It's 4:30am. I've been awake on the couch most of the night. I'm to be at the hospital at 5:45 - because I'm the first surgery scheduled today. That's a tip for you I've learned after 14 previous surgeries. If you ever have to have surgery, ask to be the first scheduled in the morning. Otherwise, you will lay there and wait for hours for other surgeries to finish and the OR to be cleaned in between.
Feeling strangely calmed after the massive anxiety of yesterday. It's a feeling I like to ascribe to the thought that "somebody must be praying for me". My pastor will be at the hospital to pray before the surgery, as I've had one do the previous 14 times. I'll never forget one surgeon who acted impatient and indignant with this. It was precisely his surgery that accomplished two miraculous outcomes that four subsequent doctors couldn't explain. That is why I can't walk away from my belief in God (even though I have tried hard to do so recently). I just see the evidence of his work too often when my eyes and heart are open to see it.
In just a few more hours I will have had my abdomen grievously wounded again and be hooked up to a morphine pump that can only slightly ease the pain. But I wasn't being shot at last night in Afghanistan like my nephew was who just got home yesterday after his third deployment into the worst of the fighting there where he saw several of his comrades killed right beside him. Everyone we know was praying for him constantly. I will heal from this as I have all the others.
One thing I'm looking forward to is the opportunity to give Mikey-O some sign painting lessons during my recovery at home. He's a three hour drive from me and said he's like to come down. I'll be looking forward to that during the week I'm in the hospital to motivate me to keep getting stronger. I want to take this one last opportunity to thank everyone for the well wishes (and especially GG for the flowers!). It means a lot that friends I may never meet for real still care. Signs101 is the best place I've come across since being on the internet since its inception. Catch y'all in a week or so.