Last Pre-Op Appointment

My last Pre-Op appointment was yesterday! It was a very long day packed with tons of information!! So a bit of background for new readers, I live in Nashville but I chose to have Dr. Boyce do my surgery, he is in Knoxville so it is a 3 hour drive for all doctors appointments. His team is nice enough to try and schedule as many of my appointments on the same day as possible so I don't have to make so many trips. So I had 3 appointments yesterday!!!!

The morning started out at 8am with an educational class that covered the rest of the pre-op prep and also went over the post-op diet. It was a ton of information but thankfully they give you a CD that has all of the information on it plus alot more!

After the 3 hour class I met with the trainer, he gave me some exercise to start doing. They are nothing strenuous just simple ankle rotation's and shoulder shrugs. They do not seem like much but they are very important! They help keep the blood circulating which is key to preventing blood clots that can be fatal!

Then I went on to see the Nurse Practitioner. She did final paper work and gave me what I needed to go on to the hospital and have my final labs done.

So off to the hospital I go it is now a little after 1pm! I got the hospital with only slight detours (I am horrible with directions). So what did I do there you ask? I pre-registered for surgery so we got all the paper work filled out and then they took me back to have blood drawn (YUCK). I got to answer more questions (they started to repeat, it was kinda annoying) and have (what I think was a gallon) blood taken to do final tests to make sure I am healthy and ready to go under! Finally after meeting with the anesthesiologist and getting a tour of a room I will be calling home for my 3 day stay I got to start heading home at 4pm! All in all it was painless (except for the vampire lady that drained my blood) it just was a long day and seemed even longer when I had to drive 3 hours to get home.

Now I am all ready for surgery! All I have to do is wait for Oct. 12th and try not to gain any weight (which won't be hard). I do have some meds I have to take before surgery but those are preventive medications and won't have any effect on my routine.