Countdown: 14 Days until Surgery
With only 14 days left until surgery, it still hasn’t become real to me yet. This whole time I don’t think I’ve really felt the impact of what the surgery means, and I haven’t had a moment where I got upset or depressed about it. On the contrary, I’ve actually found myself being excited about the surgery, because all I can see is the future where I can run around and not have to worry about side stepping or my knee giving out.
I have had a moment where I pondered why I haven’t felt upset about it. Discussing this with a mate, she suggested maybe it was just because I understand that it simply needs to be done, I’ve accepted my fate and just got on with the business of organising it. I hope so, I’d hate to think that I’m bottling my emotions to a point where I can’t even detect them!
In the latest developments I’ve received letters in the mail confirming my pre-admission appointment with the anaesthesiologist (along with pages and pages of questions to answer) and my surgery date. Annoyingly, I can only call the day before my surgery (between 4 – 6pm) to find out what time I’m expected at the hospital. This really left it up in the air on arranging my transportation to the hospital. I had asked Mat’s sister to drop me off, but given she’s juggling a 9 month old baby and part time work, not being able to confirm a time earlier would really be inconvenient for her. She’s insisted that she can still possibly take me (depending on the time of course), but I told her not to worry about it. Instead, I’ll drop Mat off at work in the morning so I have the car, then pick him up just before I’m due at the hospital and get him to drop me off, before he takes the car back to work with him. The hospital is only 20mins return drive from his work, and it means we don’t have to pay parking (if I was to just drive myself to the hospital and leave the car there for the day until he picked it up later that night).
A letter attached to my surgery confirmation advised that any of the following in the operative area could possibly void my surgery booking due to the risk of post-operative infection:
- Pimples
- Ulcers
- Sunspots
- Rashes
- Animal scratches
- Gardening & lawn mowing cuts
- Mosquito & sandfly bites
In other words, no playing with Turbo (just in case) and no mowing the lawn (oh I’m devastated – sarcasm rating 10). The letter also states to care for my skin prior to surgery I should shower with an antiseptic soap two days prior to admission. No worries, can handle that.
I then began to read my Pre-Admission confirmation letter, and that’s when I started to get nervous. I was required to bring all the accompanying documentation (the bazillions of questionnaires, to exaggerate a little), medicare card, MRI scan and X-Rays, and the words *drum role* A URINE SAMPLE!! What the hell?!
I have to go and buy a little container for the pure aim of capturing my urine, and transporting it to the hospital. That’s going to be great fun! I’m going to be so nervous that it might leak, so I’ll be reluctant to put it in my bag, but where else am I going to put it? The cup holders (renamed to urine holders)? I’m going to look like an alco, because I’ll sure as heck have the urine sample in a paper brown bag, attempting to disguise it in a way that everyone will know what it is as soon as I walk in with it. The last time I was asked to provide a urine sample was when I saw the doctor for a checkup, and he wanted to check if I was pregnant. I declined in that instance, and a few years later I’m not pregnant. Ha!
It will be interesting to go shopping for such a container – where am I going to find a suitable one? Chemist? “Excuse me, do you sell urine sample containers?” I’ll be bright red from blushing as I ask. Who thought I was brave and outgoing was wrong, cause I’m sweating just from thinking about asking that question. Do I just go to Woolies and look at their plasticware? It’s going to be a one use container, I’m surely not using it ever again. That’s if they give it back. Oh no – what if they actually give it back? I’ll have to take it home and empty it myself, yuk man. I know it’s only urine, but YUK! It can go in the bin whole, I won’t even bother worrying about emptying it in the loo. No way.
Just trying to fill the damn thing will be bad enough. I’m buying gloves. I don’t want any splashback, or any of it touching me if the container overflows. I’ll have to make sure I’m not busting when I go – I don’t want any power peeing or anything. Simple slow-flow pee to make sure I’m in total control during my “deposit”.
Ok enough ranting about the urine sample now (yuk). Other than that everything is pretty hunky dory. The money for the surgery is sitting in my bank account screaming at me “hellloooooo look how much money you have. Don’t you just wish it was for everyday spending? Aren’t I attractive? And youuuuu caaaannn’ttttt touchhhh me”. I hate it when money starts singing to you *frown* Evil thing.
Ok back to reality again. I’ve organised time off work for the two days I’m in the hospital, and I’ll be working from home the two weeks after that. On the 19th December our office then closes down for 3 weeks over the Christmas break, so all up it will be 5 weeks I’ll be able to rest at home – that’s fantastic. I haven’t heard from the Insurance Company yet as to whether they will cover my injury; I’ve sent the claim form along with information on how much I’ve already paid for physio. I also included a letter asking for some compassion to cover me, since I wasn’t aware that I was covered until the deadline had already passed. So at the moment it’s still up in the air on whether I will be paying for physio after the surgery, or if it’s covered. Geez I hope they agree to cover me, that would be a fantastic Christmas present!!
Now I’m going to go back to twiddling my thumbs until my appointment next week with my “apple juice” container…catcha!
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