It is a beautiful day and the sun is shining, despite what the weather outside might actually be, when you finally get the call saying your insurance has approved the surgery and it is time to schedule. I swear the angel choir bursts into song at that very moment. In my case, the call came through on March 18th, and my surgery date was set for May 26th. Ok – I had another two months to go, but the goal was now on the map.
Now it was time to get a few other things scheduled as well, such as the pre-op blood work, which has to be completed no sooner than one month prior to the surgery date, a cardio assessment, and a one on one sit down with the surgeon, in addition to obtaining clearance from your general physician. So, taking things one step at time, we got the things scheduled and my mental preparation kicked into high gear. Yes, I had been preparing since the beginning of the year, but somehow, actually having a date on the calendar makes a difference.
For some reason, in addition to the EKG, the doctors group ordered a cardio assessment as well for me, although I didn’t quite fit the profile. I guess it didn’t really matter though because after the exam by the cardiologist, she cancelled the stress test saying she didn’t see any reason to conduct those test. Whew!! Not that it would have been a problem, but it’s nice to know that the cardiologist didn’t think I was in danger of dropping dead from a heart condition on the table.
Everything went swimmingly well until I got the results of the blood work. My cholesterol was an issue. This definitely had to have cropped up within the past year, because in 2008, I had two surgeries and there was no issue with the cholesterol at that time. The triglycerides were particularly alarming. Fortunately, there was enough time to get on some medication to bring everything down to the normal range and to get a retest so that the surgery could move forward as scheduled. I was however, resigned to the fact that if the results were not acceptable after having been on the medication for two weeks only, I would have to reschedule. I accepted that as a possibility and decided it was not a big deal, so was prepared for the worst, but it didn’t happen. The next step? The surgery.
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LK Gardner-Griffie
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