Pre-Operative Screening

On Tuesday January 22nd I was scheduled for my pre-operative screening at the hospital and I had to be there at 7:30 am and my mom would go along for the ride. It was suppossed to snow the night before, so I made sure to pick up my mom at her house extra early. Turns out this wasn’t necessary, so we arrived at the hotel at 6:45 am!

At 7:30 am we were all given a card with a number: I got number 18. On the back of the card was my schedule for the day:
8:00-8:45 bloodwork
9:00 – 10:00 information meeting about the operation
11:30 appointment with morbid obesity nurse
11:45 appointment with surgeon
13:55 appointment with pharmacist
14:15 appointment with anaesthetist

All the appointments were on time, no delays whatsoever.  At the bloodwork they took 7 small tubes of blood and I was weighed (119,4 kilos). My blood was tested on a lot of things: bloodtype, glucose, sodium/potassium, creatinine, bilirubin, protein, vitamin B12, folic acid, TSH, fT4, parathyroid hormone and vitamine D.

The information meeting was hosted by a surgeon, anaesthesist and morbid obesity nurse. They all went into details on certain parts of the surgery: the surgeon explained both the gastric sleeve and the gastric bypass, the morbid obesity nurse elaborated on the preparation for surgery and recovery after surgery and the anaesthesist told us how the anaesthetic worked.

At my appointment with the morbid obesity nurse I finally found out why I was rejected by the NOK (they thought my weight was too low) and why the hospital made a different call: the surgeon had decided that I was a good candidate due to my thyroid problem and lower back problems. The nurse asked me which surgery I preferred and both she and the surgeon agreed with me that the gastric bypass would be the best choice for me since I have major sweet tooth and already suffer from heartburn almost daily.

The appointment with the pharmacist was basically to let them know what prescriptions I had, for the meeting with the anaesthesist my blood pressure was checked (perfect), I had to show her how wide I could open my mouth for the respirator and the anaesthesist asked me several questions. She finally gave me my final okay for surgery and I found out that my provisional surgery date is March 15th! That's in less than 7 weeks!!! Can I start freaking out now???