P.O.P. Will it Ever End?

It’s about 11am, and it’s time for tea and coffee. The rest of the morning will be taken up by three things – chest x-rays, measurements and blood collection, and meeting our respective surgeons (where possible) and anaesthetists. Given that I already have my chest x-ray from not long ago, and I’ve already met my surgeon Mr Dixit, this shouldn’t take long. Patients are called out individually, and I’m not one of the first, so I get some more bonding time with my buddy. We shake hands and introduce each other properly – his name is Alan. I like him already, we’ve spent all morning talking and joking. Within a few minutes I know his life history. His brother had a valve replacement more than 30 years ago, and died ten years later. Alan says that he was diagnosed with an aortic valve problem at age 16, and since he has been monitored regularly they detected that he needs a replacement early this year, and he has been on a waitlist ever since. He has four kids, two boys and two girls. One of his daughters, and his wife, have accompanied him. He gets called out to see the nurse, so I chat to another guy. He is a lot quieter, I think he is really scared about the surgery. But we have a good chat, and trade our stories. I feel like I am at a gathering of war veterans trading our experiences. Then he is called out, and I’m on my own. The volunteer lady comes to chat, and we talk for ages. I'm beginning to wonder if P.O.P. will ever end!

Finally I’m called by the nurse, who weighs me, measures my height, and collects four tubes of blood for blood typing, HIV testing and a couple of other things. She then tells me that she needs to take a swab from my nose, armpit and groin. I don’t mind this, so she gets the cottonbud and sticks it in my nose – and then to my horror she proceeds to use the same one to swipe my armpit and then groin! Gross!

I return to the group, still in shock, and almost immediately the anaesthetist arrives and calls me out. Like my cardiologist, he is a fairly handsome forty something guy. We go to a meeting room, and he describes how he is going to sedate me for the surgery. Its pretty straightforward, he describes the drugs etc. He also tells me that I am the first patient for Tuesday morning – so my surgery will be at 7am. I ask him about how common allergic reactions to the drugs are – he tells me a story about a patient a while ago who had a serious anaphylactic response to the anaesthetic after his heart surgery while led to his body shutting down because the blood couldn’t get to his organs. Injecting adrenalin or noradrenaline into him did not fix the problem, so they had to take him back to the operating theatre, open him up and the surgeon had to take the heart in his hands and pump it to get the blood around the patient’s body. Turns out that the drugs had dilated all of the patient’s blood vessels, meaning that there wasn’t enough pressure for his heart to pump the blood around his body – but they were able to fix it. Sounds like a horror story, but surprisingly I’m not fazed by it.

I return to the big room to say goodbye to my heartbuddy. Actually, I go back to let him know that I’m first for surgery! :o) I wish the other guys well, and then I’m off home. I’m actually feeling very positive about the surgery, and now I think I’m not worried about the recovery either. In fact, I’m looking forward to challenging myself and trying to recover as quickly as I can.