Update

Since Mom is reading this I thought some other folks might be also. Here's the latest:

After leaving a message with "Jennifer the Amazing" last night, I waited until 9 to hear back from her. My back woke me up at 7, so 9:00 was much later in the day than it normally is on my days off. At 9:05 I hadn't heard back from the usually very prompt nurse, so figured Jennifer was wrapped up in something else. I decided to call in to the front desk and get the appointment process started with them.

I'm pretty happy with Dr. Williams, and Jennifer is great, but OPA as an organization is a very typical corporate medical institution with ridiculous hoops and phone trees. I try to avoid calling the front desk whenever possible. This morning was a good example of why:

Call 1: "Please listen to the whole menu as our options have changed. For appointments press 5...(I press 5)...This is the perscription refill request line. Please leave the following information at the tone...(I hang up)

Call 2: "Please listen to the whole menu as our options have changed. For appointments press 5...(I press 5 very carefully)...This is the perscription refill request line. Please leave the following information at the tone...(I try all the little secret get me out of this menu buttons I can think of including * and # with no success. I hang up)

Call 3: I try for Jennifer's direct extension again, but she's still not there and I'm not going to leave a second message to bother her.

Call 4: "Please listen to the whole menu as our options have changed." This time I listen to the whole stupid menu and hear that I should press 8 for perscription refills. I press 8 hoping that the two lines are just reversed. Instead I get the emergency response nurse who is peeved that she's talking to me. She doesn't seem terribly interested in the fact that the phone tree sent me here unwittingly, and transfers me to the front desk. I sit on hold for a while, get a brief contact with someone and sit on hold a while longer. Eventually the receptionist gets back to me and I find out that Jennifer isn't in today so she's going to transfer me back to the operator where I should dictate a detailed message to be typed up and given to the person filling in for Jennifer today. Turns out that the operator is also the person who answers the emergency line, and she's again delighted to hear my voice.

I've left the message and I'm once again in a holding pattern waiting to hear back about an appointment.

Sigh.

The nice thing about cell phones is I can still go out to breakfast with my boy and I won't miss the call back. (deleted unnecessary snarky comment here) Maybe I'll give a couple PT exercises a try while I wait for Russell to be ready to go eat.


By the time I finished typing this I got a call back, and I'm heading straight to the office right now.

Truth in Advertising

Hi folks,
For the last several days my thoracic spine has been really painful--like keeping me up at night, the perscription drugs from last fall are looking really appealing kind of painful. I've been wracking my brain trying to think of something, anything, I've done lately that might be causing it and I'm coming up blank.

Over the course of the last two days I've started seriously regretting having this surgery done at all. It's a horrible feeling to think that I went through all that shit of the last year and came out on the other side being in pain more often than I ever was before.

Max convinced me to call the surgeon's office tonight and hopefully get a quickie appointment for tomorrow. I'm hoping that a little physical therapy and body retraining will be all that's required, but this is a pretty dramatic change from a month ago so I'm kind of nervous about what might be revealed.

More Tylenol, ice-packs, and trying to get to sleep for me now.

The Anti-Worry

Here's my plan:

1. Re-read every post tagged with worrying and/or questions.
2. List the concerns from each post
3. Record what really happened
4. Share it with all of you (Though, it's been so long since I've updated there might not be any readers left, but oh well)

Posted in April 08:
Questions:
Will I be able to walk on stripper heals? Will the way my body moves still illicit tips? Will I fit into the costume we already purchased? Will I be able to attend without being unreasonably exhausted? (Will I ever post about anything completely unrelated to the surgery?)
Answers:
I wasn't walking in stripper heals yet. We did get plenty of tips. Had to adjust the straps a little, but I fit just fine. Made it through the event just fine energy wise.

Posted in May 08:
Question:
Do I really need this surgery or am I just seeking attention?
Answer:
3 of 3 surgeons agreed that the surgery was necessary. I may have also been seeking attention, but I'm too damned self-aware to let that kind of behavior get very far beyond reality.

Question:
Will my partners be so afraid of hurting me that they forget how to have passionate sex with me?
Answer:
Briefly, but that's probably for the best initially. Being aware of the potential for this problem made all the difference in the world when it came up. Lots of reality checks and constant recalibration of our abilities have kept the good things going and getting better all the time.

Posted in July 08:
Question:
Do I have enough time to do all the things I want to do before surgery? Am I ready for this change?
Answer:
In this post, I noted that August was invisible. Actually, it was September that disappeared. I skipped several fun things that month because I was just too darn anxious. I was ready though, and if I'd known how quickly some of these fun things would come back to me I would have been a lot less anxious.

Posted in August 08:
Questions:
What if I never get to do this again after surgery? Am I ok with my massage therapist seeing the impending marks? What will our relationship look like during my recovery? How do I get the absolute most out of my body right now without risking surgery-delaying damage? Why won't my mind let go so I can just be here now and process this?
Answers:
I'll do something else that's even more fun. Yes, of course I'm ok with my massage therapist seeing marks--closets are for clothes not skeletons. The relationship question merits a whole post full of gratitude unto itself. Let go into the sensations and be alert for "bad pain." Rhetorical questions like that one are the major culprits in the assault on my concentration.

Posted just before surgery: (answers in italics)

• How long do they expect I'll be in which parts of the hospital? (Surgery, ICU/Recovery, Patient room) I was in surgery for 8.5 hours, recovery for a pretty short time and then moved to the patient room for 8 days.
  
• Will I see the surgeon before surgery? How soon after will he check in? Yes, I saw him briefly beforehand. A year later, I don't remember exactly when he came back after I moved to the patient room, but he checked in pretty often.
  
• What are the policies around electronics in patient rooms? (iPod? Laptop? Wireless access?) I could have whatever I wanted. There was wireless, but it was pretty well censored so I couldn't update to fetlife.
  
• At what point will the first people come see me after surgery? As soon as I was in my room, they could have come in. There was an unfortunate miss communication that meant I was awake for a while and missing my family while being very confused.
  
• How do updates of my surgery progress get to family members? (Should they all hang out there all day? Should they rotate through, but keep someone there all day? Is there some pager system in case they all wander off?) Dr. Williams' Nurse walked out to the waiting room and gave regular updates to my family throughout the process. Then Dr. Williams came out and gave the closing report when things were done.
  
• Who do I need to tell about my picky diet stuff? How much space is there for making accommodations? There's not a lot to worry about diet wise when all you feel like eating is chicken broth and graham crackers. When I was ready for more food, they had plenty of options. Swedish Orthopedic Rocks!
  
• Will there be more digital x-rays or other images I can have access to? No nifty images of the surgery in progress, but plenty of x-rays along the way. Speaking of which I need to post a little time-lapse thing at some point.
  
• What items should I bring with or specifically leave home? (I have several lists, but I want to cross reference with what the nurse says on this one.) Toiletries, snacks for guests, laptop, Fraggle Rock, music, bathrobe, fuzzy socks, slippers with traction. Things I wish I'd had: moisturizer, contact list in large print, gum/mints.
  

Posted at various times after surgery:
Questions:
Am I good enough? Did I break something?
Answers:
Yes. No.