Busy Days of Prep

We have been busy making plans for JJ’s cancer surgery in a few weeks. Little by little everything is coming together.

When I talked to the surgeon’s nurse last week, she told me about an organization named Pro-Care that has partnered with local hotels to provide lodging for the families of hospital patients at a discounted price. EJ called them last week and they helped him choose and reserve a one-bedroom suite that has a kitchen and laundry facilities in a hotel that is close to the hospital. 

We also arranged to have a friend stay at our house while we are gone and take care of our pets. We had other friends who kindly offered to come and care for our cats, but with this friend staying here, Danny can stay in familiar surroundings and won’t have to be boarded at our vet.

Today we arranged to rent a larger and more roomy vehicle so the trip will be more comfortable for JJ, especially the journey home after the surgery. We didn’t think he would have been comfortable in our little HHR. At first we were thinking of renting a van, but full-sized vehicles were so expensive to rent that we began to think we would have to make the trip in our HHR after all. But then we found a mid-sized SUV that was about half the price of the others. The SUVs aren’t as big as the full-sized vehicles, but they are bigger than the HHR. So EJ called and reserved it.

We were wondering how EJ was going to get home when he returned the rental vehicle after our trip since I will need to stay home and care for JJ. However, someone (family) volunteered to help him.That will be a huge help.

The surgeon’s office was supposed to send me orders for lab and medical tests they want done before the surgery. I was getting concerned that we wouldn’t have time to get them done, especially if they wanted a CT scan in addition to other things. So today I called them to tell them we hadn’t gotten any paperwork yet. It was mailed last Wednesday, she said, so we should have gotten it by now. She said she’d email the forms to me. Fortunately she said that since JJ had a CT scan so recently, he wouldn’t need another and they only need some lab tests. So that is taken care of and is a load off my mind.

The hospital called this afternoon to pre-register JJ for surgery.

Late last week JJ said to me, “Maybe this is one of those times when you ought to over-ride me….and call the doctor” about the issue he’s been having, the one he didn’t want me to tattle to the doctor about. I asked, “So you want me to call the oncologist?” “No……” he said, but I could tell he wanted me to do it without telling me that he wanted me to do it so I called the oncologist’s office and talked to the nurse. She gave me advice and after several weeks of struggling with this problem, it was quickly resolved. We were so happy.

Today EJ made an appointment for later this week to have our taxes done. Usually he prepares his own taxes, but this year JJ also has to file taxes and EJ just doesn’t have the time or the concentration to do both. So we will have them done by tax preparers.

I told JJ that everything is coming together for our trip. He said, “I don’t really want everything to come together” because he really is not looking forward to the surgery. I told him that the only thing worse than having the surgery is to have to have the surgery and NOT have the preparation work out.

We still have some busy days of prep ahead of us, but things are coming together nicely.