Surgery Day Cometh

So surgery day eve has arrived with little fanfare.  I worked up today at 4:30, and two of my co-workers were awesome and helped me to cover the "late" shift in our office so I wouldn't have to fret around until 7:00 at work since I have to be at the surgery center so early in the morning (5:30!!).  As we were leaving the office this evening, we heard a rather unpleasant sound...  Tornado Warning!!!!   The warning was for Licking County, so we figured we were in the clear...  uh, not quite.  Apparently the warning was actually for western Licking, eastern Franklin, and northwestern Fairfield - exactly where we were headed!!   We got home without incident, but it definitely set me on edge for the rest of the night.  Six tornadoes ended up hitting southern and southeastern Ohio tonight, and a lot of good people lost all of their belongings.  An ominous end to a day filled with last-day-at-work stress, fretting about making sure everything was "just so", etc...   I fixed myself a light dinner and tried to get as much ready as possible for tomorrow morning.  I am up late twiddling around the house though... trying to get everything cleaned up, set up.
I am still not sure what kind of surgery I am going to have... literally my doctor has told me that I won't know until I wake up.  If I have a splint up to my knee, it's the "full" surgery - a lateral ankle stabilization using an autograft (tissue harvested from my own body) of the peroneus brevis tendon.  If I have a walking boot, it's because he was only able to "scope" the ankle joint and needed to repair the cartilage with the microfracture procedure.  Not only is this nerve-wracking to not know exactly what's going on with my own body, it's also a LOT of fun to explain to the wicked witch at work - better known as the medical management nurse in our office.  She's supposedly "in charge" of managing FMLA-protected absences, and she takes great delight in keeping a close eye on her flock of injured and ill associates.  Her phone calls are legendary... she calls women on maternity leave after just a few weeks to see how soon they'll be retuning to work (6-8 weeks is the standard!!).   I am not looking forward to talking with her, mostly because I know she'll ask me why it is that I can't return to work on crutches.  It's not just the crutches though... its the ice machine (cryotherapy unit), the pain medication, the elevation needed to prevent swelling, the physical therapy that will be gruelingly painful on an atrophied leg, etc...  there's a lot more to it than meets the eye.

I don't think I'm sleeping much tonight, and it's not just because of the 5:30 arrival time at the surgery center.