Waiting for Surgery

My husband is going to have a muscle flap surgery the day after tomorrow.

This comes after eight months of trying to heal a large wound left on his chest after debridement of infected tissue was necessary back in September.

We have talked, debated, hemmed and hawed ad nauseam over this surgery. At first we worried it was too invasive, with a lot of blood loss possible, and that Mark's body maybe couldn't handle it. Then Mark said he was having a bad feeling about it, which was unusual, because he usually says "do whatcha gotta do" to whatever the doctors say.

So we decided to stay the course with wound VAC therapy, which has included home health visits twice a week and wound care clinic visits once a week.

For eight months.

About two months ago it became clear that healing had all but stalled out, so we revisited the idea of surgery, and decided to schedule it.

But we've had to wait for seven freaking weeks!

Plastic surgeons are apparently in pretty high demand.

Finally it is this week. Over the last few days I've had some interesting dreams.

Now, I don't think anything bad is going to happen. I think Mark is stronger now than he was last fall. I believe he does need to have this procedure in order to properly heal. And I am hopeful that it will improve his quality of life in the long run.

Tell that to my subconscious. I actually dreamed that he died. And then I went and got burgers for my kids.

Another frustrating thing about this process is that we can't know what time Mark will be scheduled for surgery until sometime the day before. The hospital has until 5:00 PM on Tuesday to call us with the time he needs to check in, which could very well be at zero dark thirty.

Also, having the surgery on a Wednesday means that Mark needs to dialysis on Tuesday instead.

Subsequently, I dreamed that we didn't get the call from the hospital (for whatever reason). Wednesday morning came and I sent him off to dialysis like usual. So then I was panicking, hoping that he didn't need to check in until the afternoon. Freaking out, I called the hospital, only to have them inform me that it was fine....because it was still only Monday.

For crying out loud!

On one hand it's not fun to have such anxiety-filled dreams. On the other hand, perhaps it's a good thing that my brain is working through my anxieties while I'm sleeping, so maybe they don't manifest while life is happening.