Achieving milestones then.... it's back in the operating room again

This coming Monday is going to be my surgery #3 in 2015.  Before that, I saw the inside of an operating room only a handful of times in my entire life.  Now, it's becoming too familiar.  Preparations... no eating/ drinking after midnight....  No vitamins....  No over-the-counter medications....  Make sure you have transportation afterwards...  Yada yada.  Agh.   This time it's a minor surgery.  BUT...  I'm really dreading it.  I am dreading the idea of going under the knife again.

The past few weeks I have been achieving great milestones in my recovery.  I was determined to climb to the summit of Mt. Cowles, the highest point in San Diego, when I was in town.  There was a heat wave going on.  I still HAD to do it to prove it to myself that I am still capable of doing physically challenging things even after a fight with cancer and recovering from a major surgery.  And I climbed to the top when it was 103 degrees.  Yay.  I finally won some racquetball games again.  I finally reached my regular routine of swimming a mile.  I finally went stand up paddleboarding again in Orange County two weeks ago.  I was able to do some physical labor as well.  I was on a roll with school and other parts of my life.  My energy level was better.  I was feeling really good about myself.  Yes, I was still struggling with the open wound that didn't seem to close.  It just keeps on draining.  When I was in San Diego, it started to bleed a bit too much.  I went to the urgent care.  I was hoping for a WHOLE month of not seeing a doctor in September.  That was broken when I went to the urgent care.  Dang.  

I saw a different specialist yesterday about my wound.  She said that the infection never went away. Sure, the worst part of it was managed by antibiotics but she said that antibiotics are not effective for this kind of infection.  The surface of the skin got staph which was treated with antibiotic ointment.  The infection is internal.  In order to allow the body to heal, they have to get inside to examine the infection to see its severity to determine the next steps.  I have no idea of what news I will be waking up to in the recovery room.  It could be that it was an easy fix-- meaning opening up the wound further to allow full drainage.  It could be a temporary fix requiring repair surgery later down the road.  I hate the feeling of going under not knowing.  Alas, months of this craziness made me agree to go for the surgery.  It has to stop somehow at some point.  My doctor said this is the first step.  She and I are hoping that it's also the last step.  She and I wouldn't know until Monday.