We have a date! ...and fear.

It's coming up fast... June 24th is the date.
I finally heard back from the surgeon.
June 24th.

We'll be flying out on the 20th. Robert is going to stay in NY with me for about three weeks, then he'll head back. It's important to me that he gets to visiting day at Azriel's sleep-away camp. There was the year neither of us went because I was after my mesh surgery and in incredible pain, I needed Robert. Dov was not a happy camper, literally. He was set up for the day to hang out with his best friend and his family, which is like our family, but he wasn't warned beforehand that we couldn't come. I kept thinking I'll make it. But I didn't; it's a three hour ride to the camp, I couldn't make it. He cried. :(  I took him out to a movie theater movie after he came home from camp, just me & him, to "make up for it", but it didn't make up for it. Here is the blog entry about that.
So I'm [hopefully] sending Robert back to Israel to be at visiting day for Azriel.

I still have a lot of questions for him, I hope we have a Skype conference soon. He said he'll go over all the information with me soon. He requested photos of the area so he can look at them and clarify things as we are talking. This information that I need is vital. I need him to answer my questions.With the help of G-d, everything will fall into place. But as of now, it is looking like I'll go out there June 20th, spend Shabbat there, then have the surgery on that Monday. I'll still be jetlagged, but a little less after 4 days of adjusting. My immune system is often weak when I'm jetlagged, but I'm hoping the four days of resting will help matters.

I'm getting paranoid these days. Every time I thought it was a good time to do this reconstruction surgery in years passed, something happened with my health...another bout of cellulitis, too much pain, a million things. Then there were bar & bat Mitzvah's that I needed to be healthy for. Now, I am looking for a sign; a sign that I made the right decision. If something happens with my health, that will be a sign not to go ahead with the surgery. But I want a positive sign. I need to know I made the right decision, and that it's blessed by Hashem. So far my immune system seems happy, my kids have been sick, and it seems I got out without catching what they had. That's a good sign. I have like three or four little cuts these days, and I keep wondering if one of them is going to get infected and give me sepsis again. I know to you it sounds crazy, but to me, I think about it with every cut I get. I had sepsis, and Necrotizing Fasciitis, nothing is too outlandish for me to think of. Call it paranoid, but everyone on my NF support list feels the same way. It's just what happens after such an insane disease gets to you.

I remember how painful the mesh & clip surgery was. This is in the same place, but to take out the mesh and clips and put in something organic. I'm worried about pain levels, and how to control it. The mesh surgery was painful for an entire year, and only lightened up when I started on the Fentanyl. I do NOT want to be forced to that route again, obviously. I think the skin stretching will be painful, too, but it's worth it to get rid of the skin graft, if that's possible. I sent the surgeon pictures, we'll talk soon. It's only Monday morning there, beginning of the week. I sent the pictures on Friday. I will write to him tomorrow about scheduling a Skype if I don't hear from him today.

I can't believe this is going to happen...in two and a half weeks. I'm nuts. But you know, people will do a lot to live a life without pain. I don't want to be on pain meds, and please Gd I have a decent amount of lifetime in front of me, I need to be out of pain. Even if the steroid shots worked (which they didn't), I'd be doing this, because they don't work forever.

I'm nervous, and have so many fears. I am working on my fears in the day program with my shrink. At the same time we are in the process of closing up shop for me there, temporarily. I'm getting a discharge, and when I come back we'll be in touch and my follow-ups will still be there. I don't feel ready to be done with that framework....it has been sooooo good for me on so many levels. OK, one thing at a time. I'm going to NY for the surgery, I'll be gone for at least a month, so I need the discharge. Nothing is a closed door though, they are so incredibly supportive there.

Oh, and to make things interesting (never a dull day), Robert and I spent last Thursday night in the ER with me with a horrendous migraine. Just to spice up life a little. The Cannabis didn't even help, it was so bad. They changed my "cocktail" a little (a lot), and although it helped the migraine, I still had the same migraine on Friday, but I was able to sleep it off. It started to come back on Shabbat day, and I was able to sleep it off then, also, and since Sunday I've been free of it. I started wearing my magnet necklace again, not sure if it actually works, but it can't hurt. That's all I need is my migraines coming back. I'm trying to figure out which food I might have eaten to trigger them- I had headaches all week last week- and it seems it may be from peppers that were in the marinade for olives. I ate those olives all week, and every day I had a headache. Paprika gives me headaches, and paprika is made of peppers, so I try to stay away from peppers, but I didn't read the ingredients in these olives. I'll learn.

OK this is too long already. Thank you for getting to the bottom!
More to come after I speak with the surgeon. We'll have answers, please G-d.