My fear really goes back to yesterday. Ryan shared with me his disability paperwork from his doctor for work. He is not estimated to return to work until mid-September. He is expected to have marked limitations in some functioning. I read the limitations and suddenly feel like I am reading a client’s application for government disability benefits. Worse than that, I think it would be a successful application.
Brain surgery… those words by themselves have scared both Ryan (a/k/a ROC) and me. However now that the brain surgery is a reality (again), they do not seem to scare me as much as the prep work. Today with four days to go until Ryan’s brain surgery, I am more scared than ever.
I remind myself that the doctor has to put the worse case scenario because we just don’t know. Ryan is otherwise healthy, he is in shape, he has been preparing his body and brain to be resilient and to recover quickly and well after this surgery. There is also the possibility that Ryan will end up needing only one surgery and not two. There is the best possibility that he comes home epilepsy free, seizure free, and complication free. The doctor is writing what he has to and not necessarily what will actually be.
So why can’t I snap out of this fear and need to cry? Ryan and I deal with the stress differently so while he ran around snappy and rejecting my offers to help with the preparations he was trying to do, I had to shut down in fear of saying something I would regret. I mean really, I can’t be mean right before a major surgery like brain surgery!
The events of yesterday kept me up all night. Tossing and turning all night if not wide awake. At some points I found myself crying. The dreams I did have were definite stress dreams. I got out of bed this morning feeling miserable.
When my eyes are finally open, I check Facebook to find a post from Ryan. He talks about being scared but keeping a brave face. He is more than a brave face…he is entirely brave. Maybe it’s the soldier in him. Maybe it’s what made him a soldier. Either way, I am trying to feed off his being brave and not the fear inside both of us.
We can do it. We will make it. Four more days and struggling but we will push through this countdown to surgery and the count to recovery.
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