Hurry Up and Wait, chapter 2: We're here!

It was an emotional night - we went to see National Treasure with Nicholas Cage, and the emotion of it just got me hyped. I kept crying in the car. It's like you have all of these feelings: peace, fear, confidence, worry, loving all of your friends' and family's concern, but not wishing to be bothering them with it all... In church this AM, Pastor David was on vacation, and there was a wonderful interim pastor from Denver. He gave a dynamic sermon on "God in us" - using the example of how God came to man is a young, unmarried girl - rather than in "Godly" fashion. It was profound and reassuring. I shook his hand and asked him for a prayer for the surgery tomorrow, for me and for Pat, too. He held us both in his outstretched arms and gave us those words of comfort.
Emotional day today too - emotional but also mundane. The sacred and the profane. Thinking about your own mortality and cleaning the cat box...
I remember leaving for Japan, and packing. Trying to anticipate what I'd need and how it would be. Being scared, and yet excited, at the long flight. This feels kind of the same.
My sis and my hubby both gave me poignant, sweet ornaments to mark the event. Barb referred in her card to 'how difficult it is, as a teacher especially, to give up control'. She's had her share of medical issues; with Laurie's birth especially. How true! She pointed again to trusting the hands, both physical and spiritual, that I am in.
"Live in my heart, and heal it" has been my prayer for years. I think of my friend Patrick Malone, the Jesuit priest who was in the Peace Corps in Africa when he found out he had leukemia, and a 1 in 3 chance at survival. He survived. He now serves others with that precious life; there in NYC on 9/11 and now ministering in the depths of South America. I hope that I can, now that this will be finally out of the way, go on to do something meaningful with my renewed life. And not sweat the small stuff.
Maybe it's a good thing; to be confronted with one's own mortality from time to time!
We are in the Fiksdal Hotel, right across the street from St. Mary's. It's great. There's a lounge and computer right around the corner from our room. Too bad I can't stay here!! Mom and Barb will be arriving tomorrow. I have to be at the hospital at 5:45 AM to get the angiogram underway. Don't have a surgery time yet.
Pat's getting a cold, and I still have a latent scratchy throat and congestion; just a little more than my usual. Have to let this be known tomorrow; in case it would interfere with the surgery recovery.
Well, I'm going to go and try to live in the moment for next 24 hours; keeping deep and calm and taking in all of your prayers and love. My deep innars say I'll be fine, but I get some surface waves of anxiety. It will be a long day! I bet I'll have the best "What did you do on New Year's Eve?" story, though! And a great big old scar to prove it!!