I was told that my arrival time was 10:45. Like a good little girl, I got there at 10:30. Jennie and Nathanael were very punctual picking me up and were allowed to come to the back with me. After I had changed into this lovely outfit, I'd barely walked around the corner and this lady says to me, "Come with me!" I already had my camera in hand because of course I wanted Jennie to take a picture of me in my new get up, but the lady was already walking away. I kinda turned around and said, "One second," and handed Jennie my camera and stood there real quick like. Jennie's like, "Are you coming back?" but I just looked at her like, "I don't know!" You can see the lady turning into that first door behind me, but I didn't know where that led, so we weren't sure what was going on. Little did I know, things don't happen THAT fast around there.
I turned and ran to catch up to her and as I walk into the room she says, "Yeah, you'll be going back." But now I'm already in the room sitting down so I can't jump back out and let Jennie know. I wonder if she was sitting there thinking, "Will I see her again or was that it?" I forgot to ask her that. The nurse takes my blood pressure and asks me a bunch of questions, then tells me that she'll take me outside and start my IV and then the doctor and the anesthesiologist will come and talk to me. Never in that 5 minutes with her did she tell me WHEN all of this would take place. Silly me thought that if I was supposed to be there at 10:45, then surely my surgery would be within half an hour. Did I mention that I've never had surgery before? Yeah, silly me.
I don't know if you can see it in the picture above, but they ask you to take out all of your jewellery. Well, I've got a couple of pieces that I can't get out. I thought they'd take wire cutters to them, but they just made me put tape over them (ie, my nose in the picture above).
Time for the IV! Since I've started having a lot of blood work taken to find out what's been going on with me, I've realized that I'm not scared of needles. It didn't hurt at all. It felt weird once she had it in and taped to me because I could feel it move if I moved my hand at all, but it didn't hurt.
My trusty companions all day. They were such troopers. Thank you SOOOOOOO much Jennie and Nathanael for being there for me. Here were all still smiles because ...
It was still only half an hour into our day!
Here I am all ready to go!
And again, still smiling ...
Bren stopped by for a visit before noon and brought me 3 magazines. Thanks, Bren!
After Bren left, it started to feel like we'd been waiting a reeeeeeeeeeaaaaalllllly long time. I stopped one of the nurses who was setting up IV stands next to me and said, "Do you know if my doctor's behind and if so, how far behind?" She said that he was about an hour behind, to which I asked, "Do you know when my surgery was supposed to be?" She asked what time I was told to be here and when I told her, she said, "Your usually asked to be here 2 hours before your surgery." WHAT? That would've been nice to know. I had no idea that I'd be waiting AT LEAST 2 hours. Again, have I mentioned I'd never had surgery before? At least now I knew I'd be waiting 3 hours, since the doc was an hour behind. The TV was on in the waiting area right next to us, so I kinda strained my next to see what was on. First, it was something like a World Vision program. Dying, starving kids. It was really quite sad ... but maybe they were trying to make us feel better since we weren't allowed to have eaten anything since midnight so we wouldn't be complainers. Point taken.
The next time I looked up at the TV, there was a silent movie on. Yeah, you read that right, a SILENT MOVIE! Did you even know they aired those things anymore? I sure didn't. There was someone in the waiting room and one of the nurses standing up close to the TV watching it ... looking super into it! That made me laugh. I watched and made fun for awhile because their expressions were priceless and then the words would come on the screen, "I am the master here. You will do what I say!" Oh my. Then they showed this guy who looked like a cave man and the word "Idiot" kept being played over top of his face. "Idiot. Idiot. Idiot." I turned to Jennie and said, "What kind of a movie IS this?" But by now I was hooked and it was something to pass the time, so I kept watching. Then Idiot started chasing the rich looking girl around the house and she would stop every once in awhile and scream. I didn't think this was going to end well, but finally the cavalry came and saved her, but when they asked her what they should do with Idiot, she said, "He's innocent. Let him go." WHAT? True, I'd only started watching 3/4 of the way though the movie, so I didn't see the relationship develop between these two, but that was odd. That movie ended with him being extremely grateful to her and her saying, "You'll always have a place with us, Igor." Oh yeah, his name was Igor, not Idiot.
A 2nd silent movie started but the nurse, instead of changing the channel, turned the TV off! What??? It was SUPER quiet in there after that and Jennie and I were starting to get a little weary by this time ... well, I know I was. Then one of the nurses comes into our area and says, "Is anyone here a really big Stanley Cup fan?" We just looked at her like, "What? Why do you ask that?" She says, "The Stanley Cup is here and if you go to the end of the hall, you can look down to the lobby and see it." Knowing that Jennie is a HUGE hockey fan, I told her, "GO! You have to see it!" She grabbed Nathanael and off they went. I sat there for about a minute and then thought, "Nuts! I've been waiting now for about 3 hours. If they come out while I'm gone, THEY can wait a minute or two while I go take a look at the Stanley Cup," so up I got in my cute little gown and trotted down the hallway pushing my IV and this is what I saw:
It was pretty cool, actually! I'm so glad that Jennie could experience it, too. How random was that? I hadn't heard that it was going to be in Abbotsford (apparently one of the coaches on the Boston Bruins is from Abbotsford). Jennie said she'd read that it was going to be in Abbotsford, but couldn't remember where it was going to be. A case of being at the right place at the right time? I don't think so. I think God knew we'd need a little pick me up that day.
After this momentary excitement, we went back to our previous positions (see picture number 7) and continued on with our waiting. A nurse had come out and talked to me about pre surgical stuff and asked me a bunch of questions, so in my mind, it was a go.
At about 2:15, the same nurse that asked if we were Stanley Cup fans, asks me, "Are you going in anytime soon?" With a quizzical look on my face I said to her, "I thought you'd be the one who could tell ME that!" She said, "It can't be too much longer now. The nurse already came out to talk to you, so it must be your turn soon." I said, "As long as I don't get bumped, I'll be happy." Both her and the other nurse were completely quiet for about 5 seconds after I said that (which seemed like forever) and then they were like, "No, I'm sure you'll go in anytime now."
Well, about 15 minutes later, Jennie says to me, "I don't have a good feeling about this." All morning as Jennie was nervous and said she's been cleaning her house like mad, her feelings didn't transfer to me. I was totally calm. I thought maybe when I got to the hospital I'd get more nervous. Nope. Maybe when they put the IV in I'd get more nervous. Nope. But when Jennie said, "I don't have a good feeling about this," I believed her. I started to get that sinking feeling. We'd already seen one person get bumped today (he was quite the character as well, but I won't go into those details), so who's to say it wouldn't happen again. Then, we see a nurse come from behind "the" doors, she grabs my chart, Jennie and I are thinking, "This is it!" she walks over to the Stanley Cup nurse (yes, that's her name) and I see the nurse's hands fly up to her face in an "OH NO!" pose. Jennie and I just looked at each other and said, "Oh crap."
Yup. You guessed it. I got bumped. The nurses were all SUPER apologetic. They explained to me that the doctor had had a very serious cancer case in the morning that had gone longer than expected and then the gallbladder right before mine had taken longer than expected as well and they were going to have to reschedule me. I KNOW that cancer trumps gallbladder so I wasn't upset about that and I tried to be gracious ... especially because it was NONE of their faults, so I pretty much stood up and asked for the IV to be taken out right away so I could go get myself something to eat. I was STARVING!!! Ok, not World Vision child starving, but you know when you can't have it, you want it even more? Yeah, that feeling (and since the cute doctor who'd come out with a sandwich earlier in the day had decided to torture me by waving his sandwich around in front of me hadn't shared with me, I was really thinking about some food at this point).
I'm not sure which thought went through my head first: food or "I have to go to work tomorrow!" but they were pretty close to each other. I think I was more disappointed because I'd already had my date changed once so technically, this was my 2nd bump and rearranging things at work is kind of a pain. I'd gotten myself all psyched up for 2 weeks off work and now ... back to work. And I LIKE my job and my supervisor!
Anyway, Jennie and I went and grabbed some food (the new Thai Chicken burger at McD's is quite good, btw - no, I wasn't TRYING to bring on an attack so I'd end up in emerg and they'd HAVE to do the surgery like my Mom thought) and then I made the phone call to the doctor's office to reschedule. The girl in the office sounded quite flustered when I called so I asked her if she wanted to call me back. She said "yes" and that it would most likely be tomorrow. Well, it's now Sunday and I still don't have my new date. She did inform me that the doctor was going on holidays, so it wouldn't be until September sometime. Of course it won't.
Again, thanks for all your prayers. I know I'm extremely blessed to have you all praying for me and that I haven't had an attack since May. I don't know if I would've been able to handle the disappointment if I'd still been continuously having attacks and NEEDED it out NOW!
I'll keep you all informed when I hear any news. Thanks again!
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