Surgery Date and Jeep

Day Fifty-Eight – Saturday

This has become more of a weekly blog than a daily blog, so I’ll catch you up.

I’ve been very depressed as of late. I can’t decide if it’s the waiting or the new medication I’m taking (that lists depression as a side effect) or the fact that I am alone in my house most of the time. Maybe it’s a combination of all three. All I know is that I’m tired of it – sick and tired of it.

I called my surgeon’s office on Wednesday since it had been a week and no word of a surgery date. They had been very busy moving from one office to another and had just – that morning – unpacked the final box. They were concerned that TriCare would not cover a preventative mastectomy, so they needed to call and get an authorization for that, but they gave me a tentative surgery date – Valentine’s Day. I can think of about a million things I would rather do on Valentine’s Day than have a double mastectomy, but I said okay. The surgeon’s office called a day later and offered to move the date to the 7^th of February and I froze. All this time I’ve been wanting for this to happen already and I still declined the earlier date. Reasonably, Randy needs time to talk to his boss, we haven’t heard from TriCare yet, and I started thinking about the inevitable, which got me all depressed all over again.

I went to visit my family practitioner on Friday as it was time to have my A1C looked at. It’s still not coming down as fast as the literature says it should, so she increased my dosage of Metformin. I asked if I could start that after my surgery since I can’t take Metformin for 48 hours before and maybe after. Better to stay at the same dosage and then gradually work my way up again. Why, do you ask, can I not take my medication before surgery? Death. Apparently, both Metformin and the anesthesia use my kidneys to send out the bad stuff and if they are overloaded, my kidneys will just throw up their little arms and surrender. Good to know.

Randy came home on Friday and we talked and slept and I did laundry. He brings me a package of the stuff every week. Never let it be said that he doesn’t give me presents.

On Saturday, I decided that this hanging around the house all the time was bad for me, so I suggested a trip to IKEA. I needed some things and I wanted Randy to look at some things, so off we went. I forgot which exit to take to get to the store, so I had to go to the next off ramp and come back through a row of car lots. Since IKEA wasn’t open yet, we decided to stop and take a gander at what we had wanted since, well forever, Jeep Cherokees. What’s the harm? They can’t give us what we want anyway. I mean really. Ever hear of fate – once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is fate? We missed the exit, IKEA was closed, and we had to drive by the Jeep store. If we were responsible adults, we would have simply waited in the parking lot for IKEA to open, but no one has ever accused us of being responsible. Bottom line: we bought a Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawk with so many bells and whistles you had to be a rocket scientist. Well, not really that many. That Grand Cherokee was on the lot, but I don’t want a car to stop for me. The only thing missing from the Cherokee was the owner’s manual. I need that manual. Today, I will do a search to see if I can find that manual and go outside and play with all the bells and whistles. This thing has air ride suspension and it determines, as you are driving down the road, which position would be best for your driving comfort. Plus, and this is the big one, IT HAS A HEMI! God, I’ve missed my Hemi. Buyer’s remorse hit me as we were signing the paperwork, as it always does. But on the way home (after the long walk through IKEA), I let Randy drive. I wasn’t car sick and, in fact, I slept. I haven’t slept in a car for years. That’s how I knew it was the right car. Just like the first time Randy kissed me almost 40 years ago, I felt safe and protected. Weird, right? But I am a car person and I like the way they feel and I never felt good about the Taurus. Bad financial decision – absolutely. Good inner feeling – absolutely. I have friends and family who are sound financial people and I should have taken lessons from them. We will die in debt, but we have enough life insurance so our kids won’t have to pay it off. They’ll have no big inheritance, but we’ll have fun while we’re alive.

My week went something like this – depression, doctor’s visit, increase Metformin after surgery, surgery date is February 14, waiting for TriCare to approve the double mastectomy, and bought a Jeep.