A day surgery nurse called this afternoon to give me some pre-op instructions. We were on the phone together for just shy of an hour. More than half the call was going over my medications (they had a bunch of old stuff to delete) and allergies. It's not fun being complicated. But eventually we got around to specific instructions for this next week. I know which pills to pause taking from here until recovery, I know when to stop eating solid food, and I now know that Coke doesn't count as a "clear liquid," but black coffee would. The nurse told me to arrive half an hour earlier than they wrote on my folder last week, and I told her that's for the best, because they are gonna h a t e my veins when it's IV time.
Even though I've gotten enough punches on my frequent surgery club card to qualify for a free one, she gave me a beat by beat description of what will happen on the big day. It was reassuring. A few of the procedures have changed in the time of Covid. Briefly they had loosened restrictions and allowed two visitors, but they are back to just one. That's fine, since I believe my daughter is working that day anyway. The Mr doesn't have to fail to sit still in a waiting room for three hours while I'm in the OR. He can go where he wants. Each of the surgeons will call him when they are done with their part, and the nurses will call when I'm either headed back to the final day surgery recovery room or admitted overnight. (They expect going home that day, but allow that I could need to stay if they find it is warranted.)
I have a few more days to prep my space for being out of commission for days. I'm trying to find frozen meals that I actually tolerate, so the Mr can feed me easily. I need to find some seasonally appropriate front-close shirts. Almost exclusively I buy pullovers for myself, and I have nothing comfortable for late August heat that zips up. And for real, I need to empty out the clutter from my bedroom. I've been putting off that last one for weeks, but it's getting urgent.
I'm writing all of this while the TV is showing exasperated doctors in Southern states frantically warning about hospitals filling up with Covid patients, leaving no beds for emergencies. They're canceling surgeries that can wait in lots of locations now. I'm not hearing of a crisis surge in Boulder County, so I assume I'm still on for a week from now. How fast might things change in a week in times like these? Time has no meaning anymore, so I can no longer tell whether that's a blink of an eye or plenty of time for stuff to go pear-shaped.
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