So today has been a really interesting day.

I actually went grocery shopping in a supermarket and managed to select everything myself from the aisles.

Now given the fact that I can still barely walk, how the hell did I pull that off you ask?

Simple, I gave in, let my pride drop a little and borrowed a scooter from Westfield.

So I feel a bit like a grandpa, but wow what a difference it felt being able to do things for myself, such independence.

Sure I needed a little help to reach things on high shelves and I may have dropped a couple of things (which bounced) but being able to get into a supermarket, browse the aisles what a moral boost.

Caught up with the HR manager via phone today and sorted through some work issues which was great to get that sorted out. I’d been feeling really bad as although I’ve blogged a bit over the past few days I really haven’t been well enough to discuss my situation and needs in a logical and concise way.

So I’m about to write out a final vent about all the stuff that has annoyed the living #$#$ out of me these past few months and then it’s turn a page and only look forward.

I’m not going to miss:-

• working out if the weather is fine, being NWB or even PWB on crutches on wet surfaces is dangerous! plus when you walk slow you get really wet!
• factoring in what sort of car parking they have
• what sort of gradient the road and footpath are
• if there are any substantial obstacles are in the way
• how far away the parking is
• what sort of door and doorstep am I dealing with can I safely hold it open with a crutch or do I have to “hip and shoulder the door”
• can I carry everything or do I have to make multiple return trips to the car (if I was silly enough to try and go grocery shopping I could only buy what I could carry, with crutches you can’t use a trolly or hand basket.
• working out how long I’m likely to be somewhere and factor in my pain medication (I have about a 2-3 hours tops, window of maximum therapeutic value out of my pain medication).
• If there was a chance I’d need to go to the toilet
• stopping for a break to rest after 5 minutes
• my favorite for the past week, not being able to drive! your killing me, I’m having to ring family to help me attend appointments, we’re over it!
• calling on friends and family to do the most basic things for me
• having to use a shower stool to sit and shower
• spending 10 minutes plus covering and uncovering my foot to keep the dressings dry.
• having exercise restrictions, I’ve not done weight bearing exercises in about 8 weeks
• spending 10 minutes covering and uncovering my leg so my dressings don’t get wet
• being in continuous pain
• putting my foot down and getting sharp stinging pain
• putting my foot down and not know if it will load bare
• not being able to walk
• not being able to jog
• not being able to run
• having to visit my GP regularly to re-fill non repeatable prescriptions and jump through dispensing red tape

I could go on, but I’m tired, that’s enough, I’ve said my peace, now it’s rehab central

In the next 10 days I have:-

• four hours of Physio consultation
• 30 minutes of personal training – YAY!
• two hours of counseling
• three, hour long massages
• one post op surgical review
• two GP visits

back on my feet and on with life 😉

bring it on 🙂

So I’ve been trying to work out why my ankle injury has totally consumed me.

It’s partly because I’m obsessive, but when you reliase what I’ve been working on these past few months you’ll understand why.

They say blogging can be therapeutic, here I go.

After traveling overseas twice in about five months, I was frustrated at how unfit I was. I’m actually in my early 30s despite what my bio line says on the blog, I’m 34.

In December of 2010 I took a cruise to the south pacific, and in April of 2011 I spent a week in Singapore. On both trips there were many things I would have loved to have tried, embrace the spirit of adventure if you like. My weight mainly but also my fitness level of lack of it meant that many things were just not possible.

In 2011 I had both a cardic scare where I had severe chest pain which didn’t ease up for many hours. Now it probally wasn’t a heart attack, but it was likely chronic chest pain brought on my hear burn and anxitety. I did a stress test and cleared, but they had to stop the test half way through as I was unable to complete it. For my age I was incredibly unfit.

This prompted my GP to run a complete set of blood tests.

In a surprise to no one it showed an impaired glucose tolerance. This means that my sugar levels were quite high, so high in fact that I was knocking at the door of type II diabetes. The above was actually confirmed with a glucose tolerance test, it’s where you fast overnight, have one lot of blood taken, get given a sugary drink, sit in the clinic for two hours then get more blood taken. It’s actually a rather unpleasant experience. This confirmed that unless I undertook lifestyle changes rapidly within a year I’d have type two diabetes.

At that point I also had very high blood pressure, so much so I was close to having to be medicated for it. I have a close friend who is on blood pressure medication and he tells me that once you go on it it’s virtually impossible to get off it. He has also experienced occasions where he has actually had diabetic episodes and had to massive change his diet.

So all of that put together made me think that at at 33 I’d better do something.

I already had some potential contacts, I just had to make use of them.

I’m not going to go into graphic detail about how my journey started from there, I’m going to summarize, otherwise this entry will be in the thousands of words rather than hundreds!

So from October 2011 to mid January 2012 I was doing an hour of personal training a week, a 90 minute group Pilates class, 3 x 45 minute aqua classes and in the end I also added one 55 minute group boxing x-train class.

I built it as part of my routine, it meant I was doing a lot of exercise, the KG’s were dropping off rapidly, people were noticing massive loss I loved the exercise and I got hooked on the fitness bug, the adrenaline wasn’t too bad either!

In early January I did a couple of things in the pool which brought about the start of my ankle trouble.

I’m badly flat footed and have worn orthodontics in my shoes in both my work and casual shoes for years. I actually have two pairs.

When I walk in the water I roll my ankle/foot significatley and I was starting to experience to minor sprains.

It got progressively worse and I needed to slow down and modify my exercise.

There was one aqua  class I remember jumping up and down in the water and while at the time it seemed ok, in hindsight I think that was a really dumb thing to do.

The lateral process of the talus fracture I had is more commonly known as “snowboarder’s ankle” a condition seen when snowboarders land badly on jumps.

From what I understand I can’t think of any other way I could have caused this fracture.

My surgeon tells me it’s possible you can just land oddly just walking but I think the pool is more likely a cause.

Anyhow a few days later I had the busiest few days of the year. We host an international education workshop for 3-4 days and I’m the ICT  / AV Lead. It means I need to be in about 3-4 places at once. Because of a change in staff this year I took a more “all rounder” approach too. It meant that I was covering about 10KM a day and it was a lot of up and down stairs.

By the end of the three days I could hardly walk. Yet I still wanted to exercise so I continued into the pool on the Saturday morning to undertake a heavily modified aqua class.

I was in pain from the start and should have stopped, yet I continued on and slowed down.

This still wasn’t enough, in the end I was in so much pain I had to leave the class early and gingerly walk out of the pool.

A mix of still wanting to exercise, keep fit and lose weight saw me continue and push to continue to do exercise.

In the end on advise from my Physio I stopped all exercise and then started a gradual return to exercise. It was soon clear that most forms of weight bearing exercise was problematic and there was something seriously wrong.

I was very quick in getting scans done as my gut feeling told me that something was really wrong. X-Ray , Ultrasound and then MRI.

I consulted a orthopedic surgeon who gave me a base diagnosis but he couldn’t explain why I was in so much pain. In the end he put me in a pneumatic foam walker (moon boot) which was in hope of reducing the pain by imoblization. This gave me false hope as it really didn’t fix the problem. It did mean I could get around more and with less pain, but it didn’t fix the underlying problem.

The surgeon couldn’t explain the pain level and so the next stage was surgery. Ankle Arthoscopy is now quite common. Sometimes it is used for diagnosis purposes, but never having had surgery before I was concerned that I would be asked to consent and go under for my surgeon to “go hunting”. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in this surgen so I reached out to my long term podiatrist about who she would recommend.

I took her advise and made a booking, I had to wait a couple of weeks to get in which seemed liked dead time. The pain was getting worse, my range of moment was reducing but also fluctuating and my ability to sleep and deal with work diminished as the pain I was it made in untenable.

I finally managed to see the surgeon and had a date for about two weeks later for surgery.

In the end I had to take leave from work as I was unable to cope and function at work. It was one of the hardest things I’ve had to justify to myself. I managed to back myself into a situation where I was unable to cope until I had surgery.

This was largely due to the chronic pain I was in and how drawn out it was.

Thankfully now I’ve had surgery and my rehab while slow is coming along well. This day last week was the day of surgery and while I am no where near recovered (recovery is around 4-6 weeks) I actually am a lot better.

So that is the journey to now, unable to work, unable to do anything but seated exercise it’s really gut wrenching, not only in pain but frustration.

So I felt and enjoyed the highs that a change of diet and exercise brought, but that largely fell down and I was left to convalesce. In the end I did “pre-hab” to get back ankle strength and prepare for surgery.

It was one big rug pulled out from under me. While it might seem over dramatic when you’ve the lightest and healthiest you’ve been in years and everyone notices and comments. To be left virtually a cripple depdant on help it’s damn hard.

I’m just lucky the journey to rehab will be relatively short, it’s expected to only be a matter of a few weeks.

So once again I still somehow remain positive, it doesn’t mean I’ve kept it together all the time, but now more than ever I’m motivated for change.

It was around this time last week I was quite worried and concerned. I was leaving for hospital to have day surgery to repair and fix the damage I’d done to my ankle.

With the support of family and friends I’m working to re-build myself, re-build strength, move onwards and upwards, literally get back on my feet.

To those of you who I’ve confided in, those who have provided support and to those who’ve offered messages of support and visited me, Thank you.

While the path ahead still looks daunting I know I can do this and the way everyone has rallied, particularly my family to my help is amazing. I look forward to the time when this is a distant memory.

Around October 2011 I began the journey to get my life back, being in fitness and health. In time this will just be a bump on the road.

Thank you for being part of it.

So I’ve been a little divided about how much to share on my blog.

I don’t want to post any “ick” photos but at the same time the point is to share my journey with my followers.

Below is a photo of my feet about 24 hours old, this is about a day short of a week after surgery.

So let me explain to you what your looking at, the left is obviously the operated foot, it’s still quite swollen when compared to my good foot. The bruising you see at the start of my toes is to do with blood, I thought it may have been from a clamp used in surgery.

As I’ve had a bone fragment removed from my body it bleeds more than a standard ankle Arthroscopy procedure. The blood has to go somewhere and in my case it’s gone down to my feet.

Pink! Why the hell are my toe nails pink? No I haven’t had a pedicure with pink nail polish!

Simple! before surgery they use a disinfectant dye, not only to clean the area (hence why it’s between my toes) but I’m guessing also to clearly mark “this foot” I’ve got a good friend who had the wrong limb operated on and the result is horrific.

I’ve waited until now to post photos of my feet as my entire lower leg and whole foot were a bright pink. It’s slowly coming off.

I want to give you another perspective of just how much my foot is bandaged. It’s something that while I understand frustrates me.

Why do I say it’s frustrates me? Simple I can’t wear normal shoes plus I can’t walk “normally” it’s making rehab just that more difficult. The bandaging has to remain intact for two weeks after surgery, if I hadn’t had the bone fragment issue I could have had the bandaging on for just two days after surgery.

I do consider myself very lucky though, I haven’t had screws inserted nor have I had to wear a cast or use a Pneumatic Walker (Moon Boot)

While the Moon Boot makes it easier to get around by immobilizing your foot, it comes at a cost. I think I’ve written before about how I used a Moon Boot under the guidance of my original orthopedic surgeon. While it meant I was more mobile it weakened my ankle and it took a good couple of weeks of rehab to rebuild the lost strength .

Anyhow below is a photo which shoes you the bandaging, they’ve done a very good job, a week on it still feels quite right, although I think I will make an appointment to get it changed later in the week. I’m happy to keep the dressings in tact but I’d like my foot to get more of a wash and the bandaging changed, smelly feet anyone?

I’ve been a bit slack and not had the bandage and foot covered when walking around home at various times. I looked at what I could see of the sole of my foot and it was black! Finally managed to get down and clean it tonight, my mum would be so proud I even washed and dried between my toes!

So over the past few days my left leg (operated leg) has been really painful.

Inittially I put it down to over doing it while the nerve block was in place so I rested over the weekend and spent a lot of time in bed.

I still got up every couple of hours to move around and still did my home exercises 4 times a day as prescribed.

Yesturday my leg got so sore I was worried something was wrong, one of the things you risk with surgery and sitting a lot it DVT.

I took some medical advise and it was unlikely that I did have DVT but it was worth checknig out.

So I had two paths forward deal with my surgen or deal with my GP. I chose to do both. As a result I’ve learnt more about whats happen, whats going on and the path ahead.

Spoke to the Ortohopedic Nurse who queried my symptons and said that either her or my surgeon would call me back. If it was her it would be within the hour, if the surgen it would be after the morning clinic.

About an hour later my phone rang and is was a “blocked number” I don’t get many blocked calls and I don’t normally answer them.

I was so please to hear my surgon’s voice, I hadn’t spoken with him since being in first stage recovery in hospital. I shared my concern about my leg and he said it probally wasn’t anything, but if it didn’t settle down in a day I should head in for a scan. I had a whle pile of other questions for him and he answered those.

I’m still concerned about how long recovery is taking as I really want t get back on my feet and back to work. I asked the surgeon how long he thought people in jobs like mine should be off work and he said that the two weeks is normal. (There is a two week time frame from surgery to post surgery consult) So I feel comfortable with that.

The complication I have is I’ve not just had a ankle arthoscopy I’ve had a ostectomy (surgical removal of bone) This means that rather only being bandaged for 48 hours, I’m bandaged for 2 weeks, it also means more pain, swelling and brusing.

I think it’s this latter part I wasn’t that well prepared for.

Anyhow I was happy to have had my barrage of questions answered and I knew in my head what I needed to do.

I rang my GP’s surgery and advised her next available appointment would be on Monday of next week. I advised what the problem was and got an appointment. The Dr I ended out seeing kept me waiting for about 35 minutes which was hard. At the moment I have to keep my leg elevated otherwise it really throbs.

Finally got into see the Dr and out comes my iPad with Evernote.

Had a list of things to cover, which the Dr took the time to cover very well.

I’m still rather banged up, my foot is still bruised, swollen and painful. The Dr checked out my leg and said she didn’t think it was DVT but wanted to be 100% being over weight and post surgery and “laid up” the risk of DVT is high.

So it was set that I needed to go have an ultrasound.

Headed out to reception and they made the time for me.

I had a little time to kill before the appointment so as I’m still not cleared to drive. I visited a local cafe and had lunch with my mum.

Initialy we were going to do takeaway but the sun was out and given I’d been stuck at home these past few days I wanted to take a moment to enjoy being outside.

So we had lunch outside and I had a great chicken salad.

I had about 1/2 hour to go to the scan so it was well and truly time to get home. I needed to ice my ankle and doss up on pain killers.

I’d let them lapse and that was a really, really dumb thing to do.

I’ve set reminders on an app for most of my meds and it’s really wise to take them as scheduled.

So I got home and it a lot of pain, for the moment I’ve gone NWB so I can cope with getting around.

When I got home I tried to walk over the front doorstep and couldn’t manage it.

Got in ice up the ankle and dosed up.

Headed up for the ultrasound and even though I’d only been to this place once before the receptionist remembered me.

Guess I stand out a bit!

Got the ultrasound done and was told they couldn’t see a clot but we’d have to wait for the report.

Headed back home to rest.

Got home and waited about 2 hours before calling the surgery (report was meant to take an hour) Called the surgery and they didn’t have the report had to wait 20 minutes then call them back. Called them back still no report. FInally the conceeded to calling me back. The finally called me back and they had the report. I had to see the Dr to get the report so the reffering Dr wasn’t available so saw the first avilable. The receptionist had pre organised me to skip the wait so I only had to wait a few minutes.

Sat down at was told that the reason the report took so long as they were being careful. I was happy, most indicators were that it probally wasn’t DVT but we needed to make 100%. The report came back all clear.

So after the Drs it was time to go the chemist, I’ve been after some additional ice packs for a while as I’m having to use ice packs every few hours and they don’t freeze enough in that time. I’ve had one of my sisters trying to track down the ice pack for me for the past couple of days without luck.

Thankfully the chemist I went to had the ice packs I wanted, it also allowed me to fill a couple of scripts.

I’m a little too familar with my local chemist right now, all the staff know me and I know them, we’re on first name terms and they generally will have an idea what I”m after before I ask.

I don’t even get the little chat from the Pharmacist as they know my situation.

The only thing that really surprised them was the fact that I was visiting the chemist myself as they could see I was still struggling.

Got my scripts, got my ice packs and it was time to head for home.

Got home and heated up a Lite ‘n’ Ezy lamb korma which was really nice.

I’ve now got my feet up after icing my ankle with a spare (non preferred ice pack)

Tomorow is still going to be a busy day but I’m going to take it a hell of a lot easier.

Plan is for a 1 hour massage with an old friend who’s a really good masser and is my “back up” massuer, then I have a break for a couple of hours, then it’s another hour with my Physio.

I’d better spend some time later tonight preapring for that consult, while I’m a litle more relaxed I still have a long way to go!

Day by day is where it’s at.

I’ve been NWB all day today and it’s brutal, even though I’m wearing cycling gloves I’m already blistering my right hand.

Hopefully tomorrow I can rest a bit better.

I only got about 4 hours of sleep last night, I was having real problems resting. Was in a lot of pain and discomfort.

Hopefully it will settle down tonight as I should naturally be really tired.

Even if it dosn’t, I should be ok after tomorrow as I always seem to sleep well after massage.

Until tomorrow.

So I’ve strugled to get over my ankle injury, I’ve made some judement calls, some I’ve got right, some I’ve got wrong.

I’m really impatient at slowing down, I just want to literrally get back onto my feet and be “over this” well I’m a bit of a slow learner and some would say I’ve been an idot.

What do I mean by this? Well part of this injury was caused due to me pushing through pain and not listerning to my body. Now more than ever I need to listen to my body and ignore outside disturbances. I’m not saying that they arn’t imporant, just right now they can wait.

I took heart that from the day of surgery I was cleared for weight baring on my ankle, which I thought was great. Being NWB (non weight bearing) is very hard for me, as it means one leg takes all my weight and I load up other parts of my body to compenstate, it’s also brutual on my arms.

I was so pleased to get advise from both my Physio and Podiatirist yesturday, I’m struggling to clarify the advise I have on discharge from hospital.

There’s a fine line between resting and staying off your ankle and limiting moblity to getting back on your feet and walking “as normally as possible”. It’s still important to regually do all your assigned exercises religiously but at the same time, not over doing it.

Because I had no significant pain for the first 48 hours I really did push myself too hard to walk on the foot and now I’m paying for it. My foot is very swollen and painful.

Yesturday I decided to NWB all day and it’s paying off, today I’m feeling a lot better as a result. It’s now time to stay NWB for another day or two as I really need to let my body recover.

I’ve just discovered iBooks on the iPad and didn’t realise you can create collections of your own files. For me it now means I can have all my rehab information and medical advise at my finger tips rather than having to fight various bits of paper.

I’m lucky to have a well equiped home office which means I can produce and manage most things. Being able to scan to PDF and print colour has been great.

So today I’m starting to get better at resting, but also keeping myself entertained (otherwise known as keep yourself busy/distracted).

I wouldn’t say i’m enjoying the time as I’m frustrated that I can’t do more, but I do accept this more readily as I know that if I don’t rest I’m going to delay my rehab which must be and is my sole focus right now.

While the frustration is eating away at me, I still consider myself to be very lucky. I’ve teamed up with a great surgical team and I have a clear diagnosies path and recovery.

Part of this is I was able to use the private health system to to this.

I still find it amazing they call this elective surgery. No one would ever want to have surgery but you reach a time where it is the only logical step to take.

I really feel for those that don’t have access to the same level of health care I have. I’ve had friends go through the public system and the time it takes to do everything is just far too long.

It’s taken me about 4 months and thats far too long, I know people that have waited a year to just see a specalist little lone get into surgery. Thankfully that part is all behind me now. All I have is to deal with now is three wounds that have stiches in them for another week and a half and a bandaged foot that must remain intact until the post surgery consult.

While for me it seems difficult now, I’m getting better at working with it and while compared to many other people I’ve got off lightly.

I work at a Christan private school, I’m very lucky that we have a number of really tallented people on staff. One of these people is the school chaplin.

He has been a great support to me as it is fair to say in my mind I’m fighting for life. Not wanting to sound too melladramatic but I’ve not had much of a life these past few months, so it’s a fight to “re-gain” life.

The chaplin has provided guideance, care and support and has helped me on a faith level.

It’s really nice to have a workplace where your faith and wellbeing plus your day to day work can be supported.

So while I’m cleared to full weight bear, I’m not up to it right now.

Being able to shower and freshen up is really important. I love my showers and despite it being a big effort to keep my bandages dry I manage.

I’ve hired a shower stool and with the help of about 5 towels and two plastic bags I’ve got it down to a fine art!

Shower stool

My bagged foot

Owners view 😉

So I want to have a hot cooked lunch today, I can’t stand for long so seated on a kitchen chair and my leg elevated I can watch as lunch cooks 😉

So according to surgical records I’m recovering from a Left ankle arthroscopy & debridement + talor ostetomy + subtalar joint arthotomy & washout.

All I know is as this week comes to an end I’m trashed, mentally, physically and emotionally.

I had a lot of anxiety leading up to surgery, by general standards even after loosing 26kg I’m still morbidly obese, however because I’m under 150kg I made my life for surgery a lot easier. Patience of 150kg or more present quite a few problems.

I was worried about not waking up and not coping afterwards, I’m in new territory and there is only so much planning you can do to prepare yourself. Loosing a day before surgery was hard. Even though I had spent weeks focused on this date I still put off in my mind the realization of what lay ahead. Ultimately I’m still not coping with the fact that I have injured myself as part of getting my life back (improvement in diet and exercise)

Right now as I run at the maximum daily doses of all pain killers I’m able to take I feel particularly low.

I’m told my surgery went well and I’ve had a rather large bone fragment remove from my ankle. I know something has changed as I have different pain awareness.

The first 48 hours post OP were weird, I was lucky that I woke up easily and without complication and despite feeling incredibly nauseated and drowsy I felt fairly comfortable.

One of the modern ways of treatment for surgery is a “nerve block” essentially they inject local anesthesia in the effected area to reduce pain and promote healing.

For me the result was very strange, the general knocked me around mentally but thankfully I didn’t have many side effects. I take my hat of to the surgical team as they managed my list of questions and anxiety well.

With the nerve block it lasted almost a full 48 hours, which was nice. It presented its own problems as I had no feeling or sensation or movement in my foot for that period.

What did initially worry me was when I woke up I was able to “wiggle my toes” later in the night I couldn’t. As I was day surgery I called the the hospital for advise and they got me to check that I still had warmth on my foot, which I did so all was well.

I organized a couple of home visits while the nerve block was still in place as I knew I would struggle once that wore off.

The level of pain I’m in right now I would still describe as chronic, but it is different to what I’ve endured the past four months.

The past week has been a very difficult time emotionally as I can not begin to describe what  sustained chronic pain does to a person.

It was nice to get the feeling and movement back in my foot but now I have to be very careful with my foot as if I don’t rest, elevate and ice the ankle enough I make the pain all that much worse.

I hadn’t realized until last night how swollen and bruised my ankle is, where I compare it to pre op photos and to my good ankle it’s a little scarey.

I’ve had it reviewed and there is nothing to worry about it will just take time.

I’m moving a lot slower than I had hoped, but I’m finally started to accept better where I’m at and it’s still early days. I still struggle to rest properly and I look forward to returning to work and every other “normal” day to day activities soon. What I have found over the past week is that I have to listen and follow the medical advise I’m given.

Strangely enough in this situation, they know best and I have to get over myself and trust them.

I’m not dealing with the frustration I have about this whole situation all that well. It is something that will take me time to overcome.

I had hoped to be cleared to return to seated personal training this week. But a visit with my Physio really did help me re-focus on resting and recovery.

While it might be nice to think about getting the blood flowing and the heart rate up, right now my body needs to recover from the trauma of surgery. Stressing the body is not the way to go!

I had an hour long consult with my Physio today and for once all the jokes she made were far worse than mine. My Physio knows me quite well and could see that I am focused on the job at hand but needed some help to focus my attention to the detail that will literally see me back on my feet.

It was a great hour long consult, I still can’t work out where the time goes.

One of the things that helps both of us in these consults is I’m hyper organised. I will always have a list of what I want to cover and I have copies of reports and scans which helps.

Tonight my pain isn’t any less, I’m just getting better at managing it, when they tell you to take pain relief at regular intervals not just when your in pain, for the short term do it. I’ve tried to “brave it out” and that was just dumb.

You really do need to have confidence in yourself, which I’m started to get back and it’s amazing what you can achieve when you do.

I’ve got a new exercise to add to my home exercise program and I’ve now started some fish oil capsules. I’m hoping the fish oil can help my recovery and undo some of the bad that is being done by some of the other meds I’m taking.

My poor old body apart from dealing with surgery it’s taking a massive hit with medication.

Thankfully the house is well stocked with food and I’m not doing too badly on the healthy eating regimen.

I have a lot more I’d like to post about but I don’t have the energy right now.

This should give you a good update of my progress so far, slowly does it in so many ways right now.

So I received a call today from my Surgeon’s P.A. asking if I could come in for surgery a day early.

I don’t think I’ve ever so clearly stated “yes” in my life.

Mind you, I’ve now lost a day of preparation and rather than take it easy I’ve had to push myself.

That said, everything is fairly much in place I just need to let the process take its natural course.

My surgery is now late morning instead of early morning so if I’m awake before 6am I get to have “breakfast” that beats nothing to eat from Midnight.

Given that I’m not sleeping well, if I’m awake prior to 6am I will eat something small, if not I hope to sleep through.

I’m still worried about what is going to happen, that’s natural, one day, one step at a time.