Lately my Mom has been telling me that I need to get to work on my birthday wishlist, even though my birthday is still a little ways off. But I guess it really isn’t too far away… in case you don’t know, it’s February 8th, and on that day I’ll be the ripe old age of 22. Yet again, though, it just doesn’t feel like my birthday’s really approaching, because for the second year in a row, I’ll be dealing with the big nasty world of surgery.

    Obviously I’m not happy about this. Really not happy. My very first operation for this terrible disease was on February 9th, 2006. The day after my birthday. On my actual 21st birthday I was stuck in a hotel room in Pittsburgh, anxiously awaiting the impending operation. I was so nervous but I tried not to let on. I didn’t know how it would go, I didn’t know what it would feel like. And sure enough, I was right to be nervous. The operation was a disaster. I’d never felt such pain in my entire life. And now, looking ahead, it’s hard to get excited about my birthday because that same experience is awaiting me just before. It’s as if I have to cross a really really nasty bridge to get there, and I know that once I’m on the other side, I’m only going to be in a lot of pain, so much so that I really doubt I’ll be able to enjoy my birthday at all.

    The suckiest part is, this wasn’t supposed to be happening. I was supposed to be done by now. But I’m not, I’m not even close. I hate it. I’m crying again just thinking about it for the millionth time this weekend. I hate this, I hate my life, I hate that I have to do this AGAIN so close to my birthday. I hate it, I hate that it’s ruining it all over again. If I could give up, I would, but i just don’t know how.

    Anyway. This blog isn’t going exactly as I wanted it to. So I think I’ll just wrap it up now so I’ll stop crying. What I wanted to say was, the link on the left for my wishlist, I’ve updated it. It’s now my Birthday wishlist. If you click on it, please use the “Sort by:” drop down menu so that you can view it according to “Priority (high to low).” I tried to save it that way, but apparently Amazon won’t let me do it. But anyway, that’s how I wanted it to be arranged. I’ve tried to fill the wishlist with somewhat practical, yet still fun items, things that will be useful in the hospital or during recovery, either to keep me entertained, uplifted, smiling, or busy, or whatever. There are some outlandish things on there just cause it was fun to imagine getting them as I added them to the list, but there are also a lot of other more reasonable things.

    So yeah. That’s all I intended to say before it all went downhill. I think I’m going to go wash my face now.