And the Countdown Starts! T minus 7 days

Well, I'm just one week away from my surgery date, and I'm pretty ready to get the show on the road.


I had my pre-operative appointment today at Heartland Spine and Speciality Hospital where the procedure will be done. http://http//www.hssh.org/. It's a small, speciality hospital not too far from my apartment. A couple of my friends were concerned that I wasn't going to be at a big hospital but I actually think this will be better. Instead of being one of hundreds, I'm one of about 30 patients. There's not as much risk for infection, I'll have a private room that my mom can stay in with me if she wants, and the nurses are very familiar with dealing with the post-operative protocols for bariatric surgery.

At the pre-op visit, I met with a nurse who did a brief medical and family history. She also wrote down all of my medications, past surgeries and hospitalizations. It's a good idea to have all of this information ready ahead of time so you can just hand it over instead of having to remember dates, prescriptions, dosages, etc.

I also gave her my completed advance directives and power of attorney for my file. Again, I highly encourage anyone having this or any surgery to complete an advanced directive prior to surgery. I know that this procedure is very safe, and I'm very confident that I will be fine. However, things happen and its best to be prepared. You don't have to go to a lawyer or even a notary; I downloaded mine from this website: http://www.caringinfo.org/stateaddownload.

Lori then went through the timetable for surgery day. I'll arrive at 6 a.m. (!), get signed in and registered, and then taken upstairs to pre-op to get changed into a gown and have my i.v. started. Then, my mom will come up and wait with me until roughly 7:30 when I will be wheeled into the O.R. The procedure is scheduled to last 90 minutes total; that's not the actual "cut" time, however. That's only about 40 minutes. The rest of the time is for setup and anesthesia. At 9 a.m., I'll be wheeled to recovery where I will spend about an hour. Then, up to my room, where my mom will be waiting.

After the history, Lori took a set of vitals; blood pressure, pulse, temperature. Then, she took me to the bathroom for a urine sample, and then to the lab for some bloodwork. This was the worst part; the phlebotomist had to stick me three times to get a good vein, probably because I'm a little dehydrated due to my diet. Otherwise, the visit went fine.

After the labwork, I headed to radiology to have a chest x-ray which about ten minutes. Then, I was on my way to work.

So, 7 days to go...