Monday morning, 8:20 am

April 20, six days before leaving for New York, the phone rang.

I was still asleep and the phone woke me up, as well as my husband telling me to take the call.

"Who is it?" I asked. I didn't want to talk to anybody! Not before my first cup of coffee!

"A woman's voice, a nurse or something."

It was the surgical coordinator at TCI. My surgery for April 28 was off. Due to "unforeseen circumstances."

Shocked....I stumbled through the decision of when to have the surgery rescheduled, and we decided on June 4.

Since then, I learned that it's a family emergency for Dr. B that caused the cancellation of all surgeries at TCI that involved him and Dr. M.

I cried so hard. I don't know why I couldn't just accept what had happened. I have faith things will work out for the best. I've lived that way for a long, long time. I think it's the brain injury...the need for things to be routine and the "known."

I felt like I was just getting most of what I needed to get done...well, done! And now I'd have to backtrack, cancel flights and hotel reservations and also talk to my caregivers and see how this affected them...AND THEN go back and choreograph the whole thing again! It seemed insurmountable.

Took me a whole day to get through the depression that resulted from that tender "button" that had been pushed by the news of cancelled surgery. Seems silly to me now.

I've talked about this before because I've been in this situation before, though not to the point of having a scheduled surgery cancelled. But I've been where Dr. B told me to wait 18 months for fusion and dealing with that let-down....I went through that 18 months of bone-enhancing drug therapy and then had the infamous bone scan (the one that told me in error that my bones were significantly worse) and that dismay that I'd probably never have the fusion ever.

Then, on Monday, it felt like deja vu all over again. Would I ever get this fusion? Will I?

So, I've written before how I have to build myself up and tell myself over and over how much better my life will be after this fusion....why I need to have it done....how much less pain I'll feel....like little carrots thrown out in front of me on the trail, keeping me putting one foot in front of the other toward the goal of this surgery....a tough, "not for the faint of heart" operation.

So, after having those inner cheerleaders rah-rah'ing their routines day in and day out, the sound of a secretary 3000 miles away telling you, "Uh, not next week!" just opened the gate and seated me on that roller coaster again, the one that rides up and down and swerves from side to side, climbs and struggles along the cogs as it inches up a hill, then scarily drops the bottom out from under you as you swing your arms in the air and scream!

Today, I'm all better. The weather has been great, the daffodils are blooming, the tulips also.
Golden forsythia at the end of the house blazes in glory; leaves are sprouting forth on the berry vines...and there's a lot I can do in the yard, puttering around, and now, I have 45 more days to get it all done and ready for the time I can't do much.

Others had it tougher. I know of at least two people who were actually there in NY, had had their pre surgical testing done and then got the call the night before, that their surgeries were also cancelled. I had it much easier.

Hang in there with me, folks, I might just get this surgery done yet!