In the hospital before surgery
Things are going well so far. The flight in was uneventful- nothing special. Checking in was a bit problematic- we arrived at Nottoway at 1:30pm, check in wasn't officially until 2:30pm. But the people at Nottoway were great, got us settled as soon as they could- which was great, I was exhausted! :) We had a great meal at the plantation restaurant, and were in bed pretty early to be ready for this morning.
We were up at 5:30am this morning to be at the front desk by 6:30am to meet the limo (yes, the limo!!). We met Yusef and Trudy Ward- Yusef will also be having surgery tomorrow. They have been married for 11 years, have three kids, and are from the Dallas area- one more reason to visit Alison and Brian!!! We made plans to have dinner together tonight at the plantation, and we discussed what we would be doing today. When we arrived at the hospital they sent us up to our rooms in the Bariatric Unit- I'll be in room 222. The nurse gets us a few minutes later to send us to admitting, but the respiratory therapist intercepts us and whisks us away to have our respiratory tests done. He did the blood gas test, the one I thought would be terrible, but it wasn't too bad. It hurt a lot AFTERWARDS, but that's okay. He was pretty good- he hit the artery on the first "shot," and that was it- it just ached really badly for the rest of the day. Then he took us separately for our EKGs. Then I went with him to have a breathing test (which I assumed I passed with flying colors). Then we were finally sent down to admitting to be, well, admitted. After waiting a bit we met with Heidi, the nice admissions lady. She was great- very kind and nice. She copied my insurance card, did some paperwork, copied my living will, took our payment for the psychiatric evaluation. Then we waited some more. I was sent in for some lab work- take some blood, pee in a cup, that sort of thing. We waited some more. Then I went off to radiology- Thanasi went with me there (he was there with me for the most part of the tests). I had an ultrasound of my upper gastrointestinal tract, gall bladder, kidneys, some other good stuff. Alberto was the radiologist that did my ultrasound- he was awesome. Very funny guy. :) Then I went by myself for an upper GI. I had to get undressed, get into one of those lovely gowns, get some pictures of my chest, drink some stuff that was designed to inflate my stomach with carbon dioxide (tasted like sprite flakes- very tough not to burp up that excess air), drink some of the nasty barium stuff, more pictures, more barium... you get the idea. The doctor and nurse that did all this were super nice (just like everyone else I've met so far- am I seeing a pattern here??). I got dressed and returned to the waiting room, Cindy (the Images/Compass coordinator) came and found us and brought us back upstairs. She showed us around the Bariatric ward- where the Jello and popsicles are, that sort of thing. We sat in the lounge then and talked about what the rest of the day would be like. The testing was over now, except for the psyche test. We would meet with the nutritionist over lunch (it was only about 11am by this point), as well as with some post-op patients that were going to come in. Thanasi and I sat in the lounge for a little bit, watching TV and relaxing until Trudy and Yusef came back. There were two patients on the ward that had recently had surgery, and four more would be arrive on Monday to prep for surgery. One of the nurses who will be around a lot over the next few days came in to take my vitals, introduced herself to us.
We spoke with the nutritionist and the post-op patients during lunch and afterwards. Soon after lunch Dr. Hargroder joined us to discuss the surgery, to answer any questions we might have, that sort of thing. Sheri came out to speak to us, she had had surgery a few days prior. We had a great discussion about lots of surgery/lifestyle type things, and ended up being late for the psyche appointment. We all piled into the limo and our driver dropped us off at the pschyologist's office. Thanasi and Trudy sat in the waiting room while Yusef and I were taken to different rooms. There was a test (300 questions!!!) and I met with the therapist. We talked for a bit, then I went to finish the test, then I was (thankfully) done! Yusef was done soon after me, and our driver took us back to the plantation. We decided to meet for dinner at 6:15pm (it was 5:45pm by the time we got back to the plantation). I should go get ready- we need to eat and then go back to our rooms to start on the the Colyte (bowel cleanser). Mine didn't come with any flavor packets- I made Yusef give me one of his (he gallantly did, what a guy!). More later...