11.07.04 � 8:35 am

Okay. Here's how it went down.

Monday morning my mom picked me up at 4:45 am and we headed to the hospital. The plan was for Todd and Brianna to wake up at 6:00 and be at the hospital by 7:00. My surgery wasn't scheduled until 8:30 and I didn't see any reason in them getting up so early just to sit and wait.

So we arrive at the hospital and I get checked in, IV started, and they ask me to drink this bitter liquid that will dry up the juices in my stomach. It was somewhere right after this when my panic set in. And by panic I mean PANIC. My heart was racing, I was sweating, I was light-headed...it was fucking awful. It didn't matter that I had wanted this so badly for a year or more. I was SCARED. I wasn't being rational. I was crying. In my mind I was working out how I would explain to everyone that I had chickened out. I literally thought I was going to die.

Todd got there in the midde of this and my mom left us alone so she could go sit in the waiting room with Brianna. Todd kept telling me that I would be okay and that he loved me. The chaplain of the hospital came and talked to me. He told me that I had to give up control. That is God could make the sun rise and set everyday that he would also control this.

Then my aunt came and she and Todd were on either side of me. I can't even remember what I was saying except that I know I told them I didn't want to die.

Thank God the anesthesiologist came early and told me that they would give me something to make me "not care". And it worked, even though they had to give it to me three times. Somewhere after this they wheeled me past the waiting room and I kissed Brianna. I was awake in the operating room when they put me on the surgical table. I was awake when they strapped my arms and my legs to the table. The last thing I remember was the anesthesiologist saying, "Okay Kristina, I'm going to put you to sleep now" and I thought "About fucking time".

Then I woke up in the worst pain you could ever imagine. I felt like somebody and beat my midsection repeatedly with a baseball bat. I yowled and cried. GIVE ME SOMETHING! IT HURTS!

Shortly thereafter I was wheeled to my room (private thank God!) It's all a blur to me, but I remember that in my room waiting for me were my mom, my aunt, Brianna, Todd, and Sarah. As soon as they connected me to the morphine pump, I was hitting it ALL THE TIME. I could have never imagined pain like this. Also, I had a tube running through my nose and down into my stomach. It's purpose was to suction out anything attempting to make it's way into my stomach. The reason for this, I've been told, is to keep pressure off of the new stomach while it heals from the shock of surgery. I had known that I was going to have this tube and honestly, I'd been pretty nervous about it, but it wasn't bad.

Anyway, the first day was a haze of people coming in and out. Lots of pretty flowers...but I was so out of it. Even when my eyes were open, the morphine made it so that everything was blurry.

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Okay I have to go lay down now. I'll work on Part 2 soon enough. Also, blame the pain meds for any spelling or grammatical errors.

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