Tuesday, January 10, 2012

oh, YOU'RE the 33 year old with a brain tumor?

Yesterday was my pre-op appointment at Georgetown University Hospital. I have to say, they were all super nice. Genuinely super nice. Really makes me happy with my choice of hospital.

But I definitely got a few looks like "are you okay?" or "you're too young to have a brain tumor." And yes, yes I am. Thanks for noticing. But I still have one and I still need to have it removed. Let's keep the show on the road. The tech kept giving me very concerned looks until I smiled. Sorry lady, you're very sweet and doing a great job, but I'm still at pre-op for brain surgery, not a comedy show. I'm going to look concerned and worried because I am. And unless you're matter-of-fact about it all, I'm going to cry. I might cry anyway.

Because I'm actually pretty darn freaked out. The past few weeks have been great. I've been off in blissful denial land and loving it. I went to a bunch of concerts, I hung out with my friends, I bought stuff for my house but put off cleaning it and I also put off properly training my replacement at work. Why rush? I have lots of time!

Now I have just over a week. It's a little scary.


But my house is coming together. I moved all the stuff that doesn't belong in my spare room out and just need to organize what's left. Then I need to cart a bunch of stuff off to Salvation Army and put the rest in my attic (and my fabulous friend, Shelly, is coming over on Sunday to help with this - and go with me to get pedicures). Who knows if my bedroom will be clean, but that's not as big a deal. All I really need to do is change my sheets. My main priority is clearing off my guest bed since my mom will be staying with me. But I'm almost there.


And work is coming together as well. Right before I found out about the tumor, a girl (woman? she's just a few years younger than me so girl seems too juevenile but woman seems too old. young woman? that's goofy. anyway...) from our HR department expressed interest in joining my department. I thought it was a great idea, my boss thought it was a great idea and HR agreed to let her go. No idea why, though, because she rocks. She's organized and dedicated and a hard worker. She's cute and bubbly and we were already friendly so it was a natural fit to have her in my office. She also totally rolled with going from helping me to replacing me for 6 weeks. In a position and department that she didn't know the first thing about. And now that she's officially up here, we've been able to go over so much. It's a little hard for me because I'm not used to dictating everything I do and answering questions constantly during the day, but it's all very important so she gets it. And she is. So that's comforting.


But I've put off telling the last few people that I really should tell that I have a tumor. A few friends, a few work contacts. I just don't want to have the conversation AGAIN. It's tiring, it reminds me that I'm freaked out. It makes me wish I have sent those emails back in December when I was in denial-land (trying really hard to not pun about Egypt). Kind of making me wish I had gone for the December surgery date because then it'd already be over (but then I would have missed two really great concerts, Christmas and my niece's birthday and probably would be even more freaked out than I am now).


Bah. It's only another week and then it'll be over and I'll be in recovery. Two weeks from now I'll have been back home for a few days and this whole freaked out/rushed feeling will be gone. No matter what happens in the next phase, I just want it to start already.

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