The C Word – Day 38 Feels like a Nail in The Coffin

During the past few weeks both George and I have been relinquishing certain responsibilities as we prepare to devote as much time as possible to surgery and recovery.

For me it has meant turning over some of my duties with mom.  Things such as booking her rides for daycare and doing her evening care routine.  These, to me, would have normally been the next steps in transitioning her care as she declines to Alzheimer’s.  A gradual moving towards full time care.  I have often wondered what I would do with my time if I did not have her to care for, and this transitional process will certainly make it easier to deal with.  I have to say I am filling my time well!!

For George it has meant turning over the responsibilities he has assumed over the course of time doing financial things for his mom and his daughter.  It means filling out paperwork to stop work for a period of time (which, by the way, means he actually is “terminated” from work and insurance will be paying him while he is out on leave).  He feels like he is putting a nail in his coffin, as if he is turning over everything and preparing to die.  It does not sit well with him to “give away” things he has done for so long.  

This is not the case.  We fully expect him to make it through this surgery.  What haunts him is the fact that it is a very long surgery and all surgeries come with risks.  We enter into this understanding that there are some unknown things that may occur along the way.  Tonight we had to fill out the agreement to be part of the clinical trial.  There is a whole lot of verbiage in this document which I had earlier tried to give him in synopsis form, leaving out any details he really does not want to know.  But as he initialed each page of this document he glanced at some of those things and, by the time we were done filling it out, his anxiety level quickly rose.

Tomorrow we see the surgeon for some pre-op details.  We have our questions ready to go.  George is working from home as the appointment is in the middle of the day.  As each day comes to an end, anxiety levels increase.  Tonight as we walked around the block we noted that two weeks from this moment he will hopefully be done with surgery.  We look forward to this part of the process to be done and over with. 

On a side note, just for “fun”, I had my own incident to deal with today.  I decided to take a Werther’s butterscotch candy out of my desk.  It had been there awhile and so was a little but sticky, gooey on the outside.  As I bit into the soft coating on the outside I heard a crunch.  I thought perhaps it was the candy, but after a second bite and crunch thought something was not quite right.  I pulled out what was left of the candy in my mouth and discovered that one of my crowns had busted into a bunch of pieces.  I obviously swallowed part of it as I only retrieved a few small pieces.  Fortunately, my dentist had a cancellation this afternoon so I was able to go in and get a temporary crown made and fitted for a permanent one.  We had to have an easy dinner tonight as my jaw and lips were quite numb!  I told my boss it was a nice diversion to have to cater to MY problems today!  George sat next to me to watch me drool my dinner drink – but I actually did quite well.  It was harder to chew the food! (He said I looked like his mom when she eats!)  It was good for a few laughs even if it was at my expense.  I think my mom was probably laughing from her room in heaven – cuz if it weren’t for her I wouldn’t have the Werther’s in my desk in the first place!  My family will understand the joke!!)