Recap of the week.

The last week has been severely hectic. It's finally starting to calm down a bit so maybe I can get a day or so of rest before my surgery.

The appointment with the surgeon last Monday went well. He looked over the results from the stomach scope and we set the date for surgery to get my gallbladder removed. December 22nd is the big day. I was glad they didn't want to do it that week, even though Ben chided me for not pushing for an earlier date. But this way I had time to get all my Christmas stuff done.

After the appointment, Ben dropped me off at home to get my stuff together for the trip to McAlester and picked me back up about an hour later. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at McDonald's, gassed up the car and hit the road. It took just over two hours to get there and I handled the trip well. I didn't start to really hurt until the last hour, but making a couple stops to get out and walk around helped out a lot with that. As we were driving through McAlester towards Hartshorne, however, I started getting sick to my stomach. A longer stop was required for that one, but the feeling passed and we headed for his grandpa's house. Which resulted in us getting lost and his cousin having to come retrieve us. Meeting the rest of his family went well, then we went to the wake/viewing. Ben handled it a lot better than I thought he would. For me, wakes are always so much harder than funerals because that is when you see your loved one for the first time after their passing, thus I was really worried how he would take it. I'm very proud of him, I know it wasn't easy.

After the wake, we went to Western Sizzlin' with his mom, sister, nieces and nephew. All was well until I had some broccoli cheese soup. The pain kicked in after just a few spoonfuls and was sick as a dog not long after we got back to the room. I was still hurting the next day and took painkillers before the church dinner after the funeral, but it didn't help much. The drive home was hell as a result and took three and a half hours. I got sick again once we hit Midwest City, about thirty minutes from my house. We stopped for about fifteen minutes then we went the rest of the way to my house. I started feeling better at home and got my stuff put away, which roused Robbie from his nap. He fawned over me being home then showed me the tooth he lost the night before.

That's right, my baby lost his first tooth. It happened Monday night. According to my mom, Robbie was a bit freaked about the whole thing. He acted like he thought he was going to be in trouble for it. He even hid it under a pillow on the couch. She explained to him everyone loses their teeth at that age and big boy teeth grow in to replace them. That seemed to calm him down. He was still pretty hesitant about it on Tuesday when he showed it to me, but has sense gotten used to it. The Tooth Fairy still hasn't come it, that concept seemed a bit weird to him, so I'm letting him get used to it.

Since last Tuesday, I've been getting everything ready for Christmas so I won't have to worry about it after surgery on Thursday. As of tonight, everything is done. Tomorrow I'm getting my hair cut, we're taking Robbie to get his picture with Santa and then I need to make my bed up at some point. I haven't gotten around to that quite yet. Robbie likes running across the memory foam and seeing his footprints, so I have been letting him have fun with that.

I'm starting to get nervous about surgery, but I'm still excited at this whole thing finally being over.I'll be off work for at least two weeks. Dr Carey likes to keep his patients on a 10 pound weight restriction for two weeks to a month. The lifting requirement for my job is a minimum of 25 pounds. I'll see him at my post op visit on January 3rd, where they said he will evaluate my progress and my ability to return to work, but the FMLA paperwork he filled out for them says I'll be off until January 22nd. So we'll see. Either way, it's a bit of a vacation. Although, I'll bet you 10 to 1 I'll be going nuts by the end of it.