Less than a week to my operation

I really wanted this to be a happy post.  I don't want to whinge, I want to be excited that my surgery is almost here..... 

I remember those last weeks of pregnancy, when I just wanted my baby in my arms.  

When I was so uncomfortable I couldn't sleep, could barely walk, and everyone asked inane questions about how long I had left.  

That's what this feels like.  

Every position I find that makes one part of my body comfortable, is ridiculously uncomfortable for the rest of me.  And everyone who asks is surprised how quickly the surgeon got me in, and say I must be so excited that it's so close.  And I am.  

Actually, I'm not.  At the moment I am completely fed up.  I am cranky that it took 11 months from my first presentation to hospital in absolute agony for any doctor to even suggest doing an ultrasound of the nerves in my knees, the equivalent place to my elbows, when I was having IDENTICAL pain in my legs as I was in my arms.  I am cranky that I started talking to doctors about the weird symptoms I was having 20+ years ago, and was written off by every type of specialist you can imagine.  I am exhausted that my dysfunctional family was often pegged as the cause, making me dredge up that stress over & over & over again.  I am even disappointed that the doctor that told me he would "get me in within days" of my appointment took 2 1/2 weeks.

I am so impatient.  I want it to be next Wednesday already.  Actually I want it to be the month after that, when I have had both knees done and I am (hopefully) pain free.  Then I really want it to be at the point when I am fit & active again, when I can say I will do things and not let anyone down. 

And I'm so lonely.  I have a great circle of friends, who I am friends with in real life as well as on Facebook.  When I share my struggles on Facebook, they read them and then when they run into me they tell me how they care, and how they have been praying for me.  The problem is, as I become more of a hermit, unable to go out to many places because of the pain, I don't run into them any more.  So the encouragement I had been getting disappears, at a time when I need it even more.  Then I beat myself up about it, because I know that it's my fault I'm not running into them, not theirs.

And I am scared.  Scared that this operation won't be the answer.  Scared that something else will fail in my body, like my legs did after my arm operation.  Scared that I am still recovering from Chronic Fatigue, and that even with the pain gone, I still won't be able to get things done.

My biggest prayer at the moment is for peace.  I know that in the light of 23 years of pain(7300+ days), 5 days is absolutely nothing, but I seem to be sitting in that time thinking through everything I could be doing if I was well, and worrying that things won't go to plan.

I am also praying for answers as to what I am meant to do with this.  How can I use the lessons I have learnt through this battle with doctors to help others?  I don't want what I have been through to be for nothing, because I don't quite know how to cope with the idea that it just happened and that's it. 

So if you have taken the time to read this, I thank you.  I am grateful that you care enough to be on this journey with me.  My one request of you is this, please let me know.  Just like the post I shared this on.  Or comment.  Or call me.  Or drop in, I'm almost always home.  And remember, I am not the only person you know that feels alone, please let someone else know you care, because they may not be in as good a place as I am, and your call could be the one thing that stops them doing something permanent.  Let them know you care, before you can't.