A little bit of context: when I was first diagnosed, I tried many different things to cope. One of them was naming my tumour. This helped me make it into something I could fight against, overcome, and even joke about. At the time that I was coming up with a name, I was under the impression that my tumour was a prolactinoma. So Priscilla the pituitary prolactinoma had a good ring to it.
Anyways, I was scheduled to have surgery this past Monday, March 21 at 7:30 AM. This meant needing to be at HSC in Winnipeg at 5:45 AM. My parents, Rob and I went into Winnipeg the night before so we wouldn't need to get up at an extremely ridiculous time (5:00 was bad enough). I also needed to fast beginning at midnight the night before.
Monday morning arrived and I found myself mentally and emotionally prepared in a way that I haven't been since finding out I need surgery. This helped me to be relatively calm as we drove to HSC. Upon arrival, I checked in at admitting and was quickly directed to the surgical prep area. Once I got there, I had to change into the overly attractive hospital gowns as well as compression socks up to my thighs. I totally rocked that look.
A nurse came by to start an IV in my forearm. I was actually incredibly impressed by how easily he was able to do this since I have the worst veins EVER. I was also happy that I didn't feel it happening because he froze my arm first. Winning.
After the IV was put in, the nurse told me someone would be there to take me to surgery in five to ten minutes. However, after 30 minutes, I was still there. Around that time, another nurse stopped by to tell us that there was an emergency surgery being done in the OR I was slated in and my surgery would be delayed. She didn't give any info about how long the delay would be or what I should do in the meantime so I had a nap.
A couple hours later, Rob and I realized we hadn't heard anything for quite some time. The next time a nurse walked by we asked her for an update but she didn't have anything definite. We asked her if surgery would still be happening that day and all she did was cross her fingers and mumble something about there being one more surgery before mine. With no answers, I asked if I could at least have a blanket while I was waiting (those gowns aren't the warmest).
At 12:30, my mom went to check at the desk if anybody knew what was going on. I had been at the hospital for seven hours at this point and fasting since 8:00 the night before so I was tired, hungry, and beyond thirsty. We were told at that time that the surgery before me was slated to be done around 1:30 and I would be having surgery after that, so we prepared to wait a little longer.
At 2:00, we still had not received anymore updates and I was beginning to fade pretty quickly. Rob went to ask for another update and ending up talking to yet another nurse. This nurse called down to neurosurgery and came by around 2:30 to say the surgery before mine was taking longer than expected but that my surgeon was still thinking he would get to mine that day. I mentioned that I was not feeling well and thirsty so he hooked me up to saline through my IV and gave me some ice chips (my stomach needs to be empty so that I don't throw up during surgery so that was all he could do).
At 4:00, the same nurse came around to deliver the news I did not want to hear. Apparently the surgery before me was only supposed to take four hours and ended up taking over six so they were going to have to postpone my surgery. I was devastated. Not only had I been sitting there starving all day, I was finally mentally prepared for what was supposed to be taking place. Rob and I had also organized time off work and my parents and younger brother had driven in from out of town to be with me when I got out of surgery. I understand that emergencies happen and there is nothing that could have prevented it, but I was still incredibly disappointed.
The nurse did ask me if I wanted something to eat, offering a sandwich, pudding or juice to which I just said "yes." Rob translated and said I would take all of those things, which I scarfed down in about twenty minutes.
With all that, Priscilla is still with me and I am only scheduled for surgery on March 31 now. That definitely made going back to work today and seeing Tynnille awkward since the last thing she had said to me was, "So long Priscilla, you nasty b**ch!"
No comments:
Post a Comment