Just the Facts: Tomorrow is my Exchange Surgery.  It’s outpatient, at Carolinas Medical Hospital in Charlotte.  I’m the first one of the day for my doctor, so it will get started around 7:30 or 8:00 am.  I hope to be home by mid-afternoon.  I’m very excited to be getting this over with, and just a little bit nervous.

Details:  I have been waiting months for this surgery and the day has finally come.  I will say goodbye to my tissue expanders tomorrow and wake up from surgery with implants which should look and feel about a million times better than the expanders.  I am SO psyched! But first, I have to go through the surgery.

It’s outpatient this time, thank goodness.  The surgery is expected to take about 2.5 hours.  My plastic surgeon takes his sweet time (a very good thing, in my opinion) so it may last longer than expected.  I should be out of surgery by 11:00am EDT, if all goes as planned. This surgery is performed under general anesthesia, so I’ll then have to spend another couple of hours in recovery.  I’m hoping to be home early to mid-afternoon.

I feel very positive about the surgery itself.  I’m strong and in great health.  I came through the mastectomy surgery well last April.  I have not had problems with anesthesia in the past, and they will be using they same drug combination as last time.  I do dread the sleepy, sluggish feeling that I felt for several weeks after the last surgery.  But it shouldn’t last as long this time, since the surgery is shorter.  Sometimes I do a little shudder when I think about the surgery and what they will be doing.  But it SO needs to be done and I want to have this all behind me.  No doubt, I’m ready.

I will have at least one surgical drain when I wake up.  Its purpose is to keep the delicate tissue from becoming too moist.  Today I located all my “drain management” equipment from last time, when I had four.  What a nuisance! It’s just for a short time, I know.  But ERRGH!

No recliner.  We looked at them and tried a whole bunch of them out.  Many seemed to be potentially hazardous to someone with tender places and/or stitches, given how difficult they were to open and close.  So that’s off the table.  (It’s a good thing, because we’re out of time now.) We’ll do the pillow propping thing on the sofa again.  No big deal.

Now I am starting to remember what it felt like the night before my last surgery.  I was very ready then too.  Maybe moreso.  And hyped up.  I’m the same this time, but more nervous.  I’m not sure why.  Where is my sense of humor?  I miss it!

Me: Excited. Nervous. Ready. Lots of things, but not worried.

Prayer Requests: Pray that the doctor and his team would do their jobs well, that there would be no complications and that everything would go as planned both with my surgery, and at home. Pray for a peace for Tracy as he waits.

Updates tomorrow: Tracy will be posting on my Facebook wall and here tomorrow to say that I’m out of surgery and doing fine.  That WILL be the case.  ;-)

Thanks for the encouragement, good wishes and prayers.