A slap in the face with a wet fish - time for a hospital visit

So it's morning and I know that in four hours we will be back in the hospital for the three hour pre op assessment and tests. I have my book to the ready - I picked one that is super interesting so that when I read a page and none of it makes it through to my thought processes before I blankly read it again, at least I know I am missing something good! ;-) I have something of a checkered history with hospitals it must be said. I have been fortunate enough never to be in as a patient myself, apart from a very lame incident concerning a broken toe in my teens and I always use to have an incredible phobia about them. Family legend has it that this was probably to do with an incident when I was six, when I was twirling blithely round some handrails at a friends party and fell off, smacking by face into a big ole pile of concrete and pushing my teeth through my lip - apparently there was a lot of blood and I spent a fair amount of time in A&E being sorted out while having sobbing hysterics – and I don't recall anything about it as my brain obviously decided it was safer to do a blanking out exercise. But ever since then, there has been a stomach clenching gut reaction just at that smell as you walk into a hospital that saw me get palpitations and rush out the main door. My Grandad was really sick when I was in my early twenties and my family were ladling on the old "you really should see him" emotional turmoil and I plucked up the courage to go - I managed an amazing five minutes before running away and being sick in the toilets by reception. Not good. Subsequent events have made my reactions much better, following my Dad having a heart attack a few years ago, and last year my Grandmother succumbing to pancreatic and secondary cancers, and I have developed something of a grit my teeth and bear it attitude to hospitals to get me through. Funnily enough it was only on seeing my Grandmother every day in the last stages of her cancer, and encountering the hospital as a sort of normal part of my day (at least in that period) that I grew to understand that these places were not a grim place of illness and pain, but actually a community of people all in the same boat - one of the last great levellers of people - you may be an accountant, a Lord, a busdriver - but you still all look the same with your bottom cheeks hanging out the back of a surgical gown. I realised also that the people who worked in them were there to really help - and not just with the illness, but with comradery, laughter and empathy. Good places. A test of my adjustment to attitude came earlier this year when my darling cousin decided to light a bonfire using a can of petrol and a lighter ----- BANG! Yep, she is old enough to know better but we'll leave that bit well alone. The point is amidst the panic of that night and the waiting in A&E while she looked like Hannibal Lecter in her burn mask and then the subsequent transferral to the burns unit of Stoke Mandeville - I was okay. Not my best night ever but certainly not the worst. Now however, it is a different kettle of fish. Every time we go to the hospital to talk about A's cancer I feel a little of the scared six year old in me return ..... not enough to battle through my gritted teeth defence ... but it is definitely there. And today I can feel it already, as we go in for A's pre op assessments. I am generally a very positive person, but I have a dark side too .... where doom fairies work and whisper in my ear all the worst case scenarios. But I shall utter not a word of the "but what if they decide they can't do the op" "what implications do A's malfunctioning kidneys have on the success" aloud, but shall write them on here in the hope that they dissolve on impact with daylight. I am sure it will be fine ..... I am sure you will all say it will be fine ... and mostly I will believe you all. ;-) I shall be taking my 'dark side' with me this afternoon for a twirl round London, where A and I will be staying at the luxurious Soho Hotel (a treat!) and watching Les Miserables before finding large puddles to jump in and drink good wine. Tomorrow we take our new camera out for a spin round the city sights and go to one of my favorite places - the national portrait gallery. Today I am eeyore. Take care. T x