LONG POST WARNING!
VR1 was only delayed one day and one night but I was already admitted to the hospital. I was to have had surgery on a Monday morning but, they'd had to postpone until afternoon since my docs had been up all night harvesting a heart and the lungs from an unfortunate and gifting a recipient with them. About an hour before my surgery, we were sitting and chatting in the atrium when we heard the dreaded code blue called. My husband looked out over the balcony rail and watched my surgeon's resident performing compressions on a man downstairs in the hospital food court. It was clear that I wasn't having surgery that day at all. It turns out this was a good lesson in tolerance.
My AVR2 was cancelled once and rebooked a number of times. The cancellation was because my surgeon decided he needed a heart cath completed prior to surgery and I had to wait for that procedure.
The first re-booking was for two reasons. The first being an emergency OHS had used the last clean available heart/lung machine (there are four machines in 3 OR's ... one is always clean, one is being cleaned, one is in use and the last is on emergency standby) the usual standby machine was out of service and waiting for parts and reason two, that patient had filled the CICU, so no bed was available post op anyway.
Date two was moved because they had 3 hearts for transplants available in one night. That was when my mortality struck home, there were 3 patients who were the recipients of an amazing gift, it wasn't difficult to leave my selfishness behind that day.
The third time, I was at the OR doors, pre-medicated, capped and IV'd when the trauma staff commandeered the heart/lung machine equipped room and they bumped me to the next day. We stayed in the city overnight waiting for admitting the following noon hour.
I was in traffic and about 5 minutes from the hospital that time when the nurse called, my spirits fell and I braced my husband for the inevitable delay. It was a different sort of call though, they were asking for me early and could I be there as soon as possible? We made it and I showered, took the oral pre-meds and heard my surgeon paged to the ER, I couldn't believe it! It turns out that my surgeon wasn't required in that capacity since the ER team managed to convert the patient into normal sinus rhythm without surgery.
Instead of being taken early, I was wheeled in on time and just as I went through the doors I asked the masked being above me if I was going to make it onto the table at last and he told me that the doors were the point of no return.
I have adopted the philosophy that any delay in surgery simply means that there is someone with greater need than I own. They are welcome to the resources needed to save their life, since I am blessed with another day of mine.
Take Heart, you will ultimately get the rescue you are due.
Pamela.
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