Another Surgery? Of course.

“This rarely happens to any patient, Emily. We only see about 1 case of this every 2 years.”

Shaking my head, thinking: Of course it is. Of course you do.

“We have to do surgery again. The CT scan shows that the pain in your hand has been caused by your hardware (plate and 6 screws) in your arm. The ends of the screws stick up above the bone by about 1mm. This is very common and occurs in almost every patient. But, in your arm, 1mm has made a big difference. The tendons in your arm are being irritated by the screws and has caused you a significant amount of pain and a cyst to form in the top of your hand.”

Shaking my head, thinking: Of course you do. Of course it is. Of course it has.

“So we are going to go back in to take it all out. The screws and the plate. Your bone has completely healed and will be fine without it. The good news is that we will go in through the same scar on the underside of your arm. But we also have to take out the cyst, so we will have to go in through the top of your hand as well.”

Shaking my head, thinking: Of course you are going to. Of course there will be a new, visible scar.

“Your situation here is so rare. I have never had a patient who has broken a bone in their sleep until you. And now this.”

Shaking my head, thinking: Of course. Because if it is rare and unusual, it is happening to me.

I got a pep talk and a hug (two actually) from my awesome nurse, marked my calendar for Monday, and honestly just tried to distract myself from thinking about it. Perspective tells me that this isn’t that big of a deal. That I’m a trooper and will just pick myself back up and keep on moving after this. That I’m lucky they know what is bothering me and can fix it. That I have a million things going great in my life right now and that this is just a minor hiccup. But I just want all of this to be over. I’m tired of appointments and rehab and pain. And my poor mother – my care taker who probably laughed when I just called myself a trooper – nearly cried when I called her to see if she had plans for 5:30 on Monday morning. And all of this is because a black snake was trying to get on my dream raft.

It seems silly - even to me sometimes. It doesn’t make sense that one dream could cause all of this. But then again, last week I forgot to take my medicine one night before I went to bed. I dreamt that I had cut my own hair. I vividly remember exactly what it looked like. I went with a new style: long on the left side, buzzed on the right - split perfectly down the middle. It was so super classy. When my alarm went off I rolled over to look at my clock and saw a pair of scissors laying on my night stand (which had been in my bathroom drawer when I had gone to sleep the night before). My heart dropped and I ran to the mirror hoping and praying that I had not actually given myself a sideways mullet.

Hallelujah, I still had hair.

That was a close one though. Apparently my dexterity isn’t good enough to control scissors in my sleep. My medicine now sits right beside my alarm clock so that I won’t ever miss it again.

Anyways, my typical combination of denial, avoidance, and pure optimism tells me to just forget about the surgery until Monday. There is nothing that I can do about it. And just like how random bad things happen to me, random good things happen to me just as often. And I have too many things to celebrate, like:

On Saturday I am going sky diving again with some of my best friends. (We were supposed to go last weekend but it was too windy. Story of my life.)

On Sunday I am hula hooping a 5k. And I have a bruise on my hip to prove that I have been practicing!

I got new glasses for the first time. I have had the same pair for 10 years and the lens was chronically falling out. It was time to move on.

I recently celebrated three years as a condo-owner. To mark this glorious event, I swept and dusted.

And I just made tofu for the first time.

Tofu Stir Fry - I loosely followed this recipe.

Fifty of my closest friends gathered last weekend for our second annual Friendsgiving. We even had a Turkey this year!

I pulled off a convincing Cruella DeVille at my church’s Halloween party.

With my friends: The Guatemalan and The Tap Dancing Sailor.

I got to spend an entire weekend with my Covenant Group girls.

I am on the third row on the far right. Yes, I realize that I blend in easily with 8^th graders and that most are taller than me.

Part of me wants to be down about this whole second surgery thing. But the other part of me knows that life is too great to let something like this bother me too much.  I’ll stick to that side. (It’s also the side with long hair. Not the side with the buzz cut.)