It has almost been a week since surgery and I am doing better than expected. My pain is lower than I thought it would be and my spirits are high. I have survived two rounds of my rehab and my post-op appointment was encouraging.
I do keep flashing back to the day of surgery and how freaking afraid I was. I wonder if I was as nervous at the start line of my first Ironman as I was last Wednesday. I doubt it. I had prepared and trained for that day in October of 2013 and could control most of the possibilities that could arise on the swimbikerun. But this was out of my hands. This surgery was a leap of faith. It was in the hands of a very skilled surgeon but there were a thousand what ifs.
I felt okay until I got into pre-op. They had to take my blood pressure three times. It was like 140/102, then 130/90 and then 140/95. Nurse Hannah asked Nurse Jane: which one do I record? I pretty sure they made one up. I got a mini lecture about getting my blood pressure checked when I got home. The words hypertensive and stroke didn’t do much to ease my mounting anxiety.
They did all they could to calm and soothe me. Warm blanket. Little jokes. Hair compliments. They turned off the overhead lights. When Nurse Jennifer came in to place my IV, we made small talk. I used my meditative breathing like my friend Amy has taught me. I looked the other way. I barely felt it. When Jennifer patted my arm and said, okay, all done. I paused for a breath and asked: May I have a tissue? She exclaimed: Oh, No! Did I hurt you?
No, of course not. I am just a scaredy cat. And suddenly, all the tears came. All the pent-up sadness and uncertainty and madness and blame and relief and grief seeped out. It felt good to release it all. I had a few epiphanies that day that I might share later, but, for now, I’ll just say that this: I do not love pent-up sadness and uncertainty and madness and blame and relief and grief. And all of that has everything to do with Ironman.
Once I was able to cry and once Neal came in from the waiting room to hold my hand, my blood pressure came down (a little). The anesthesiologist and the nurse anesthetist came in and then Dr. Boyd. And finally, I was wheeled away to the surgery ward.