Surgery Eve Eve, by Caroline

As I type this, my loving husband is cleaning our bedroom and bathroom til they shine for me. He doesn’t want any germs around! I am blessed all around.

My surgery is Monday at 2:30 with my arrival time at 10am. I’m generally feeling good about it. I definitely have my moments where fear begins to creep in, but I am either really good at compartmentalizing things or my constant laying this at God’s feet is working… or both.

I have amazing doctors and am surrounded by friends and family and tons of prayers. I am refusing to dwell on any of the things that can go wrong. As soon as one of those negative thoughts pop in, I push it out with something positive. Very intentionally. And am doing a lot of yoga…

I really liked this devotional I read this morning…

“How often we tend to divide our past into good things to remember with gratitude and painful things to accept or forget.… We quickly develop a mentality in which we hope to collect more good memories then bad…. Gratitude in its deepest sense means to live life as a gift to be received gratefully. But Gratitude as the Gospel speaks about it embraces all of life: the good and the bad, the joyful and the painful, the holy and the not so holy… It is so easy for me to put the bad memories under the rug of my life and to think only about the good things that please me. By doing so, however, I prevent myself from discovering the joy beneath my sorrow, the peace hidden in the midst of my conflicts, and the strength that becomes visible in the midst of my weakness….”

This is a good reminder to me that it is ok to feel sadness or fear, but it is also important to be sure to find the joy in those moments, in whatever way I can. This is how I try to live. I don’t want to be a Pollyanna, acting like this doesn’t suck. But I also refuse to dwell on that emotion because I am surrounded by love and Goodness.

Honestly, what stresses me out the most is not getting things done (ie work piling up that I need to tend to) and the thought of not being able to exercise for 4-6 weeks. I am trying to get as much done before my surgery as I can, and I am working on finding the peace in being forced to slow down and take a break from it all for a while.

I’m ready to get this surgery over with and move onto the healing part.