A whole bunch of stuff...

It seems as though when one thing in your life is thrown out of balance everything else seems to follow.  I've been meaning to compose my thoughts here, but I'm having a hard time thinking clearly with everything going on.  I apologize if this post comes off as harried.

Surgery is set and approaching quickly.  As the 23rd nears I'm becoming more and more nervous.  This isn't a minor surgery, it's completely life altering.  Every day that passes now is the last day of the week that I'll have the ability to bend my left wrist.  With that said, surgery couldn't come soon enough.  I've had to increase my pain killers by quite a few just to get through the day without being a total mess from pain.  

I've been battling with the hospital I'm having my surgery at over my rights to breastfeed following surgery.  They told me that I couldn't nurse for 24 hours following surgery.  I know this is false, and old school thinking.  New studies show that as soon as mom is awake and alert enough to nurse she can.  I explained this to the Robin, the scheduler at my surgeons office and she told me I needed to be "realistic" and that "nursing isn't that important".  She also told me that in 20 years of working she's never come "this close" to losing it on a patient before.  Finally she contacted a liaison at the hospital I'm having the surgery at for me to discuss this with.  Unfortunately, Sue is quite similar to Robin and I continued to get an ear full.  I told Sue that I'd be more than happy to have my IBCLC, Debbie, contact her.  She said that was fine, I'm assuming in an attempt to get me off the phone, and hung up.  Debbie called her and Sue refused to speak with her because of HIPPA!  So I called Sue back and this sparked a few more phone calls between us hashing this out.  At one point she told me they'd cancel my surgery if I tried to nurse Charlie.  I told her I wanted documented evidence that this was harmful to my son, and if it was for liability I would sign a waiver.  I said I had no issues coming up there in person with the studies in hand, my IBCLC, and a representative from the LLL.  Sue promised to get back to me.  A week and half later I still hadn't heard from her and she wasn't returning my phone calls so Debbie finally got her on the phone and asked Sue to set up a meeting between us and the anesthesiologist.  At first Sue said I wouldn't be able to speak to the anesthesiologist until the day of my surgery, but at Debbies urging she agreed to set up an appt.  This morning I had my meeting with them.  I pre-registered for the surgery, they showed me around, and then they brought in the anesthesiologist that is going to be there for my surgery.  She was awesome, and assured me that I would be able to nurse as soon as I wanted to.  There was no issues at all.  I felt bad that Debbie accompanied me to the appt, but am very happy with the outcome.  This was my first real adventure in Lactivism and certainly gave me a taste of what I'll do some day as an IBCLC.

So as all this approaches we also find out that David has a pretty severe hernia and is going in for surgery himself on the 9th.  Charlie is still having breathing issues.  And as a family we are dealing with some personal issues concerning one of our children that is taking an extreme emotional toll on us.  I'm hoping that the Karmic universe gives us a break here soon.