Two weeks

Two weeks from today I will be having my surgery and I am a bit nervous. Yesterday I went to have all of my pre-admission tests done. The women were pretty nice, mostly middle-aged and liked to say things like "It must be so nice to be so young and healthy." One thing that was a bit unnerving was that they kind of just assumed 'no' answers to some of the questions on the health questionnaire. They would read the question (for instance "Do you have swelling in your ankles or legs that does not go away after sleeping"), say 'no', check the 'no' box and then look up at me for an answer. Not that they were ever wrong, but I felt anxious that they would just assume the answers to the questions and then basically just look to me for verification.

These women appeared amazed by many aspects of my health making me question what kinds of patients or surgery candidates they typically see. One thing that made them particularly amazed was my systolic blood pressure (84) and my BMI (19). Also, they seemed very surprised that I had never had anesthesia.

After all of the health questionnaire came the parts where I got to ask questions about the surgery. I asked if I would have a catheter (yes), if I would have a stomach tube (yes) and if the low blood pressure would be a problem (no). Then the nurse started describing the surgery which made me feel very light-headed. At one point I thought I was going to throw up, but luckily I held on and when she opened the door to the exam room I began to feel better.

Lastly, I went to go get my blood work done. I am afraid of needles, but once, at OCS they were doing blood work and I mentioned that and the woman said "Nobody likes needles. If you actually liked needles I would be concerned" so I have learned not to vocalize my dislike of needles to the person doing the blood work because they probably hear that from everyone. The guy drawing my blood was very nice but I could tell that he was having trouble finding a good vein in my right arm. This seems to be an ongoing problem for me and often results in the person drawing the blood missing my vein altogether and having to restick me. Luckily, this guy decided the right arm was a no go and started looking for a vein on the left. He found a good one and started drawing my blood. I started to feel really light-headed and when he was done and told me I could go, I stood up and started to fall. I stumbled over to the bed and he brought me an ice pack for the back of my neck. After a minute or so I was okay, albeit a bit embarrassed from almost passing out while having blood drawn.