Note: This is quite long and rambling with more detail than would interest most people. It’s mostly for my own recollections since I realise most of the details will fade from my memory in no time at all.

I’m still feeling pretty tired but I’m going to get started anyway before I forget too many details. Surgery had been scheduled for Tuesday with admission at 7am. For weeks it seemed the surgery was very far off. Then last week I had a series of phone calls to discuss my upcoming surgery. It started to feel a bit more real by this point. The first call was from the surgeon’s office to advise my admission had been changed from 7am to 11am. I was kind of pleased with this change since it meant I wouldn’t have to leave nearly as early to arrive on time.

Later, I had three separate interviews by phone:

• The admissions office-verifying details and insurance information. Also advising where I needed to go for admissions upon arrival. An “appointment” was made for the nurse to contact me on Saturday to discuss the medical side of things
• The anaesthetist- the usual discussion required before anaesthesia. He asked about any conditions I had and discussed medications I am taking. Somehow I forgot to mention that I have diabetes but didn’t realise this until a couple days later.  He advised my surgery would probably be around 2pm and told me I could eat a light breakfast before 7am.
• The nurse-She covered several details but mostly wanted to discuss my preparations for surgery and the hospital stay. She also suggested I arrive half an hour early as I had blood tests and a cardiogram before  surgery.  I found it interesting that she called me on a Saturday instead of a weekday.

I didn’t really start getting properly nervous until the night before surgery. My biggest worry was that it could turn into open surgery even though I had no reason to believe this was likely. I have been a bit concerned all along that surgery might trigger more autoimmune problems as happened after my wisdom teeth removal  several years ago but that’s not really something that could ever be predicted so I didn’t let that overshadow the need for surgery. Anyway, I was nervous enough the night before that I took a sleeping pill to make sure I got some rest overnight.