Be Still My Beating Heart!
I was trying desperately to work out my Dr. appointment schedule for the next two months prior to surgery. I wanted to change my Ortho appointment to later in May so that I would not have to be wearing my surgical hooks for a month before surgery. So I did. Made it the same day as my pre-op appointment. So now I will see my OS on May 15th, then head out to my ortho for impressions and hooks, then back to the OS to drop of the new impressions for his pre-surgical practice fun.
I called my OS's nurse today regarding what I have to get done prior to surgery for them. She told me that within 3 days prior to surgery I need to have a blood workup done, a urinalysis, and a pregnancy test, however the hospital allows us to schedule those so while I'm there on the 15th we will call and get me all set up.
I asked her a few others questions that went something like this:
Me: Can you tell me how long the surgery will take??
Her: About 4.5-5 hours. 2.5 for the top, and about 1.5 for the bottom. Prior to surgery there will be about 1-1.5 hours of surgical prep work to be done.
Me: Will I have a catheter?
Her: Yes the doctor usually does use them, however it will be removed long before you even know you had one.
Me: Cool! So what about a splint? Will I have to have one of those?
Her: Well that depends on if its a 3 piece lefort or just a one piece.
Me: Oh...its just a 1 piece Lefort. Moving forward 3mm.
Her: Oh..ok, then no, the doctor does not usually use a splint for 1 piece Leforts, only 3 piece ones.
Me: Oh...that is totally awesome, I was so not looking forward to that thing. Should I give blood?
Her: Well you can but if you are going to do it you would want to do it right away so that you have time for your blood cells to replenish themselves. I should tell you though that the dr does not require it anymore. We use to have people donate routinely, however, we found that we never needed to use the blood and it compromised people's blood counts at the time of surgery. So, the doctor no longer feels it to be necessary. It really is up to you though.
Me: Ok...well if you don't think I will really need it then I guess I will pass.
So what about an EKG? Do I need one of those?
Her: Well usually we require it based on age, at 43 you probably do not really need one. Have you had any issues with your heart?
Me: Well honestly in the last 6 months I have had about 4 incidences where my heart seems to flutter. I sorta lose my breath and my head gets a bit light headed, then things just sorta go back to normal and everything is fine.
Her: Well then YES you need to get that looked into and have an EKG done. The anethesiologist will want to see a clean EKG before he goes to work on you. The last thing you want is to fail the EKG right before your surgery and then we have to postpone it. Who is your primary care physician??
Me. Well I see Chris over at ___________ she is a licensed nurse practioner.
Her: Oh, so she is a naturopath? (said with serious disdain)
Me: Uh...yeah.
Her: (Long pause).....Well you will definitely want to see her, or at least talk with her about this. She can either run an EKG at her office or refer you out for one. I will speak to the doctor about it and see if he has anything else he wants you to do in addtion to this. If he does I will get back with you this afternoon.
So that was about it. Now I have an appointment with my "UH Naturopath" on Wednesday to discuss all of this heart stuff. Hopefully they will find out what the problem is and that it will not be anything serious or that is going to interrupt my surgical plans. I should've just kept my mouth shut huh???? LOL....
I called my OS's nurse today regarding what I have to get done prior to surgery for them. She told me that within 3 days prior to surgery I need to have a blood workup done, a urinalysis, and a pregnancy test, however the hospital allows us to schedule those so while I'm there on the 15th we will call and get me all set up.
I asked her a few others questions that went something like this:
Me: Can you tell me how long the surgery will take??
Her: About 4.5-5 hours. 2.5 for the top, and about 1.5 for the bottom. Prior to surgery there will be about 1-1.5 hours of surgical prep work to be done.
Me: Will I have a catheter?
Her: Yes the doctor usually does use them, however it will be removed long before you even know you had one.
Me: Cool! So what about a splint? Will I have to have one of those?
Her: Well that depends on if its a 3 piece lefort or just a one piece.
Me: Oh...its just a 1 piece Lefort. Moving forward 3mm.
Her: Oh..ok, then no, the doctor does not usually use a splint for 1 piece Leforts, only 3 piece ones.
Me: Oh...that is totally awesome, I was so not looking forward to that thing. Should I give blood?
Her: Well you can but if you are going to do it you would want to do it right away so that you have time for your blood cells to replenish themselves. I should tell you though that the dr does not require it anymore. We use to have people donate routinely, however, we found that we never needed to use the blood and it compromised people's blood counts at the time of surgery. So, the doctor no longer feels it to be necessary. It really is up to you though.
Me: Ok...well if you don't think I will really need it then I guess I will pass.
So what about an EKG? Do I need one of those?
Her: Well usually we require it based on age, at 43 you probably do not really need one. Have you had any issues with your heart?
Me: Well honestly in the last 6 months I have had about 4 incidences where my heart seems to flutter. I sorta lose my breath and my head gets a bit light headed, then things just sorta go back to normal and everything is fine.
Her: Well then YES you need to get that looked into and have an EKG done. The anethesiologist will want to see a clean EKG before he goes to work on you. The last thing you want is to fail the EKG right before your surgery and then we have to postpone it. Who is your primary care physician??
Me. Well I see Chris over at ___________ she is a licensed nurse practioner.
Her: Oh, so she is a naturopath? (said with serious disdain)
Me: Uh...yeah.
Her: (Long pause).....Well you will definitely want to see her, or at least talk with her about this. She can either run an EKG at her office or refer you out for one. I will speak to the doctor about it and see if he has anything else he wants you to do in addtion to this. If he does I will get back with you this afternoon.
So that was about it. Now I have an appointment with my "UH Naturopath" on Wednesday to discuss all of this heart stuff. Hopefully they will find out what the problem is and that it will not be anything serious or that is going to interrupt my surgical plans. I should've just kept my mouth shut huh???? LOL....
posted by Brandyleigh35 @ 6:54 PM
2 Comments:
At 10:32 PM,
Mrs. Shanton said…
I get the same palpitations periodically. Had them pretty bad with my last pregnancy. I think they're pretty common. As for donating blood, doing so increases your need for a transfusion. I don't think many people need it. And my splint? I actually kinda liked having it there to cradle my teeth after surgery, but if you don't need it, then I guess you'll be fine without it. But they're not so bad....
At 2:35 PM,
Bill said…
Hey Brandy.
Not sure why I had to have an EKG prior to surgery (could have been that I checked the "significant snoring" box on the medical questionaire) but I had never had one before so I didn't mind. Luckily, everything was normal except I have a slower than normal heartbeat ... only 59 beats per minute. Hopefully that means I won't be wearing that thing out because I've heard they only have so many beats in them :)
As far as medication goes, I was prescribed liquid tylenol with codeine, liquid Children's Motrin (guess that's the only liquid kind), and an antibiotic that I can't remember. I ended up taking all of them at their prescribed times for the first 4-5 days (even though I really didn't feel pain -- mostly discomfort due to the heavy elastic bands) and then discontinued everything except the antibiotics.
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