It's a date!

OK, things are looking up. I finally have a surgery date - February 12th. Just far enough away to give me some time to plan and prepare, but soon enough to suit me. I wasn't at all comfortable with the idea of putting this surgery off, so I'm glad they found me a date early in my requested window of time. I need to have an EKG done prior to the surgery, which will be simple since I can go to the Kaiser facility next door to the campus where I work to have this done, on a walk-in basis. If I'm up to it, I will go home after surgery (it's outpatient, so I expect to go home the same day); if not, to Mom's until I'm able to be on my own. Primary issues will be pain management and possibly dealing with a post-surgery drain thing which I may or may not need help with (and may not even have - it will depend on how things go on the day of surgery). Then, if things go as planned, I will begin radiation treatments a week or so after surgery. I think I described those briefly in an earlier post, so won't bore you with that again. My spirits remain high and my outlook positive. I had a very helpful session yesterday with my counselor Alisa whom I haven't seen in a couple of years, but we picked up as if no time had passed at all. She thinks I'm doing great, and her only concern is that I allow myself time to grieve as much as I need to. I tend to want to start crying in meetings, or while behind the wheel of my car, or at other inappropriate times. I need to ensure that I allow those squelched feelings to surface and deal with them at more opportune times, so I will henceforth be scheduling time to cry. Imagine! What a world we have created, where we have to schedule grief into our busy calendars. Please don't think that I'm depressed or sad - that is not the case. 98% of the time, I am quite positive and happy. But there are times when the reality of the situation becomes overwhelming to me or scary, as I'm sure you can understand. Anyway, the worst thing is that I will have to miss a quilting class I had scheduled on the evening of February 12th, unless maybe Mom could wheel me in there on a gurney....