September 6, 2013

Pre-Registration for Second Elbow Surgery

Friday,  September 6, 2013

Monday I will be having the second surgery on my elbow that I fractured June 1, 2013.  One bone healed right and one didn't, so this surgery should take care of the problem.  I headed to the hospital early this morning and by 7:30 had started the process.  It took until 10:00 to finish.

Valley Regional Hospital

First I went to Admitting where a nice young lady printed out a stack of pages for me about patient rights and hospital policies, etc.  From there, she took me to an area to wait to be called for the assorted tests.  They were checking with the doctor to see if he really wanted all the tests he had ordered.  He did.  There was a chest x-ray, urinalysis, lots of blood work, an EKG, and questions, questions, and more questions.  The majority of these questions were asked by a lovely lady named Lupita.

Lupita

 

When I am in a situation where I am dealing with people I don't know, I often try to find out something about them and one of the questions I frequently ask is about their hobbies.  Lupita and I got to talking about hers without me asking my usual question.  She had asked how I broke my elbow.  I gave her my story about edging the backyard and getting tangled up in the extension cord and falling on my elbow.  I told her I like to work in my yard.  She told me she likes to work in hers also.  Then we got to talking about our joy in seeing the hummingbirds during migration time and she said she and her husband will sit on the front porch and watch the hummingbirds being very territorial about the feeders.  We had a most enjoyable visit and I really had a good time talking to her.  Again, I was aware, that without the Cochlear Implant, I would have struggled to answer her basic questions and not tried to find out about her life because I would have had too much trouble hearing her.  I still had to ask her to repeat several of her questions, but we managed just fine.  I must also say, she is excellent at her job and is extremely thorough.  The way she gently phrased questions she reminded me of a couple of things I would have left out of my medical history. 

 

The lady who drew the blood for the lab was also excellent.  She has been doing that job for 30 years and is one of the best I have encountered - the best this year and you all know there have been many this year!  A very young man did my EKG.  I asked how long he had done that job.  He said 10 years.  I thought, "Wow, he must have started at 10 years old!"  I raised an eyebrow and he said, "4 months".  I laughed and told him I didn't really want to be his first patient, but that someone new on the job was often more careful than someone who after 4 or 5 years got comfortable and sloppy.  I don't mind having young medical personnel working on me as long as they show that they know what they are doing; and he did.

 

As far as I know, I passed all the tests and I am to report to the hospital at 6:15 Monday morning for the elbow surgery.  The anesthesiologist will talk to me at that time.  I hope it is the very nice man who took care of me last time.  I enjoyed my conversation with him before that surgery.  Lupita sent me off with a page of instructions for Monday and a happy smile.  May God bless her in a special way this weekend.

 

When I got to the car I saw my daughter-in-law had texted me to see if our oldest grand daughter could come to the office with me today.  I told her I was headed to get a bite to eat since I was to not eat before the tests this morning and then I would pick her up.  We went first to our house to take care of the bird feeders and ponds since it was still dark when I left this morning.  We picked up lunch on the way to the shop and shared with her oldest brother who was already there, working.

 

The kids worked and played and talked while at the office, and my grand daughter sewed for a while on the project she started last week while there.

Her brother left at 2:00 to go do some work with one of the men from the church.  When Barb came to pick up our grand daughter I invited the girls to spend the night again.  They headed home to gather their things and I took a deposit to the bank before picking them up.  We shopped for the birthday of the second oldest grandson.  There will be a family birthday breakfast tomorrow morning.  We also did a little grocery shopping and headed home arriving at 7:30. 

 

I was tired.  For some reason I woke up at 4:00 this morning and didn't get back to sleep.   My helper for the day helped me make mini pizzas for supper and they turned out to be just perfect!  Later we tried a Facebook recipe for a cake with Oreos crumbled up in it.  Around midnight we finished that.  It has been a long day!

Hope this 3 layer cake tastes as good as it looks!