Pre-Op Appointments Monday

Can anybody fill me in on what to expect? Will they give me any better information than I have now about what to expect before and after surgery? Any questions I should be asking that I may not thought of?

Is it just me, or does everybody feel like they're flying blind through this process?

1) an evening tour of the facility (they do this for groups of families with scheduled surgeries), meet the surgical dept. and recovery head nurses, look around the public areas/facilities, visit a patient room, where are the snacks & drinks for whoever was to wait during surgery and stay over, how to use the coffee machines, where to park, etc.

General Welcome Wagon stuff, which was all helpful.

2) A half day - Chest x-ray, multiple vials of blood for tests & type matching, piles of forms to fill out / read / sign off on, visit to the accounting office to re-verify insurance pre-auth, pay my co-pay/deductible balance, discussions about living will and what they were required to do if I did not have one. Registering car info for the security folks so that they knew what cars would be there with my family. I'm sure there was more, but I was sort of glazed over with the shock of the impending surgery.

There was no discussion in either visit of procedure-specific details.

I had my pre-op testing done at a hospital facility just a few miles from my house over the course of two weeks.  That included a bone scan, a CT scan of the abdomen; rib x-rays, multiple blood draws, and so forth.  Then my family doc (an internal medicine specialist) did an EKG in his office and saw something he didn't like, so he ordered a nuclear stress test of the heart.  I passed that in fine shape, but he still had me see a cardiologist, who also said my heart was strong and no problems.  The only test I had done at the hospital where the surgery was performed was a blood "type and screen."  That test HAD to be done at the hospital where I was having the DaVinci surgery, and it had to be within 24 hours of the sugery.  The hospital where the surgery was performed was about 20 miles from my house.  The morning of the surgery, I checked in at 5:15 a.m. and went right to the OR suite. 

Of course at that point I had been on clear liquids for two days and had performed two enemas the night before (which was interrupted by my son and his wife winning an on-the-spot trip to Las Vegas while they were attending a baseball game, and which meant my son would not be at the hospital to sit with my wife as planned, but that was OK).  That was an exciting evening.

It looks to me as if the pre-op stuff is handled in different ways depending on the individual circumstances.

In the past we have heard from members who were actually sent home and surgery rescheduled for "pre-shaving", but others have said it was ok.

I suggest you ask before doing anything of the sort.

However, keeping a list of medications (include vitamins and supplements) with times per day and dosage makes that part of the form handling easier.

I was told in the "what to bring" checklist to bring my meds with me in the labelled Rx bottle. They used those for each day, instead of "selling" me more at an inflated price, then returned the bottles/extra as I checked out.