So remember way back when to that time I wrote about waiting for a surgical consult?

Well, dudes – great news! I’ve got a date. Finally I’m getting a surgical consult to discuss having my colon removed. To put it bluntly, I’m stoked.

Some people might find this hard to understand. It’s not often people get excited about having two major surgeries. But think of it this way, imagine you have a nagging hangnail that just won’t heal. You’ve tried everything: bandaids, superglue, clipping it with your nail clippers, gnawing at it with your teeth, ignoring it – and nothing works. It grates at you day in and day out. All you can think about is that damned hangnail and how it won’t give you any relief. Some days you feel like you’re going a bit crazy, because after all, it’s just a hangnail – can’t you just live with it? But you just can’t because you know it’s simply not doable. Finally, one day the hangnail disappears and the relief you feel is hard to put into words. You feel free. You feel like you have a new lease on life.

Well, that hangnail is just what it feels like to be living with the large intestine that I have. I’ve tried it all. Tried all the drugs. Done all the diet modifications. Reduced my stress. You name it – I’ve tried it. Some of the changes worked for a short period and I had some glorious days and months of relief (heck, way back in the Remicade days I had 1.5 years of goodness). But this cranky large intestine of mine, it won’t settle down.

So yeah, I’m ready for this. I’m ready for the surgeries. I’m ready for the recovery process. I know it will be a long slow road. I know that the recovery from the first surgery and then eventually the second surgery will be damn hard. I know I’ll be angry and sad because you guys will be out riding your bikes and doing stuff without me. But, I’ve been through the missing out before, so I’m ready to do it again to make sure that the next time, there won’t be any missing out.

And before you ask, no I don’t know when the surgery will be. Right now all I have is an appointment to meet with the surgical group and discuss it. Fingers crossed that I don’t have to wait very long for the actual surgery. But the tricky thing about this is that since I’m in a remission (even though I’m off the medication), this is still considered an elective surgery. It only becomes non-elective if I get sick. I don’t want to get sick. Obviously the wait time is longer for an elective surgery. But having this surgery when sick is really not good – things get complicated and it’s harder to recover from it. So I’ll wait.

If I appear upbeat, it’s because I am. Last week after seeing my gastro doctor I was feeling quite dejected. But now, just knowing that there is an actual end in sight, I feel so much more optimistic and encouraged.