Mood:  sad

We are in Minnesota. We arrived Tuesday evening. Luckily we got here just in time before the pharmacy closed, so I was able to get the medications I need to be able to function until surgery on Friday morning.

We have to be at Fairview (university of MN) at 530am in admitting on this Friday. Bright and early, b/c my surgery is going to be 11+ hours. I really don't understand how surgeons can stand in one place for 11 hours. I think my legs would totally abandon me if I tried that!! He does get a short break for the times he comes out and talks to my mom to let her know what is going on.

During the meeting with Dr Sutherland yesterday morning, we found out exactly what he is going to do in there. They will completely take out all the pancreas, and most likely the duodenum, and chances are part of my stomach since the pancreas in adhered to it. He will also have to remove some small bowel (and hopefully no large bowel, I don't have much left, and I can not deal with another ostomy. I only had one for 2 months,but I hated it every second of the day. Yuck.

For post op pain, we are going to try doing an epidural before surgery. We didn't do that last time so I hope this will make a huge difference in that pain level during the first few hours of waking up. They will have to put on a PCA pump though, probably with dilaudid, that's the pain med that works the best on me.

I guess I've rambled on and on enough, so I'll stop here!

Sending good thoughts , hugs and prayers to everyone.

Check back when i am in surgery. My mom will probably update it everytime she hears something.

We ventured out to the Mall of America last night, I love that place. The old navy store had an extra 50% OFF of already clearanced prices. I got 3 shirts for megan for $1.49 a piece, a bookbag for $3.49 and some fancy tights for $2.99. I definatly want to go back today, this is the last day for that extra 50% off sale. You can't go wrong with $1 shirts!

Then we went into a shoe store, foot locker or something like that and they had 2 big racks of clearance and one of them had a lot of shirts on it that were $1.99 a piece. They are "big and tall" shirts, but I love to get them to lounge around in and sleep in.. that may sound weird, but it's so comfy and right now comfy is all I am concerned about!

I'm really getting nervous about the surgery. You would think that after having 9 major surgeries I would be used to this!! But instead I think I get more of a sissy each time. Go figure.

I'm missing Megan like crazy. Everytime I think of it the tears start flowing. Luckily I set up SKYPE on my laptop and the desktop "puter" at home. So I've been able to call the puter at home and see Megan and she can see me. It's really a neat program, and best of all it is free (as long as the person you are calling has skype) If you try calling a landline from skype, that is where they start charging you. There is really no reason I would need to do that. I have my cell phone with unlimited long distance.