I made it through my surgery on Monday and Schmidty has been forcibly evicted from my body. I’m recovering at home, helped along by an ice pack and a prescription of vicodin. I don’t know what the incision looks like since the bandage that’s in place practically covers my entire breast and as curious as I am to see it, I’m too scared to peel back the bandage so unless it falls off between now and my post-op appointment I’ll have to just wonder about how it looks.

Since this was my first surgery, the days leading up to it was kind of a mystery. I had a ton of questions mostly surrounded around how to prepare, because I like being prepared like a Boy Scout. What can I expect the day of? What about pain meds? Will I be prescribed something or did I need to buy some OTC? And if so, which kind? What kind of anesthesia was I going to have? How “out” was I going to be? When can I play badminton again (yes, badminton. Sounds weird and random but I decided to play again. Two weeks before my surgery. I never said my timing was the greatest)? What do I wear? I mean, what was I supposed to wear? I couldn’t imagine wanting to zip up a pair of jeans afterwards and dressing super cute seemed a bit misguided. So I did the logical thing: I Googled “what to wear to surgery” which helped me to relax about the one thing I could control: what I wore.

I traded a few emails with my surgeon and discussed a few more of my questions with the anesthesiologist who assured me that I would not see or feel anything. Apparently the setup would be similar to what was shown in that clip from 90210, with a curtain like thing separating my head from the rest of my body so I wouldn’t be able to actually watch what happened. My goal was to get my medication and then wake up in recovery like I did when I got my wisdom teeth pulled. The anesthesiologist said that was what would most likely happen.

I received my appointment time last Wednesday, yes, right before Thanksgiving, and was given this list of things to bring/do that was basically the same as the lists I had previously Googled:

1. Bring my medical card and photo ID
2. Bring a method of payment
3. Come completely natural: no makeup, lotion, deodorant, nail polish, etc
4. Leave valuables at home (no jewelry, including piercings)
5. Wear something comfortable
6. Do not eat or drink after midnight (because I’m a gremlin?). This includes gum and candy. If I needed to take any medication the day of surgery, I can take them with a sip of water. And they are totally not kidding about the sip.

All that was left at this point was to sit and wait. My mom would be taking me to the hospital the day of and based on my prior conversations with the surgeon, this would be an out-patient surgery so I estimated I’d be there for about 5-6 hours before coming back home. Easy peasy right? A few people asked me if I was nervous or scared and I honestly didn’t feel much of anything. I wasn’t nervous or scared because, well, I knew things would turn out fine and it was something that needed to be taken cared of anyway. I had prayed about it on my own and again the Sunday before with my Pastor and felt covered. To be honest, I was kind of weirdly looking forward to it. I don’t know why but that is kind of within character for me. Who looks forward to getting cut and stitched back up? Why can’t I be normal?!