I'm a Living Rolling Blackout in These Foolish Things

The thing about life is that you can make the most elaborate plans, get every single detail worked out in your mind and on paper, pull off what you think are miracles in the way of having everything put together like a fine Swiss timepiece, your tiny world can still fall apart in a split second.

Yesterday, through the area’s worst record-breaking cold snap (that continues), complete with rolling blackouts lasting hours and hours on end…through Best Bud getting to the hotel during a dangerous winter storm and bringing snacks and rubbing my feet to get to the pressure points that would help me clear my colon…through getting ready for surgery in the morning in a hotel room without power, and my poor dad getting so nervous and losing his wallet and searching the whole hotel over and over (and finding it in his hotel room)…through heart-wrenching conversations and well-wishes and beautiful moments, and AFTER getting to the hospital safely, I checked in and was told I could have one visitor ONLY at the hospital, we had Best Bud be that person, so she went back out to park her car in visitor parking.

While I was in a waiting area until Best Bud got back I saw that my phone was ringing, but the iphone lit up saying it was a Spam Risk so I didn’t answer the phone.

But then, I saw that Spam Risk left a message, so I thought I better double check to see what it was. Sure enough, Spam Risk was actually the hospital telling me that they had an URGENT message for me. Hm. This seemed weird as I was already at the hospital and they’d already checked me in?

I called the number and I guess it was the operating room telling me that the whole place was flooded and I’d have to reschedule surgery!

Reschedule surgery!! This, after multiple hotel rooms, braving storms, making plans for friends to FLY IN to help with aftercare, for my mental state to be in the optimal place…the list goes on and on as to what we all had planned to happen for the next couple of weeks. It felt like intricate details that were put together like, well, like SURGERY were crumbling in my well-scrubbed hands.

By that time Best Bud was sitting next to me and we just looked at each other, dumbfounded. I searched my phone to find the surgeon’s office number (since the surgeon and the hospital are two separate entities) and called the office on-call staff (of course the office was closed because it was a HOLIDAY, right?!) to ask when this surgery would be rescheduled and they told me that someone would call me back whenever they could. So I reminded the person on the phone that this is CANCER we are talking about and she said she’d mark my message urgent.

And that was that.

Best Bud and I, still sitting in those waiting room chairs asking ourselves, what are we going to tell my parents who were back in the freezing hotel with off-and-on power. How to even untangle this TANGLE!

Oh, and also? Did you know that Mercury is in Retrograde?? Of course it is.

We decided to drive back in their direction, but to stop at the grocery store to pick up more food for them since all of the restaurants around were closed. Like, literally EVERYTHING was closed. And we drove up to the grocery store and the power was out at the grocery store, so we were turned away.

We gathered every piece of food we had, some leftover soup that Best Bud brought, I still had a gatorade and some bone broth for surgery prep, some breakfast bars, some gummy bears and some other candy and packed it up to take to mom and dad. And I was also starving! And told Best Bud that I desperately needed a glass of wine (we had a little left over from the night before when Best Bud had some by the fire with my parents while I prepped and didn’t drink!).

Got to their dark hotel room (still no power) and knocked on the door and my dad opened the door and his face looked like he’d seen a ghost! We all hung out in the room trying to figure out what to do for a minute and then decided to move to the hotel lobby where they still had a roaring gas fire. Man, that gas fire ended up being the best feature ever. It was literally the only place where I felt comfortable in that whole hotel.

At this point all I really wanted to do was curl up into a ball and roll away. I still feel that way.

But by the end of our conversation, we decided that mom and dad would spend the night at the hotel so that they wouldn’t have to drive home in the dark (and the power is out at their house anyway) and make their way back the next day, which is now today.

Best Bud got me home and all tucked inside. My apartment building is also part of government building so the rolling blackouts don’t affect me here due to the fact that the government buildings are exempt, so there is heat and means of taking a hot shower and cooking. I called my parents to see if they had power yet at the hotel and they said not yet so I asked them to come here and they said they just wanted to sit tight. I told them to get more blankets from the front desk and just pile them on.

I talked with my doc Jeff, who was so shocked again that I’d gone through yet another colon prep (which is harsh on the old pipes, actually) to tell him that I am going to have to do it AGAIN in the near future - third time’s a charm? Ha. He told me to do a slow prep the whole time until I can get to surgery again. This means things like protein shakes and soft food. My poor, damaged innards!!

So I’m here. Still with Mass in the Ass. Still waiting to hear when surgery will be rescheduled. About to call my folks to see how they are doing. About to think about texting my boss to tell him that I didn’t have surgery yesterday and to maybe log back into work to forget about all of this for a while.

I just about can’t right now. I’m about to do all of the above and just go fetal for a while.

I love you all and thank you for the wishes, thoughts, prayers and hate to ask you to do it again in the near future…but I’m gonna need you to do it again in the near future, okay?

I love you more than words can ever express.

Stay warm, protect yourself and your loved ones,
GS