September 09, 2009

Here Goes Nothing (I Hope!)

At this point tomorrow, if all goes as planned, I will be thyroidless. So far, I haven't been too terribly nervous about it. When I had minimally invasive knee surgery 16 years ago, I spent the evening before telling R that I had changed my mind and trying to convince myself that I could just live in pain (and on crutches) for the rest of my life.

And that just involved them poking a few tiny holes in my knee! This time, someone is slicing my neck open. (My mom finds it funny to make the slitting throat motion with her hand at least once every few days...But I suppose she has some grounds to be amused by it, since she went through it 50 years ago.)

Oddly enough, the thing that has me most stressed about the surgery is that I am supposed to not eat or drink anything after midnight, yet my surgery isn't scheduled until 1 p.m. By the time it's done, if all goes well, that would be 15 hours without water! And I don't think I'll feel much like swallowing immediately after surgery.

So I called the nurse today and asked her if it was really necessary to observe the midnight rule given all that. She wasn't happy about it, but she extended the deadline to 4 a.m. Which means I will be getting up at 3:45 a.m. to chug down a couple bottles of water...

Wish me luck!

8 comments:

Sue said...

Good luck! I hate that "no food or water after midnight" when you have an afternoon surgery! They did that to me with my last D&C and then they were 3 hours late to start it - 4 PM. I was upset anyway about the whole thing and that just made me worse! I'm glad you got some relief! I know surgery will go smoothly and you will wake up fine and on some nice pain killers! Take care of yourself! I'll be thinking about you!

DAVs said...

Good luck with the surgery! I just saw a few patients post-thyroidectomies today and they were all doing really well.
They'll keep you hydrated with IV fluids I hope...but glad you got permission to chug away.
Give us an update when you can!

Kate said...

Hope all went well today!
Clear fluids are fine up to 2 hours before surgery, according to all the rules. I hate it when patients have been starved for 14 hours by the time the get to the OR - IVs are harder to start and they're more likely to have blood pressure swings with the anesthesia.
The only reason I could see to extend that to a 4-hour-ahead time limit would be on the off chance your surgery time gets moved up a couple hours. I'm glad the nurse told you you could have a drink, but can't believe she'd make you get up at 4am to do it if you wanted to!

Nico said...

I really hope it all went well today. Thinking of you!

MrsSpock said...

I hope everything went fine, and your recovery is going well!

Deanna said...

Wishing you well after the surgery..

kayjay said...

I hope your surgery went well and that you weren't too dehydrated. I remember when I was a kid I had surgery and after I woke up, I felt like my throat was the Sahara desert. I asked for some water but then couldn't keep it down b/c of the anesthesia so it's a good thing you can chug some water beforehand! Hope you're recovering well :)

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