Monday, March 03, 2008

Pre-Pre Op - CHECK

Today was the Pre-Pre Op. (Not to be confused with the "Pre-Op", which I already had, or the "Pre-Pre-Pre op, which I'll have on Wednesday.)

Today I had to fast for 12 hours (hell), give blood (hell), meet with the surgeon (pointless), and get a chest x-ray (a helluva long wait for a hellauva short process.) This took up my whole morning from 7:45am until lunch.

Let's see... what did I learn today as a result of my morning at the medical center?

  1. I still don't like needles and giving blood does hurt. 3 or 33... this phobia's a lifer.
  2. If I wasn't laying down I would have fainted giving blood.
  3. My surgeon is more impatient than me and is, in fact, a little weird. If he had said "So... what questions do you have?" or some other variation of that in order to wrap-up our rushed consultation one more time, I think I would have beaten him over the head with the plastic femur on the table. He also has this bizarre, almost-gay, almost a little-mad, nervous-energy, geekiness to him. He won't look you in the eye when he talks to you (disturbing) and constantly doodles on the paper covering the bed. You know who he reminds me of? A black Vincent D'Onofrio from Law & Order: Criminal Intent. This is not good - isn't that guy supposed to be borderline schizo?
  4. The waiting room wait-time is directly disproportionate to how long it takes to do the test.
  5. The sight of sick people hacking-up so much phlegm they almost choke and/or proudly displaying their swollen, mishapen naked foot, in the diagnostics waiting area SKEEVES ME OUT.
  6. Pregnancy is a scary thing. While I was in diagnostics, a young, pregnant woman and her husband walked in with worried looks on their faces and waited for their ultrasoung, silently standing against the wall, nervously twitching, and generally on-edge. I saw them go in but never come out. I hope everything turned out ok for them.

And there you have it.

Surgery is just 9 days away now. Just 9 days of being normal, active, independent me.

Ironically, my hip has been the best it's been in... forever... lately. Barely any pain, loose as goose-grease (thank Hubbie for that delightful expression), full range-of-motion... it's almost like it's daring me to think it's not worth putting myself through this 8-12 weeks of hell for. Don't worry, I'm not listening to it. I have my fingers firmly in my ears and am singing "Laaa laaaa laaa laaa laaaaa, I am not listening to you, laaa laa laaa laaaaaaa!" at the top of my internal voice.

2 comments:

e said...

Yup. Mine did the same thing. Pain went away completely for the first time in a year a few days before the surgery. Bastard. And it won't be hell, it'll just be inconvenient.

Urban Koda said...

My wife had surgery last year after she shattered her writst. Her surgeon was a little weird to, but turns out he was an absolute genius when it comes to reconstructing wrists.

On the pregancy thing... I do know when you go in for a big ultrasound, they ask you to drink a couple of pints of liquid, and then not pee for the hour or two prior to the scan... This might explain the nervous twitching and the not wanting to sit.

I generally take the opportunity to find the humor in the situation and point it out to the wife - she is generally somewhat less than amused....

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