Well, that didn't take long

If I've learned nothing in the past three months, it's to answer the cell phone even when the screen says "UNKNOWN."  It wasn't that I wasn't hoping for the call, it was that I didn't expect it today.  It wasn't that I wasn't hoping to be told what I was told, it was that I never imagined what has become.

I have a surgery date.  February 1.  It was, for me, a "say that out loud" kind of moment.  (I personally believe we could advance public discourse light-years if more people spoke out loud to themselves first before they spoke out loud publicly, but if that were true then neither candidate would have spoken at the last Vice-Presidential debate.)  I said it out loud again and again, although the surreality never lessened.  The issue for me is timeline in which two competing ethics are at play:  if we're gonna do this, let's do this sooner rather than later, and yet both of our daughters' birthdays are in February and I find quite unsavory the prospect of being in the hospital on either of their special days, so neither other proposed February surgery date was an option.  And yet, from my first phone call as an inquiring patient last fall to this very moment, my interaction with the surgery center has been limited to a doctor's appointment, two blood draws, and numerous phone calls and emails.  And as I also learned today, all of my learning about the surgery, the prep, and the aftermath will take place in an eight hour marathon session on January 31 -- the day before surgery. 

Understand, this is entirely of my own doing.  I signed up for it, and beyond a few wistful "what the hell am I thinking?" thoughts, I have no reservations.  But I never imagined the timeline would be this crammed.  So, the whole liquid diet thing -- that starts Tuesday.  I'm sure I'll have something more to say about that soon, but for now my day off tomorrow includes a trip to GNC to investigate liquid protein supplements.  *shudder*  And my tomorrow night may include weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And so, in the midst of a busy workday, I burned up the phone lines talking things through with Molly (she and I don't even work in the same area code -- how did we live before unlimited cell-to-cell minutes?), made a half dozen calls to nurses in the bariatric center as well as general practitioner, informed my mother of the sudden clarity of timeline, touched base with a couple of trusted friends who've been down the bariatric surgery path simply seeking assurance that I wasn't crazy to agree to surgery so soon, checked in with my boss (for those who speak my language:  the District Superintendent), and secured needed folks to be on-call for me and preach for me while I am away from church duties for surgery recovery.  That last part all worked out very, very easily -- astonishingly so -- so I'd like to think God is blessing this whole situation from the start. 

The last piece of the puzzle that needed to be placed today was to have a conversation with our oldest, our almost-nine-year-old.  Josie is the type of kid who can seemingly adapt to anything so long as she knows about it in advance.  We knew she'd need to fret and stew and ask questions, both tonight and in the future.  It's fascinating the capacity kids have; she was appropriately curious and concerned and wanted to know what the surgeon was going to do and if any of this was going to affect bedtime "snuggle-time" down the line.  And then she wanted to know if I was going to be in the hospital on her birthday.