My bone spur surgery coming up next Wednesday has never seemed like a big deal to me, but my doctors are treating it so seriously, I’m starting to wonder. I guess part of it is my diabetes, which can make even common foot injuries dangerous. And part of it is my heart, which can make even the most routine procedure difficult.

This coming week will be intense, even crazy. I’m eager to get the surgery and receive a mask for the sleep apnea the day after.

One good thing about being a writer is that I usually sit at a desk a lot, so having a bandaged foot won’t be that much of a change.

I think the anesthesiologist got a little freaked by the sleep apnea diagnosis. “We won’t want you to stop breathing during the surgery,” she said, “and if you do, we want to be ready.”

It’s easy and quite common to bitch and squawk about the doctors and nurses and what they did or didn’t say or did or didn’t do.

I’m grateful for my nurse-practitioner Amy Eldridge. She and I will be meeting more frequently to make sure my diabetes and foot and body stay strong and together. I look forward to that. I am lucky to have some like Amy caring about me and my health. She is very easy to talk to.

I try very hard not to do squawk and whine about doctors. It has become thankless work, but no less important.

It is challenging and complex work, and I am grateful to be on the receiving end of their care, even when it gets tiresome or wears me out.

I do see them as heroes and angels.

The other day, visiting the podiatrist – my knee – the one I feel down hard on in Hebron,  was hurting, as it sometimes does.  Moving it was suddenly painful,  and it started to throb.

I was struggling to get my socks on after an exam.

A doctor was walking by the examining room, and he saw me struggling and came in and quietly and gently- he didn’t say a word –  pulled my stocking up on over my foot, and then did the same for the other one – I was up on a raised examining bed.

Then he walked out. The gesture touched me; that is what healers do.

Between now and the next few weeks, I have eleven appointments scheduled with doctors, sometimes more than once – podiatric surgeon (four times), primary caretaker (above, three times), pulmonologist, Covid-19 testing, cardiologist, and anesthesiologist, blood taker (twice.)

I’ve had four phone meetings to go over the procedure.  I need to see the surgeon before and the next day. Then once a week for a couple of weeks.

The afternoon after the surgery, the sleep apnea people come to the farmhouse to fit me with a mask.

Three nurses called to ask me questions about my medications; one even wanted to talk about my tonsillectomy when I was four. I have twice gone through every medication – which ones I can take, which ones I can’t when I can resume taking all of them.

I was warned that the pain would be severe when the anesthesia wore off after 12 hours, so the doctor’s office will have some painkillers ready when we get to the pharmacy here at home. I don’t yet know what time the surgery will be.

This is a lot more attention than I got when I had open-heart surgery in 2014, but I guess there is no time for too many exams and meetings when you have a heart attack. They get right to work.

I was told Maria couldn’t come into the hospital because of the pandemic, but the surgeon will call her as soon as the surgery was over. I will be numbed in the lower half of my body, but I will not be knocked out with general anesthesia. They call it nerve blocking.

My doctors and nurses have all been excellent. I’m fortunate in that way. I like and feel comfortable with all of them.

They are patient about answering questions; they laugh at my jokes; they love the Amish cookies and necklaces I bring (Amy, my primary above, is wearing one), and explain every part of the procedure, even when I don’t want to hear it. They seem to know I don’t have the longest attention span.

I have to go to the hospital’s Covid-19 testing tent Friday morning, and we are scrambling to get the clearance of the pulmonologist, which is only available next Tuesday afternoon. It’s a tight squeeze because they’ll have to cancel the surgery if any of the tests go wrong.

I admit to being a bit disconcerted by all of the meetings and exams and tests and very detailed conversations about the possibility of things going wrong. I suggested to one nurse today that they hold at least one session, which considers the possibility of everything going right.

But that’s not their work; it’s mine. I’ll get on it

I’ll continue to share the experience as it unfolds. Tomorrow, I hope to bring Moise his new boots. I also hope to assemble a bread and cookie and donut exhibit for the Amish shed. I ordered it a month ago, and it just came today.

I’m going to do some of that meditating I keep urging the residents to do.

A slew of creepy Halloween decorations is coming to the Mansion next week. Come Hell or High Water, this will be a g great Halloween at the Mansion.

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