August 2

Okay, I called Jo Ann on Wednesday and told her I wanted to get the surgery scheduled. She told me that Dr. M was in surgery all day but that she had clinic with him on Thursday and could talk to him then. She said that I would hear back from her Thursday afternoon at the latest.

Wednesday, I got home from work and Jo Ann had left a message on my answering machine at 5:05 pm saying "Hi, I didn't want you to think we forgot about you, I spoke to Dr. M and he has already started looking at the surgery schedule. You will probably need to come in before then so that we can get consent forms signed. I will let you know next steps tomorrow after my clinic with Dr. M". This message was weird. Why would I think they forgot about me when I didn't expect them to call until the following afternoon? Whatever. On the up side, at least communication with this group is overkill rather than underkill.

Jo Ann called yesterday around 4:00. I have decided that she's definitely not a people person. She's a smarmy, insincere, know it all. I'm not looking forward to dealing with her from here on out. I'm actually inventing ways to NOT deal with her from here on out which is probably not in my best interests. Kunkel and I were wishing we could trade Dr. C's support team with Dr. M's support team and then we'd have the perfect group! But hey, you can't please all the people, all the time. :-)

News from that phone call, Dr. V is on vacation next week. He's the reconstructive surgeon. I have a pre-op appointment with him for Monday, 8/12 at 8:00 am. I'm the first smiling face he gets to see upon returning from vacay. :-) Jo Ann assures me that the week delay in seeing him, in no way delays my surgery date. She said she will probably also be setting me up for a physical where they will take my blood and all the usual pre-op stuff. She then asked if I had any questions.

I started telling her about my awful experience waking up with the trach after the last surgery. She interrupted me and started talking about I don't even know what. I interrupted her and continued on with my request that it be noted that Ativan would be appreciated after the surgery. At which point she got pissy, probably because I interrupted her interruption, and told me that she doesn't go into surgery with me so that's info I will need to let them know when I show up for surgery. So, now I'm irritated. Don't I have a fucking file where she can make a notation? Won't I have a file going into surgery letting them know what the fuck they're going to be doing to me?? I seriously do not understand people. She then shot off on some tangent about how they have 2 step down beds for post surgery patients, and blah, blah, blah. I don't even know what she was talking about. When she finally wound down I said "I have no idea what that information is supposed to mean to me.". She said "It just means that we will take care of you.". Whatever. I'm so not impressed already.

I then told her that I often have questions crop up and that I work much better with e-mail and it would be great if I had someplace to e-mail them to like I had at Dr. C's. She said no, we work much better with phone calls, there is no place for you to e-mail. Then she went on at length about how my situation is complicated and they wouldn't be able to convey the appropriate response via e-mail. Again, whatever. I wasn't asking her to e-mail me back. I would e-mail the questions to Dr. C's office, they would read them and think about them, then they would call me and answer them.

I asked her if she had any indication whatsoever when the surgery might be scheduled. She said she currently had no timeframe to reference at all. I let her know that as of last weekend I am no longer eating solid foods because of the choking hazard and that I'm even starting to have trouble with the liquids. I also mentioned that I'm unfortunately losing weight once again. She went off on some spiel about how I should be gaining weight before surgery (No, really?) and that the goal is to go into surgery as healthy as possible (You don't say!). And that I should be trying to suck down protein smoothies and the like (I would never have known this if it weren't for her!). 

Lastly, I told her that Dr. C has been prescribing me Vicodin for my increasingly painful ear ache. I asked her if that was something that Dr. M would do for me. She said that we can discuss it at my 8/12 appointment. Um, okay. Dr. C told me that doctor's are not allowed to prescribe more that 5 days worth of narcotics. 8/12 is 11 days away. What am I supposed to do in the meantime?? Thankfully, Dr. C prescribed more than I'm actually taking. His 5 days of meds probably lasts me 8 days. And, as I mentioned before, baby doll handed over his leftover pain pills to me so I'm actually, probably okay until 8/12. But once again, shouldn't the head nurse be aware of a little detail like that?

Remind me again why I broke up with Dr. C?!?

She then called back around 5:30. JT was in my kitchen arranging a cheese platter for me and I had just been telling him what a tool this lady was. When I answered the phone and she announced herself, I told her I had just been talking about her. She said "Oh, are you telling everyone what a terrible person I am?". That comment threw me but I recovered fairly quickly and said "No, I was simply passing along the info that you gave me earlier.". So basically she knows she's an asshole and simply doesn't care? That's just great.

She said that there's a 'run' on surgery patients right now and due to the high demand, their particular team has submitted a request for more operating room time at Strong Hospital. She is hoping that if they are approved, they can get me in faster than whatever the current schedule would allow. She is also going to have their speech/swallowing therapist call me next week and set up an appointment to see if there is anything they can do about my current swallowing problems.

So, that's where things stand at the moment.

Fun stuff:

Poker last night was a blast! We managed to squeeze in 3 games and baby doll even managed to win some money for the first time! Meanwhile, my drinking buddy, Eric, canceled our happy hour tonight. I was pretty relieved because the guys didn't leave until 11:30 last night so I'm pretty pooped at the moment. My big plan for tonight is to simply go home, crawl into bed, and pull the covers over my head for the night.

Tomorrow Sammy is coming to see me. We're going to do lunch with Scott and Jamie so that the three people who I have put in charge of taking over my life, should I kick the bucket, will have met, and will know each other. Then Sam and I will ditch the men and go do something fun together like Park Ave Fest, or walking the pier, or baking cookies. My tee time with Sandi is set for 8:52 am on Sunday. I now have a movie date with Kit on Monday night. We're going to go see The Heat. It looks like the perfect girl buddy movie! I took Tuesday off from work. Baby doll has tickets to the PGA so I'm going to hang with him for the day and then he's going to make the trip to Oswego with me to visit T and Vic. Wednesday is still thrift store shopping with Elvisa. Thursday I now have a date to golf with Kunkel on her league. I just found out she plays at Shadow Lake which is where Sandi and I are going on Sunday so I'll even have some practice under my belt! And Friday I think will be the new happy hour night based on the responses I received today when I canceled tonight's festivities. Phew. Have I mentioned what a fantastic group of friends I have! I'm either so busy or so tired I don't even have time to think about the stupid 'bad' thing growing in my head. You guys totally rock!