the big day

Tomorrow is the big day.  The very long day.  Not so long for me because I'll be under anesthetic most of the day, but long for my family.

Before we headed to Ann Arbor this evening there was one very important thing I wanted to get done.  Brother Sion, a man from my Church, came over to give me a blessing.  I really love Brother Sion.  He has been here for me since before I was a member of the Church.  I trust him and know he is close to the Spirit.  Because he holds the Priesthood, I knew he would act in God's name.
He came over with his son who is preparing to go on a mission.  (He actually has his call to the Marshall Islands, Kiribati speaking.  My mission friends know the crazy girl from Kiribati that I know.  I wonder if they're all as great as Sister B.)  Rafael anointed me and Brother Sion gave me a blessing.  It was so powerful.  In it God challenged me to build my faith in the promises he has already given me.  Wow.  That is exactly what I need to do.  He also blessed me that I would be safe and that the doctors would be guided.  There isn't much more I can ask for.

A big snow storm hit this area so we rented a hotel in Ann Arbor for the night.  So here I am, sitting on a wonderfully comfy bed, in downtown Ann Arbor.  My surgery is tomorrow at 7:30am, the first one of the day, so we need to be there by 5:45am so I can get ready.  It looks as though the surgery itself is going to last about 8 hours.  Last surgery they thought it would last 2-3 hours and it barely lasted 1, so we shall see how long this one actually takes.  I asked Dr. Ward if he got bored doing an 8 hour surgery, he said he didn't, that the time goes by fast.  Good thing he is the surgeon and not me because I think I would need a break mid-surgery to do a sudoku puzzle or something.

Here is a not so technical description of the surgery.  Warning, even though it's not very technical it is still kind of gross.  They're going to make 2-3cm margins around where the tumor had been, meaning they're going to be removing quite a bit of muscle.  The skin on the back of my neck from the middle of my neck over to a couple centimeters left of my scar will be gone.  Then they're going to take a piece of skin and tissue from my back, make an incision up my back, and move it under the skin to graft it in place of the skin they remove from my neck.  Gross, huh?  I'm truly going to look like Frankenstein for a while.  They say I'll be staying in the hospital for around a week, but I don't believe it.  I think I'll be outta here in 3-4 days, tops.  We'll see who is right :)

We'll see if I have the guts to post a picture of my neck after the surgery.  It's bound to be more disgusting looking than last time and last time was pretty bad.  Also, my mom is hopefully going to make a blog update after the surgery letting you all know how it went.

Thank you all so much for the kind thoughts and prayers.  They have really changed how this whole experience has been.  Keep 'em up tomorrow.