It's Friday Again !!

Ok, so Friday was supposed to be:
8:00 AM Show up and hospital - Get blood taken
8:20 AM Get RVG (Heart Scan) to make sure heart is OK for chemo.
9:00 AM Get platelets for Hickman Line insertion
11:30 AM Get Hickman Line inserted.

That's how it went until 11:30...
Hickman Delayed
Hickman Delayed, 2 PM ish now
Hickman Delayed, 4 PM ish now
4:45 They're here to take me to get my Hickman installed.
5:15 They take me into the OR
6:30 They wheel me out to recover, get dressed, and send me on my way.

Because I was going to have surgery at 11 AM, they told me not to eat or drink after 6AM.
So, I was a bit hungry and thirsty 12 hours later.

Worst of all was that since it was late on a Friday, everyone who was anyone at already gone home. I was awake for the procedure, but can only hear, so best I can figure is two med students were left kicking around, and they were given the task. The task of slicing open my main neck vein, shoving in a tube down toward my heart, and then shoving the other end under my flesh towards an exit hole between my nipple and armpit.

They didn't have a very good go of it, and it wasn't working too well.

They had to call in someone who knew what they were doing. The new doctor introduced himself, and prepared to repair the damage the tweedle dee and tweedle dum had done, and pull off a successful Hickman line install.

So now, I had a VERY uncomfortable night, I am tired, sore, worn down. I have been sent home after a procedure that, it seems, most people get AFTER they have been admitted into the hospital.

I will be starting Chemo next week sometime, maybe, if they find a bed, and I will be in the shits. There may be good reasons for doing it now, and if it hadn't been done so late on a Friday, I probably could have had some proper after care.

1 - Never get surgery late on a Friday if you can help it.
2 - Trust until you have reason to distrust.

I no longer trust that I will be given the best care by everyone there. It's not how I wanted to start my ~4 week stay there. Perhaps that is for the best though - Only time will tell.

Comments

Jennifer Tarnowski said…
WTF...with the Fridays!!?? I'm a slow learner and have just now put it all together and come to the conclusion that between all of your crap and your wife's misfortunes (ie: locking keys in car in "the hood") you folks had best lock yourselves up on Fridays from now on. Hope today went okay.
6/13/2009 10:14 PM
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