Chapter 49: The pre-op phone call in the car......

 

Hi all,

Hope everyone had a good holiday. Personally for me It just didn't feel like Christmas no matter how hard I tried to make it so. This year, really tried my best to get in the Christmas spirit, but just never really seemed to come together if you ask me. Between all the new variant cases reaching basically 10,000 in what seemed to be overnight. Along with me personally being high risk, despite being fully vaccinated AND having a booster. I cannot help but feel "uneasy" to say the least about going out in public at all at this point. Fu*king COVID! Anyhoo, I hope that Santa was very good to all of you seeing as Omicron has been too damn giving this year to everyone, enter sarcastic tone here.....

Okie dokie, where did I leave off..... oh yeah filling out the hysterectomy paperwork with my oncologist. Dr. F did mention that in the next few days prior to my surgery I would receive a pre-op call from an intake nurse to get any important information from me in regards to my surgery and my hospital stay, if necessary. Despite not yet having a surgery date set yet. Seeing as I knew Dr. F wanted me to have the surgery as the earliest possible chance, given the circumstances as well as Covid beginning to shut everything down, again. I figured I would hear back from the intake nurse within a week, if not a few days. Little did I know, much to my surprise, I ended up getting a phone call on my way home. Geez, if only they were this efficient for in person appointments.

I actually almost did not answer the call, as it was an unknown number. Naturally, my first instinct was to assume "Tim from Oklahoma" aka Sanjeet who is clearly not from Oklahoma, was going to ask me if I needed my air ducts cleaned. Or whatever other random telemarketer scam they were using that week. Personally, I take it upon myself as a public service, to chat with them as long as possible. At least the longer they talk to me the less time they have to actually get money from someone else who might actually be gullible enough. I figured with the amount of times they call not only me but other people they must been super lonely and looking for someone to talk to. 😏😈 Obviously why not give them the attention they want, right?! Well if i'm honest, most times when they call I cannot be bothered. But when I do have a chance to engage I often use some of the following tactics:

1."Oh Tim thank you so much, i'm so glad you called! Ive actually have been looking for someone to clean my ducts. Please tell me all about it! in detail I want to know everything!", while proceeding to ask various random yet repetitive questions regarding how they do the actual cleaning process, and getting a quote even. Then finally 10-15 minutes later tell them I live in a condo building. They always hang up really quick after that.😂😈

2. Don't say anything at all other than hello 100 times. It's the best is when they think you can't hear them and they keep saying hi back. Or even better hang up and call you back a few times in a row until they get the hint your messing with them.😂😈

3."Oh Tim thank you so much, i'm so glad you called! Ive actually have been looking for someone to clean my ducts. Please tell me all about it! in detail I want to know everything!" after another 10-15 minutes of asking random questions. I then ask, well what about the other animals? as to which they are always confused. "But you said you wanted to clean my ducks, but my other farm animals need to be cleaned too. Like my horses, sheep, cows, oh and pigs especially they are always rolling in the mud". Most of the time they hang up at this point, but sometimes you might get lucky and get someone who doesn't have ALL of their crayons in the box. If you know what I mean, and can keep going. Which is always a fun time.😂😈

💦🦆💦🦆💦🦆💦🦆💦🦆💦🦆💦🦆💦🦆💦🦆💦🦆💦🦆💦🦆💦🦆💦🦆💦🦆💦🦆

Anyhoo. Luckily for me I was in a conversing kind of mood after my appointment, and I answered the unknown number call. Much to my surprise, it was not "Tim" it was the nurse from Toronto General looking to do my intake. Oh wow, certainly was glad I answered that call. Well at first anyway, it was more of a different story once I got off the phone in fact.

While I drove home on the DVP, in rush hour😐😒, I proceeded to answer her questions to the best of my ability given my current situation. In her defence, she did ask me if I wanted her to call me back at another time when I wasn't driving. As to which I naturally responded "no, its ok I have handsfree", and given the current time restraints I was under, or at least I thought I was. Not to mention, where was I really going? other than being stuck in rush hour traffic, there really wasn't much else going on.

She then proceeded to ask me the general questions about my current health status, blood type, food restrictions etc. You know the typical stuff. For whatever reason, all of a sudden, everything changed for me as soon as she asked one particular question. If i'm completely transparent, which up until this point, I have been. For whatever reason, when she asked this next question, seems my world was turned completely upside down.

"what is your religious preference?" she asked.

"wait what?' I said

"what is your religious preference?" she asked again.

"oh, umm....i'm ______ why do need to know? thats kinda weird that you ask that for a surgical intake" I replied.

"Yeah I know, however we do have to ask incase you would like to have someone come in to read you your last rights. It's just routine."

WAIT WHAT!?!?!?! Hold on a fu*king minute here. It was at that point literally everything changed for me. Reality immediately set in, HARD. It arrived, I was finally in that dark place that people talk about when going through something like this. F*ck!.......I'm gonna die.

There was no more thoughts of, "i'm gonna get through this", "ill be fine", "ill be in and out the same day, no big deal, I can do this". Immediately, it was "OMG, i'm going to f*cking die". Well, actually I wish it was just that simple. I couldn't help but have an overwhelming feeling that not only was I going to die, I was going to die alone. 

Realistically, I knew I was blessed and had basically a whole army of people behind me and rooting for me to be ok. However, I never really felt understood. There was always a very small part of me, or maybe a big part, that felt as though I was never really being fully understood in what I was really going through. Unfortunately, there were people out there who were able to sympathize with my situation. As they had known someone in their life who had been toughed by cancer in some way, but seemed no-one was able to really understand or empathize with my exact situation. Maybe thats a good thing I guess, in the bigger picture. Now don't get me wrong, those of you who were kind enough to stand by and support me, I am forever grateful. Including those of you who have your own personal challenges, health wise or have been diagnosed. However, even the women who I had met up until this point who were also diagnosed, didn't have the same cancer as me. To my point, as common as Dr. F said my cancer is, seemed at that point no-one had yet existed in my life that really understood how I felt or what I was really going through.

This came out of nowhere and hit me like a ton of bricks. The tears, the sadness, the overwhelming grief, and heaviness of it all. I then realized, not only am I grieving so many things already, I am now grieving my own death while I'm still alive. It's truly not anything I would wish upon anyone. By far one of the most terrifying thoughts/situations I've ever gone through my whole life. It was at that point because I didn't know anyone in my exact position. I truly felt as though I was going to die completely alone.

With having to greave so may losses, it is no wonder it felt all consuming.

the loss of being a mother

the loss of being able to make my husband a father

the loss of experiencing pregnancy

the loss of raising a child of our own

the loss of my reproductive organ

the loss of what helps me identify as a woman

the loss of what it feels as who I am as a person

the loss of ever being able look at my child while they lay in my arms and being able to say hello for the first time

the loss of teaching our child how to cook or ride a bike

the loss of helping our child through its first heartbreak

the loss of taking them on picnic's, playing at the park, or going to the zoo

the loss of tucking them in at night, while reading a bedtime story.

Now the loss of potentially my own life.

Finally, I was now there, I had arrived at my breaking point. If I am completely honest, I have no idea how I made it home. The tears, yelling, screaming, and numbness was all consuming and overwhelming at this point. I wanted to talk to everyone and yet no-one all at the same time, as I couldn't help but feel once again completely alone.

Seems no-one could ever or really would ever understand.