Friday's Pre-Op Appointment!

Hello again everyone. Friday I had my pre-op appointment - it was full of fun! (Heh, yeah, riiight...)

I, well my parents payed almost $6000 for the doctor and anesthesiologist, and we gave the ans. office all of my information, including the many prescription meds and OTC things I take. I got all the weight/height/blood pressure things, and eek I'm 330 lbs! Yes, I'm telling the world my weight!

My mom was with me, so if I use "we", that's why... We met the PA or RN (can't remember) for the anesthesiologist and she confirmed all of my information, and talked about my surgical history and that I only have ONE good vein, so dammit, don't fuck things up. (Side story - in 2003 I had to have an ablation to remove some scar tissue from my ASD open heart surgery in 1993. The tissue was causing an arrhythmia. The morning I got to WF for the ablation, they took blood in my good vein, so when I had to go in for the ans. they poked and prodded me for an hour. It FUCKING HURTS to have needles stuck in and they can't reach/find veins, so they're digging around in your nerves. It seriously is the one main thing that freaks me out.) Anyway, since I have a history with heart stuff, they did an EKG (hella faster than I ever remembered them!), and urine and blood labs. Five vials of the stuff, heh. It took quite a while in the "Preoperative Assessment Center"... I got there for my 12:20 appointment, and I was supposed to be up in Dr. Fuzz's office by 2, but we didn't get there till almost 2:30.

Once I got to Fuzz's office, they did the same blood pressure, temp, weight stuff I somehow weighed 330.9 at 12:30 and 329.7 at 2:30...damn that blood weighed a lot! ;) And the RN Elizabeth went over a bunch of information, had me read the risks sheet and sign a consent form. She let me know that, yes indeed, my liver is big (the chart said 28 cm), and I do have gallstones. So it's super duper cereal that I stay on this diet. Fuzz repeated these concerns when he came in. He said we could just "yank that sucker right out" when he mentioned my gallbladder. I found that hilarious, for some reason. He also gave me a prescription for phen-a-something or other, an appetite suppressant. I'm tempted to get it filled, but, I guess I still feel bad asking my parents to pay for more meds.

But, goodness gracious, I think I almost had a heart attack when I got home. My mom and I had lunch in WS and then drove home. When we got home, our neighbor asked if my mom could take her somewhere to get stitches, b/c she cut herself. So I stayed home, and around 4:45, my surgeon calls. The first thing he said was "Emily, are you okay?" in a panic/worried voice. Like, I should be in coma right now or something.... Basically, he got the labs back, and somehow read that my blood sugar was at 1000. It was off the charts, by his terms. So, before I did go into a coma, he wanted me to come to the ER. I told the doc I didn't have any transportation, and as I finished telling him, someone (his RN prob) was telling him something - he misread the numbers. The sugar/glucose level in my urine was off the charts - I'm dumping a lot of sugar. Fortunately, that's "ok", and I'm not dumping proteins, so that's even better.

My BS is still much higher than it needs to be... Something I'm gonna have to wrestle with in the next 2.5 weeks, but I think I can do it. The whole conversation, as scary as it was, really put everything into perspective. He mentioned (when it was at 1000) that we would have to postpone the surgery, etc. And it just makes me realize my health is so much more important than some chocolate. I'm still probably gonna have a tough time with my diet for the next 2.5 weeks, but good lord does that put things in perspective!