It was beautiful

I'm back from vacation and survived the first day back at work.  It was so relieving because I 'fessed up to my 2 closest work friends that I'm having the surgery next week.  I figured that someone besides my boss should know.  And it was so nice to share this with other people.  I'm so glad that I did too.  Friend 1 hugged me and got really sad for me and gave me her support, then Friend 2 told me that she has 'problems with her pipes' too and said that no one really talks about it but then when someone does you find out that everyone else has issues too.  So they both made me feel better.  

K (aka my husband) and I decided that a return trip to Australia is a must.  The country is just too big to see everything in just 2 weeks.   Needless to say we loved it.  It was quite the adventure.   But also very relaxing. We saw so many cool things.... the great barrier reef, the sydney skyline, an opera at the famed sydney opera house. 

 And we met a bunch of cool people.  One man in particular had a positive impact on us.  We met him on our tour to Port Douglas and a really cool nature preserve (where you can hold Koala Bears...and I did of course).  Gary was about 50 years old with downs syndrome, traveling on his own, totally with it and making friends.  And he was sooooo happy.  He told us all about his home in Tasmania, how much he loved his job and friends, and how he won a gold medal in the special olympics for softball.  His company really made the lunch we shared with him a lot of fun.  Before the trip I'd been really unhappy.  Sulking around with all my issues.  So it did my heart good to be around Gary.  Even if just for a little while.  K felt the same way.

So all that happy feeling and plain old relaxing really did the trick for me.  I feel really positive about next weeks procedure.  And my mom is coming to stay with us for 2 weeks since I'll need a little help and I'm so excited to have her around.   And the sweetest thing..... K's mom really wanted to come and support me too and decided to come at the end of September so that we don't have too much company all at once.  I'm just so touched that she would fly out here to help out (even though hopefully I'll be totally fine by the time she gets here).