Fear...and redemption

Regular readers will know that I have had medical issues for some time. Close friends of mine will know that there are two issues troubling me, one of which is the Condition that I'm being treated for, the other involves my eyes where I've repeatedly gone under the knife for over the past decade and a half.

This year is shaping up to be a scary one; if everything goes as planned, I'll probably be having at least one surgery, perhaps up to three. One surgery is going to arrest (and hopefully reverse but not completely) an issue that is making me slowly blind in one eye. The other ones are all Condition-related.

I remember when I was young and healthy - surgery was what old people and distant relatives went through. Now, having been operated upon quite a number of times, I will admit that the fear is still very much there but there's a certain grim determination to just get it over with so that I can get on with my life.

I received the first set of supplies needed in preparation for one of my surgeries today. I'm going through and checking them against the shipping manifest with that determined grimness above, knowing full well that the road to recovery is going take nearly a year post-op. It's one thing to know you're going under the knife but it's quite another to see and hold supplies in your hand that you're going to use during a painful recovery.

Do I want to undergo these treatments? To my surprise, the answer is yes. As horrible as it may be, I just want to be healthy again and to avoid surgery merely means putting off the inevitable.

There is a certain calmness that comes from that special mix of deep primal fear coupled with a profound sense of rightness. I'm going through a fearful time knowing that there will be intense protracted pain but my redemption lies in focusing on the fact that there will be healthy normality at the end.