Pre-Surgery Update

I thought I would post one last update before my surgery.

It looks like everything is a go. After my low blood counts last week, I was supposed to have blood drawn today to make sure all my counts were still up. Unfortunately, my doctor's office failed to tell me that the lab closes at noon on Saturday, so when I showed up at 1:00, I was unable to get my blood drawn.

How weird is that, by that way? It's a hospital. You would think that there was somewhere in the hospital where you could get blood drawn on a weekend. I mean, the patients don't stop being sick on Saturday at noon. And, ER doesn't close down at Saturday at noon. You can't tell me that there is never an emergency that requires immediate bloodwork. So, that was a little frustrating. I did speak with my doctor this afternoon though and they're just going to run the tests on Monday. He indicated that they wanted to know whether they are going to need to do a transfusion on the day of surgery, so they're just going to arrange for extra blood, just in case. I suspect it will all be fine though.

In other, apparently not-so-related news, it appears that I have a superficial thrombosis in my right arm. In English, that translates to a small blood clot in a vein that is very close to the surface of the skin. They don't seem to worry too much about these types of blood clots. It's the ones that are in deep veins that they worry about. Those are the ones that can do scary things if they break loose. Normally, they would just treat mine with Motrin and a heating pad. Since ibuprofen thins the blood, it can help with minor blood clots like this. Unfortunately, for the same reason, I haven't been able to take Motrin for about two weeks because of my upcoming surgery. So, I can take Tylenol (acetaminophen doesn't thin the blood) to relieve the pain, but it doesn't do anything to lessen the clot itself. On the other hand, it's not getting any worse, so I'm not too worried about it.

So, as I said, all is a go. I arrive at the hospital at 11:00 on Monday morning to prep for my 1:00 surgery. The surgery is supposed to last for about 6 hours. As I mentioned in my previous post, my recovery from this surgery will be a bit more difficult* than it was for my mastectomy, and I'll be in the hospital until at least Friday, when my best friend Cathy arrives to stay with me for several days.

*I just read the blog of my friends Jason and Greta who had triplets at the end of the year. My recovery is nothing compared to the fight these three little miracle children have been putting up for the last month. They are truly inspirational!

Dave will be staying with me for several days after Cathy leaves as well. However, after that time, my friend Lori will be coordinating schedules for people who want to help out by cooking meals for me, driving me to doctor's appointments, or running errands for me. I've put my closest friends on that list as well as those of you who have offered to provide help after my surgery. (I've sent an email to each of you with Lori's contact information as well.)

Keep me in your thoughts on Monday and send me lots of positive, healing energy between 1:00 and 7:00 Eastern time. I'll be back for an update after I'm out of the hospital.