All around hectic-ness at an end for now!

School has gotten in the way of updating this blog, along with what feels like a gazillion different hospital appointments.

On March 21 I went for the CT scan. The hospital staff were super friendly for all of the 10 minutes the scan took.The staff are always so kind... it definitely pays to drive the hour to get to the hospital!

The day after, Thursday, I saw my infectious disease specialist. She explained the PICC line to me.She would like to have me on one IV antibiotics and one oral antibiotic, but what I will be on really depends on what the samples taken in surgery grow. If I am lucky I won't need an IV pump thing; the home nurse I am getting, or I myself, will inject a syringe of antibiotics into the line at a specific time every day. She joked with my mom and I about how one of her younger patients lost his PICC line one. A little boy as climbing a tree and the PICC line got caught on a branch. When the little boy fell out of the tree, the line was left hanging from the branch! Moral of the story... stay away from trees until the line comes out.

And last week Friday -March 23- I met with my orthopedic surgeon and (insert drum roll here) was told that my surgery is on April 10 at 8am! Hurray! The day I have spent the last 8 1/2 months waiting for is almost here! The surgeon was really helpful explaining the CT results, but all in all the three minute appointment was not worth the 100 minute wait. My appointment was at 12:45pm, but I was not seen until almost 2:30pm. the doctor was so overworked... but atleast I got the surgery date and some basic information!

Last Thursday -March 29- I had my pre-op appointment. The form I got when I saw the ortho the week before said that I should be prepared to be at the hospital for up to three hours. I thought that was a joke but brought a book (The Hobbit) just in case. At the hospital in the city I live in, pre-op was done in the office of the surgeon, by the surgeon, 3 days before surgery. But in the city I now got to all of the hospitals are working together. They are also all teaching hospital, which is why they are so great! N matter which hospital you will have surgery at, all the pre-op is done at one site in an area specially designed for pre-op. When you get to the pre-op area you check in with a nurse who then send you down a hallway to a large station were the nurses get all there information from. This is an area in the middle of a giant room with smaller rooms all around it, and with different area partly walled off to create different areas. when you arrive there, the nurses give you a "passport" for the day. It is a red card with 9 columns and two rows. Each box on the right has a different set of procedures on it, and the nurses check the bow to the left of each procedure which you need. You cannot leave until all the x's have check mark beside them. So I wait in the waiting area for a while, having a blast people watching, until I am called back. The first two things on my list are done quickly -height, weight, blood work, and EKG. Then I am sent to a second waiting area withing the big room with little rooms around it. This is really smartly done. It makes people feel that they have gotten something done, and breaks up the waiting so that people do not get to antsy. Great psychological trick! While there, I overheard a man speak to his wife about the Dulcolax (like a laxative). That conversation probably made the whole appointment worth it. He also kept losing his "passport".After waiting for what seemed like forever but was really only just over an hour, it was my time to see the RN. I feel that I was really lucky. out of the nine possible (groups of) procedure, I only needed three, the three that every body needs to have done 1)height and weight, 2)blood work and EKG, 3) and see the RN. I finished my appointment (scheduled for 2:00pm) at 4:20pm. Yay! for only 2 1/2 hours. When your name is finally called you feel like you win the lottery! The lottery of doom. Haha. Nobody really wants to be at pre-op because it means that they are having surgery... they NEED surgery, but at least the nurses are 100% nice. At 4:00 I heard one tell her colleague that they still have 30 more patients to get through. Bless them, they work so hard.

And there you go. Updates on all of my previous appointments. People my complain about the health care service provided in Canada, but depending on which hospital you go to you get treated really well. Even in my home city the nurses are amazing... it is just that the many of the doctors have god-complexes, the the budget seems to cut out things like even basic cleaning. I am on my fourth orthopedic surgeon, and I am very pleased with him. The way he addresses me, as if I can understand what he says, makes me confident in his surgical abilities and the outcome of the surgery. Now I just have to wait until surgery, April 10. Only ten more days!

Appointments everywhere!

I haven't been posting.I do not want to write for myself, let along to update my blog, to type out any of what is going on. As if typing this all out will make everything more reality than it already is... that it will somehow magically make those things I dread come true. The mathematical, permanent-ness of these little black squiggles which somehow form words universally understandable will tell the world what is happening. Foreshadowing, the events will come true. Strange. These words are made of pixels, they will not last. Not something tangible that I can grasp, to hold on to for some warped form of comfort. Alas, I can not cower under a blanket of woven words, the warmth of the courage and support others offer me, shielding me from my fears. The doctors will cut into my soft, scared skin even if someone in Mongolia does not know about it.

Do I want a record of my life? Do I want to be able to look back and see how much pain I was in? The worry? Nervousness? Excited dread, anticipating something I do not want but know will come? Something I need and cannot avoid. Will I regret it if I do not keep a record. Will time fog my memory of the last months, or do the memories of pain not fade? I should write (*type*). I can always delete this later.

These week is hard appointment wise. On Wednesday I have a CT can at 11:30am. This will show the surgeon exactly were every last piece of dead bone is and allow him to remove them in surgery. Thursday at 9:30 am I have an appointment with my infectious disease specialist, who will hopefully be able to answer some of my most pressing questions i.e. why do the latest x rays show dead bone... which has never appeared on previous x rays? Does that means that things are getting worse? And on Friday at 12:30pm I meet with my orthopedic surgeon who will hopefully give my that date of surgery and more information on the impending doom which shall be my PICC line.

I am ready to get this show on the road. These butterflies need to stop fluttering in my stomach, and that won't happen until after surgery and PICC line insertion. A tleast hospital visits mean a visit to Ikea or someother fun place after wards. Thanks mom! for being awesome and always trying to cheer me up *GIANT HUG inserted here*.

Brave? Not so much.

Brave - "To face or endure with courage." Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

My mother tells me that I am brave. I do not believe her. I am not brave; I do not face the world with courage. I wake up every morning and get on with my life. I take the bus, I go to school, I borrow library books, and I listen to CBC radio one. I do what I do because I have to, and nothing more. No. I do not do courage because I am just like you. I am a person and I have a life, a need to eat, sleep, breath; hopes, dreams, longings, and fears. I am normal. But, I am ill, and you are not. That does not make me courageous. Being ill does not make a person brave, it does not magically give them compassion and understanding. Those traits were already there, within me, but I was never brave. What is it that has changed in me that would make me courageous? Surely it is not the dead bone in my leg...? the abscess? the puss pockets? the pain?

I keep living. Life goes on despite one's trepidations. I have to keep up; you cannot fall behind. The slow an steady turtle never really wins. The pain will continue, the puss will break through the skin, the dead bone will not dissolve. Fact - without treatment, osteomyelitis can be fatal. I do not get to choose what I want for my body. Even though I will endure treatment, I do not do so willingly. The fact of the matter is that it needs to be done. How is that courage when I have no choice? How can I be courageous when I am afraid? I do not know... but I like my definition of brave better.

Brave - accepting that you are afraid and still completing the task at hand, even without courage. Doing something because it is required of you, even if you cry through the entire ordeal. Not facing something, but merely going through life, continuing to be, just like healthy people. Otherwise, anyone who is ill is automatically brave and courageous... I do not believe that.

Life must go on. Nothing more.