel-off, then wash the clothes for packing when done. Take your shower, scrub your hip hide according to the disinfectant directions. Wash your hair, blow dry, and style if necessary because 4:30AM is no time to care about your looks. Make sure your phone is charged, your hospital reading material is packed and crawl in bed early with some kick-ass drugs to help you sleep. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

Here's the reality: My daughter-in-law got in a sitter bind so I'm hosting a couple of grandkids. They got here just as I finished scraping some piles of snow from my walkway in order to get in the house after surgery. They were hungry. Beerma had to pee. Ran down to the bathroom, raced back upstairs to scour the freezer for kid food. I just realized I used two verbs that won't be part of my activities after tomorrow. Run. Race. Hah.

No chicken nuggets. No mac and cheese. They don't want peanut butter. I did find one kid's TV dinner and enhanced it with grapes, Cheetos and chocolate milk. Magic food. I even halved the stupid grapes and got the seeds out and promised Evan no cookie until he ate every single one of those damned things. I'm still irritated about the seeds. I thought I was buying seedless.

So it's 7:30, laundry still awaits, packing of some sort will happen, and if I get to bed by midnight, it means I can eat and drink right up to sleep time. Tomorrow is it. Folks at work were great today, wishing me well and even saying they'd miss me. The nice thing is, some of them really will.

Carly needs the Ninja costume zipped and Evan needs his butt wiped. Off to do my Beerma duty. And then see what I can find to eat.

I have an idea for my next post: Tara Trickery. Stay tuned.