Well, my dear friends, tomorrow is the day. At 6am, I'll check myself into my local hospital, fork over $200 for a little down-payment on my deductible, and succumb to anesthesia & The Knife. (Or is it knives? I mean, how many little sharp instruments does a surgeon HAVE??? At least 14, I'll bet. Yeah. 14 sounds good.)
I'm nervous, guys.
I'm now ashamed to admit that I've always been ever-so-slightly scornful of people who are nervous about an upcoming surgery. (I mean--routine surgeries like having your gallbladder removed--not stuff like open heart surgery, or brain surgery, or toe surgery, or other serious stuff like that.) I'm glad that I'm having surgery myself now, so I know what it means to be nervous before going under, even knowing that things will likely be entirely okay. I mean, it's my BODY that they're going to be cutting into, y'know? That place where I live. I'll come awake missing a piece of me.
Plus, I will hurt.
Man, I'm such a baby.
Urgh! And this is so not the tone I intended to have in this post. You see, I've been thinking a bit about having surgery, and about finally being able to sympathize with people going through similar experiences, and I've realized that a lot of what we go through in life is geared to help us understand suffering that other people have to go through. Having this surgery will enable me to grasp, just a little bit what someone with a more serious surgery is going through. I'll be able to offer more sympathy, more real understanding to that person, because I'll have felt it myself, even if to a lesser degree.
I came into this world knowing so little, and I've spent the majority of my life thinking that I knew a great deal. So coming into these life experiences, I'm finally gaining just a small bit of knowledge, but these small bits are teaching me how much of life is still beyond my understanding, and I'm so grateful for that. Now, I hope, I should be a bit slower to make hasty judgements or assesments of people I don't know, and be a little more kind, have a little more empathy.
God teaches us so much through the experiences in our lives. I'm learning so much by living! And I still have so much living to do.
So, until I return a gallbladder-less self, I bid you all a (brief) farewell. And I really do love you, you know (no matter what we've been through in the past and perhaps because of all that we've been through). You're all wonderful.
Well, see you on the other side!
8 comments:
We love you, too. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. And remember, God not only uses rough times to teach us, He also helps us get through them.
Best of luck, Beth. I'm sure all will go well; besides, life will be better with that bile-containing nuisance out of the way ;). I'm sure we will all be praying for you!
Hey, thanks you guys. I'm now on the other side, (of surgery, NOT the veil...), and while there's this odd internal pulling sensation whenever I move my abdomen, still, it really doesn't hurt as much as I thought it would. So, all your prayers totally worked! :^)
Thanks. And, now I must sleep again. Or watch Animal Planet. Whatever. :^)
Yay!!!! Beth's healed! I hope that you are feeling like yourself again soon! We all miss your witty thoughts and pithy observations! We love you!
I'm so happy to hear that things went well and you don't hurt much. Yay! I'm sure partial-spandex T-shirts will become the newest rage in alternative medicine.
I don't have anything clever to say tonight--and what is there about us that makes us always want to seem witty? I just want to tell you that we (Ed, Morgan, and yours truly) have been praying for you too, and that we are GLAD that things went well.
Just wanted to let you all know, I'm still alive. Just...a little groggy. And, more witty, pithy observations will be coming soon! As soon as I finish Gilmore Girls. And dinner.
In fact, the first one may involve Mr. Rogers. In fact, I hope it does, and since I have pretty much exclusive control over what I post in this blog, I'm pretty darn sure Mr. Rogers will in fact be involved. So, hurrah. :^)
My Biology teacher at BYU said Mr. Rogers works out a lot and is actually pretty strong, as mild-mannered guys in red sweaters go.
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