The non-event

My surgery was yesterday. It went well. The lump was a bit bigger than expected, but looked benign. It's been sent off for testing to be sure, and I've got a few follow up appointments with the specialist.

That's about as exciting as it gets for me. The hospital was busy - I had to wait a while until a bed was free, and then got a curtain in the pediatric section of the day surgery. The bed was about 6 inches shorter than I am, but I was there for such short of a time that it didn't matter. Plus, I had Harry Potter looking over me - how could that be a bad thing?

I'm a bit sore. A bit more hung over from the anesthetic. Otherwise, I'm doing fine. I just need to start building up my blood. This surgery fixed the source of the problem, but the problem is the anemia and low hemoglobin. Now it'll be a about 3 months before I'm back to normal.


My sister staged a great distraction for me. She came to town yesterday to care for me after the surgery. Thursday night, Alberta was hit with a wicked snow storm. I called her Friday morning, and we agreed that she'd take the bus here instead of driving . The only problem was that the bus ride would be almost 4 hours. This is a 2 hour drive on most days -1.5 hours if you're my sister- but the city of Edmonton was asking that people not go downtown (where the main bus depot is) due to the horrible roads. Since she lives north of the city, she'd have to catch the milk run from the depot up there; and wasn't very keen about the 4 hour ride.

She changed her mind, and called me from the road, saying that she was driving.

Because, when all the cities in the province are saying that you should stay off the roads, doesn't it make all the sense in the world to embark on a 200km journey?

I kept watching the road reports, which were awful, until they turned terrible and eventually the highway was closed when she was about half way here. She managed to white-knuckle it here in one piece - despite a 19 car pileup in front of her. Until I knew she was safe, I was a whole lot more worried about her than I was about the surgery.

I think she learned her lesson, though, and suspect that she'll be here for a while. ... maybe 'til spring.