This forum has always felt like a safe place for me to express my worries and fears, and I thank all of you so much for that. Truly, deeply, from the bottom of my withered old heart – I appreciate all of you, individually and as a big, beautiful collective. I know it sounds like I’m about to take one step off the cliff, but my surgery is coming up and it’s made me a little bit morbid, I’ll admit!
My doctor says it isn’t a big deal – certainly not as large as last year’s health scare – but it isn’t like a person gets better at waking up from anaesthesia as they age! Besides, I think a person should be apprehensive when they’re staring down the barrel of a total shoulder replacement surgery – no matter how routine the surgeon insists that it is.
Luckily all of my tests have come back clear (guess who has a sufficiently healthy rotator cuff, Julie!) and so I’m confirmed to head in for my surgery as soon as possible. Plus, I get a lovely little holiday to Melbourne!
Knowing that you’re about to go under anaesthesia and will have to put your life (or your shoulder replacement, at least) in the hands of somebody else is hard for everyone, I imagine. But there’s something about getting older… I suppose it’s the fragility, that feeling that appeared one day, like a drumbeat in the depths of my soul.
The idea that my life was no longer guaranteed for me, that I was swiftly approaching the limit that had been promised to me by centuries of industrialisation and medical advancement; any teenager can feel like they have the world ahead of them, but once you hit sixty…
Bah, I’m getting morbid again. Basically, I just wanted to express my everlasting gratitude and love to anybody reading this. You know you mean the world to me – and I’ll see you when I get home from my shoulder surgery in Melbourne.