Nothing, in the good way.

I'm pleased to report that there is nothing of real interest to report. No news yet on a surgery date. I am scheduled for a mammogram and breast ultrasound on Monday to make sure I haven't got anything nasty going on up there too, but that's about it. I get to go up to the pretty cancer center at Feather River for that.

I'm mainly focusing on getting all those chickens in a row; the nuts and bolts of where I will stay down in the Bay Area the night before surgery, trying to get things organized both inside my head and inside my house for after surgery, all of that stuff. Not having to be in pain 24/7 makes it a lot easier to get some of those things done!

The only hard part is making myself do the boring stuff when I'd rather use my new, liberating, pain-free periods to do fun things like play with yarn. Then again, I can't go off for surgery and leave all these un-wound skeins scattered all over my work desk, now can I? We have a little girl's birthday this weekend to get ready for too.

The little girl is very, very anxious and nervous about all of this. We're being 100% open and honest about things and encouraging lots of questions, and keeping the kids updated on all the new progress and explaining it as we go, but each of them processes things in a different way, and this is very scary for her. I'm trying to work on ways to help her work through her fears and anxiety and I welcome suggestions.

I've already told her that if she needs to talk or ask questions--which she should do lots of, and not bottle anything up--that even if I'm not available because I'm at the hospital or something, and she doesn't want to talk to her Dad about it, she can always call her grandma, and even her mom, but she can also call her big sister, MY mom, and my auntie too. I'm trying to give her tools...and it was just great, perfect timing that her big sister called minutes after we'd been talking about this all, so I put her on the phone for a little bit. She seemed to feel much, much better afterward.

I'm trying to make it clear to all the kids that their dad and I need their help to get through this, that it's a team sport, and I'm trying to think of ways to enlist them a bit more actively in the process.

I want to come up with some sort of "jobs" for lack of a better word that each of them could do as a concrete part of the effort to get me well. All three were great, and really helpful after my surgery in March, carrying things for me, getting me ice, whatever. The little one was home from school a couple days then (I forget why, but I think part of it was worrying about me disguised as illness) and she spent the first several days of my return home up in bed with me watching movies and "getting" random things for me. I've already told her that I really need her to take good care of herself, and make sure she's getting the support she needs through this, because I really need her to be there to support me and help take care of me.

This recovery, especially if it's an open surgery, is going to be much longer, much harder, and psychologically much more complex for all of us. I think everyone's going to do better if they have some defined roles to play in the process.

Ideas?
Keep 'em coming, please. Pretty please.
All the moms out there have lots of experience that I could really use right now.

I'm also going to be starting a list along the sidebar over there ---> that was inspired by a funny conversation with Mom back when my baby cousin was injured. We joked that we should write a book or something about "Things (that your mother would approve of) To Do In Bed."

Please post your ideas to be added to that list too!
See, everyone has to help.