Week Seven Day Two: In the Eyes of a Patient (pt 1).

Because my project is very personal to me, and something I've dealt with, I thought I'd go ahead and share how this surgery works from the patient's perspective, starting from the night before/morning of the surgery. This might get long, considering I have a lot to say, but that's why I'm splitting it into two parts.

Two days before the surgery, I went to the hospital to do blood work. While I was there, a pediatric child life specialist came in and gave me a small run down of what would happen the morning of the surgery, such as that I will meet with my surgeon, and my anesthesiologist, as well as showing me pictures of the OR. They put it in very child like terms, as I was staying in a children's hospital to get this done. They also gave me these wipes (which I had used before my other surgery) that you're supposed to put on the night before surgery, after you've showered and dried, and the morning of surgery, where you're not supposed to shower.

I had to stop eating at midnight, so because I am very dramatic and told myself I would starve the next morning, I literally made mac and cheese around 11:30 so I could eat right until the end.

Sleeping was hard, as I was stressed and nervous. I had to leave the house at 5:30am to get there, as my surgery was scheduled for 7am and I had to get there an hour early for checkin and getting an IV placed in my arm so they could put me under.

I got dressed in the worst clothes I had, grabbed my blanket, and sat in the back of my mom's car as she drove me there. They gave me permission to bring a comfort item back to surgery, as well as a camera, so I brought my blanket.

In the pre-op room, they gave me a gown to put on, and they told me to get completely undressed, then get onto the bed. There's a whole room to yourself, and my parents and I watched Zootopia, and talked about my nephew.

I was freezing, even under the few blankets they gave me, and I was shaking, out of fear as well as the cold. A nurse came in and put my IV in my arm, but made sure to give me a numbing medication beforehand so I wouldn't feel the needle go in. We waited for a while, and met with the anesthesiologist, and made sure to explain to them that I get sick after anesthetics, so they would add a medication in it to make sure I didn't. Then I met with my surgeon, and he told me what was going to happen, even though we've already gone over it plenty of times.

After all that, a few more minutes passed before a nurse came in and told my parents it was time to take me back. I kissed them both goodbye, and my nurse wheeled me down the hall into the OR. I know we talked about something, possibly school, but I can't quite remember. When we got to the OR I saw everything, the table, the bright lights, literally everything.

The nurse told me she was going to give me the first part of the anesthetics, and then told me to count down from ten. After that, I can't remember much.

I'll explain in the next post, the second half of the surgery, aka recovery, but I thought it'd be interesting to put in my own perspective of the two days beforehand, and the morning of.