A brief update.

We have been having lots of conversations at our house about surgery with Abigail. It was completely awkward the first few times to try to fumble through the right words to help a two year old understand what is going on. So right now anytime someone says something about her tumor she knows that they are referring to the boo-boo on her leg where the bump is. She also knows that the doctor is going to do surgery to make her boo-boo be all gone and the itchiness will stop. We have told her that she will go nigh-night and when she wakes up Mama and Papa will be there. I have also tried to explain that it might hurt a little bit when she wakes up, but she keeps telling me it won't so I'm trying not to stress that fact too much. Because she has had so many MRI's under sedation, she understand the concept of going to sleep and then waking up and having Mama and Papa come in after that. We have found that if we can tell her some of the stuff that's going to happen ahead of time, even if she gets upset, she is less likely to cry (although we are fine if she does cry) and if she happens to cry it doesn't last as long because she knew what to expect. Our house is a buzz this weekend with getting laundry clean, things packed, transferring money, and making certain all the bills are sent out. I have appreciated the fact that we haven't really had time to get worked up about the upcoming surgery. We have things that need to get done before we leave Monday. There are still some anxieties hanging around, but all of the big things seem to either have been taken care of, or are only manifesting in moments of scattered thoughts. Although we don't know what sort of bills will come in after the surgery (they will all be from the hospital) we have enough to pay everything we are supposed to pay when we get there. And as long as things go as planned we will owe nothing more for the anaesthesiologist or the surgeon. We have plans to try and squeeze in at least a few fun (and mostly free) things. With the price of gas, and the outlandish cost of all of the museums and such we will most likely be sticking with the free things and eating in (we are staying with a family there to reduce cost). But mostly we are looking forward to Wednesday right now. We will be on the other side of the procedure and have a better idea of how big the tumor was, if she will be able to walk right away or if it will take a bit to regain that, and what the future of this tumor could look like for her. I will update the blog sometime after surgery to let you all know how things went. I will also try to do some tweets to let people know how things went (@hopeforabigail). And hopefully from there we will be having so much fun that we won't have time to be online anymore. Awaiting the day,