We will be back after this short break

Hi all. I don't want you to think that I have deserted you but I may be a tad scarce on the blogging scene in the next week or so. I am going to have some surgery and may not be feeling up to putting thoughts to internet paper for a few days. We will see how I feel.

Surgery you say!!! Say it isn't the lobotomy your family has been threatening you with, or perhaps a total brain transplant. No, nothing so drastic. I am having some "retooling" you might say. In the interest of trying to be an open book I will even tell you what I am having done and how I am feeling about it.

So Deb, what are you having done?

Well, at the ripe old age of 49 I am having........a hysterectomy. Come on now, be honest, that ISN"T what you thought I was going to say was it. You thought that I was going to tell you that I was going to have a face lift or some other cosmetic procedure. Something more in line with "Dr. 90210". Be honest you know you thought that. Nope, I am having the old "baby bundler" removed and lest you think this is a time for sadness let me tell you that I am rather overjoyed. Now that all the male readers have left the room lets talk.

Having a hysterectomy is somewhat controversial in some circles. Believe me, when I started to do some online research I came across some websites that are hysterical in the negative on the subject. Some lovely online sites, which I will not pass on to you, will tell you that you will not be a "woman" when you are done with this, that it is just one more way for doctor's to make money, that in most every case it is unnecessary or unnatural or un something. After reading through some of that garbage I understand why "hysterectomy" and "hysterical" come from the same root word. Get a grip people! It isn't like I woke up one day, went to the doctor and fell under the evil "Hysterectomy spell". This has been a long time coming, and lest you say, "It is just your doctor influencing you. He just doesn't understand." I might point out that my doctor is a WOMAN and is at least 10 years younger than I am.

I don't want anyone to think that this decision was made lightly, even though I am trying to find the humor in it. No one wakes up one day and says, "Hey, I think I would like to sign up for major abdominal surgery today. I don't have anything else on the schedule!" No, these things are a long time in coming and a fair amount of thinking and praying goes into them, at least it did for me. When those "womanly issues" begin to affect your every day life then it is time to employ modern medicine and science to do something about them.

Most of the time, as the surgery has come ever closer, I have not been nervous about the whole thing. I understand all the different things that are going to happen and what I am going to have to do. I have had a C-section so I have some notion of how this will feel. But I have to say that every once in a while I just get the old panicky feeling. I really don't love general anesthesia, not because I have trouble handling it but because it is just a disorienting feeling to go to sleep so suddenly and wake up so suddenly with that "gap" of time in there. Just strange. But, I know that this is what needs to happen and the Lord walks with me in all these things so the panicky feeling passes.

At any rate, tomorrow my doctor (who I just love) will help me to finally get a handle on some things that have begun to sap my strength and make my daily life a tad difficult. I am grateful for her knowledge, for a wealth of good hospitals and for a country that does not have Nationalized Health Care (at least not yet). I just had to get that in.

I will let you know how things go.