Choices

Remember nipple elbow? You know, the supposed staph infection? Well it's been 5 weeks and it still hasn't healed despite weeks and weeks of (weak) antibiotics. I finally got to see a doctor who can do something about it today. She said it will require surgery. At the time of the appointment it didn't seem like a big deal...it sounded like she would numb up my arm, cut it up, pick out the junk that's in there, and sew me back up. She said I'd probably miss about a week of work because of the pain and the immobilization of my arm but it wasn't a big deal. In fact, she was so unworried about it that she said it could wait until after Thanksgiving (ugh, another 2 weeks of antibiotics!).

When the surgical coordinator called she gave me a hosipital that I was going to have to go to and told me to stop taking vitamins and not to eat past midnight the night before. Somewhat confused by this request I went on to ask if I needed to arrange a ride to and from the hospital and received a somewhat annoyed response of "of course you won't be able to drive, you're going to be put under." Umm...excuse me? WTF kind of surgery is this that I have to be put under anesthesia! This was very upsetting to me because I was really looking forward to being able to watch someone poke around in my arm and not feel a thing. Maybe I got a little more emotionally distressed that anesthesia meant that I was gonna have pay for an anesthegiologist (spelling?) in addition to some nurses and the OR and blahblahblah. The things you have to think about when you're a big kid and you lost the best health insurance known to man.

When I was at the appointment I asked the doc if she could just open me up right there and get it over with but her schedule was too full to do so so she gave me 2 options which break down as follows:

Option 1: Surgery this Friday. This means that I will probably be out of work through Thanksgiving weekend (work that I'm scheduled to be at every day until next Tuesday...), have a painful Thanksgiving and miss the half marathon (that was supposed to be a full marathon), and probably have to keep low on Black Friday (can't be hitting the elbow!). The plus side of this option would be that I'd get a babysitter from the time I fly home until I come back up north the week after. (and a recently added bonus of my mom coming up this Friday since she'll already be close by for work). If momma comes up I have 3 days to clean my house...which is pretty much an insurmountable task with work this week...

Option 2 (since my surgeon is also the othro I saw for my foot a few months back): Wait until after the race and I get back to have the surgery. The downside of this is that it's kind of an important week at work (not that this week and next week aren't...). But I get to enjoy my trip home for Thanksgiving and doing all of the fun stuff I had planned and I get to run in my race. The downside is that I won't have a personal maid post surgery...

I know the obvious answer is mommy but for some reason I'm having real issues giving up the half marathon. This was supposed to be a huge day for me. It was going to be my first marathon before the foot issue, and it was going to be a family race (my dad is even going to walk it!). If I do the surgery this week the doc said she wouldn't approve me to bend my elbow (a key ingredient to running) for at least a week AND until she saw me. Since a week from Friday is Black Friday, I won't be seeing the doctor until at least the Tuesday after Thanksgiving (and the race!). We all paid a lot of $$ to enter the race, and for the hotel rooms, and I really liked running the race last year and I've been looking forward to going back all year!!!

What's a girl to do?