Pre-Op Day
I had my pre-op appointment yesterday morning. They took my blood for all the tests they do, did a urine sample for a pregnancy test. There was no exam, just a consult with the doctor as she explained the procedure again. She answered my questions.
No bowel prep the night before, just fasting from midnight on. Though I'll probably do a light dinner early in the evening and then clear fluids until bedtime.
The blood part was a little harder.
We decided to do it on my left, as my right is the one I usually donate blood from and figured we'd save that vein for later.
So she found what I thought was a rather minor one on my left arm and couldn't make a go of it, she moved the needle around a bit and the blood just trickled. So she tried again, new needle, new set of vials. That one worked just fine, she finished up and labled all the vials and bandaged me and I was set to go. Another nurse came in and noticed that she'd used the wrong vials (there's some sort of color coding with the caps) and she had to do it again! So three holes in one arm.
The other bizarre part of that visit was when they took my blood pressure it was something like 90/54. Kinda low, don't you think?
A little break from that and I headed over to the hospital for my autologous blood donation. It involved a bit of "pre-check-in" where I filled out a bunch of paperwork, but I guess that means less for next week when I actually show up for the surgery.
Then some blood screening. The good news is they ran my hematocrit, which has been too low for blood donation for at least four years (last time it was run was 31 and that was with occasional iron) - now I've been doing like 200% of my daily iron a day for the past two months and it worked, my hematocrit was 42! That puts me in a really good position to rebuild myself before the surgery next week too. (And that was after all the blood they took at the doctors office too!).
Oh, and my blood pressure there? 114/61. Much better.
I gave my unit of blood and was on my way. Home for a little lie down and then a good dinner. I'm feeling pretty good today, a little low on the energy scale. I'm worried about getting sick and it doesn' t help that the woman in the office next to me (they're adjoining) brought in her daughter today because she's too sick to go to day care. Now I'm paranoid and washing my hands every hour.
Posted by Elizabeth M. on July 30, 2004 9:59 AM
