Please excuse the typos.. I had to write this page without my glasses.
Tuesday, January 12, 1999
My parents and I left the house at a little after 5:30 AM.
We got to the hospital right at 6:00 AM. I went to the registration desk and she told me to have a seat. (The receptionist there knows me by name. LOL)
She called my name about 6:15 AM or so. She put the nice little hospital band on me and made a copy of my insurance card.
Then I waited for the lab to call my name. I didn't have time to go to Kaiser beforehand because the approval came so late. The lab tech who drew my blood lives right down the street. LOL LOL She took blood from my left arm. Only took one stick. (But I noticed that I have a bruise.) I went back and sat in the waiting area.
It wasn't too long before someone from Preop called my name. We went down to A Level where Preop is. She had us go into the surgery waiting room to wait. Then Carol from Preop called me back. She remembered me from before. LOL My mom amd I went back to Preop Admitting. The nurse did the usual assessment (asking the standard questions and doing vitals). It was time to change into a hospital gown and robe for the walk down to holding. She listened to my heart and lungs. Then we headed off to holding. Because twelve other people were having surgery that morning, only my mom could come into holding. I had to say Good-bye to my dad in the surgery waiting room.
Carol took my mom and I to holding. Actually I ended up in the overflow (Recovery) because of soo many other people having surgery that morning.
By this time it is around 7 AM. It was freezing in Recovery. The nurse brought me a couple of blankets from the warmer. Heat felt so good. LOL LOL Deloris came down about 7:30 AM. She talked with Mom and I for awhile. The lady in the bed next to mine was having her appendix taken out.
There was an observer for my surgery. A friend of my PS' who is considering going into medicine. He is 34 and is an air traffic controller and is considering entering medical school. Of course they had to get my permission for him to observe the surgery. (He will be 45 by the time he gets thru med school and training.) He is on AOL too. LOL
We talked about a lot of things.. anti-nausea meds (They usually give me three kinds. LOL Deloris would not let them give me one of them that they gave me last time because it made me too sleepy. LOL) We chatted about the Internet and computers. LOL The usual topic of discussion when one is around me. LOL LOL We talked about how Kaiser and how long it takes to get approvals.. Deloris told us she was working on one recently til 7 PM the night before the surgery!!
Eventually the anesthesiologist came into talk to me. There was a discussion of anti-nausea meds and IVs. It wasn't too long before Denise, the nurse anesthesist, came to start my IV. The first words out of my mom and my mouth were "right side." LOL LOL We are sooo good at this. LOL LOL It took Denise two tries to get my IV started. The first time the needle went in but the catheter would not thread thru. :-( She got the catheter in on the second stick. Denise told me that I could leave my partial in. I was soo glad to hear that.
At one point, Deloris talked to PS.. He said that he was a few minutes out. Someone, I believe it was Deloris said his few minutes would be thirty minutes. She was right. LOL He came in about 8:20 AM.
The first words out of my mouth to him were.. I've got a bone to pick with you.. And he goes sorry about the other night.. (I had tried to instant message him one night about my approval and he was busy. LOL) Then I go on to say something like... What were you doing online at 1 AM?? LOL Deloris told me that he got the funniest look on his face when I said that. LOL LOL
Well then it was time to head off to the OR. I hugged my mom. Then the nurse anesthesist, Jeanette (one of the OR nurses), and I were off. I believe it was the same OR I was in last April. I transferred over to the table. Denise got me ready to go under. She was pretty fast. The next thing I know, she is waking me up in the OR after the surgery. LOL I roused for like ten seconds and I was out again.
I woke up in recovery. I didn't have a bad experience there at all. I do remember being cold and telling the nurse I was cold so she brought me a blanket from the warmer. At one time I asked the nurse what time it was and she told me it was 11:30 AM. I probably laid awake in recovery for thirty minutes before they transferred me to my room.
At about noon, I got transferred to my room. I was headed for Peds again. We got up to Peds and I got settled into my room. I had a private room.. The only way to go. :-)
I slept off and on all day. I ate ice chips off and on during the afternoon. By night, I was drinking 7-Up. I even had some jello in the evening. I would doze off and someone would wake me up. Jo, the nurse who took care of me on Tuesday. was really nice. I found out that she is a member of AOL too. LOL Do all doctors and nurses at St. Luke's use AOL?? LOL LOL I love to give people sh** about AOL. LOL LOL
PS and his friend came by about 4:50 PM. He told me that as soon as Deloris comes by in the AM, I could go home. I thought that was cool. He knows I like to get out of there as fast as I can. LOL
My parents left at about 6:40 PM. They wanted to get home before it got icy.
I slept off and on some more. I think that the longest I was ever awake was between 11:50 PM and 1:00 AM.
The moisture from the oxygen tubing kept annoying me. Nothing new there. LOL
Deloris finally came in about 8:50 AM. She took the dressing off my head. (I think PS paid me back for my remark about his being online by doing a he** of a bandage wrap. LOL) I was really pleased where he placed the incision for harvesting the cartilage. It is behind my ear. I wish my other PS had thought about that back in March 1981 when they took the cartilage from my right ear and put it in the tip of my nose. I go for suture removal and checkup on Tues., Jan. 19, 1999 at 10:15 AM.
I ate some real breakfast. LOL That really helped. I called my mom about 9:15 AM. She said my dad was on his way.
Around 9:30 AM, my dad came in as I was getting dressed. We had to wait for a few minutes for the nurse to pull my IV. She pulled it and gave me my discharge orders. Once she did that, my dad and I were on our way. I stopped by to say "Hello" to one of the nurses. I've known her since Sept. 1997. She always gets my homepage address from me so she can check out my page. My dad was like "Why is that address so long?" LOL
After that, my dad and I left. I got home around 10:00 AM. I grabbed my snail mail and came downstairs and logged on. LOL
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