nickm3
Well-known member
Well here is my story, believe it or not:
Went into the hospital Tues 12/3 for a 7:00 am appointment at the cath lab, didn't even get to sit down. They brought me back to prep area and they starting getting me ready almost immediately. After not much time I was prepped, briefed, and signed off so they wheeled me into the cath lab for a 8:00 am stick time (hospital talk). The procedure was neerly painless and the only discomfort was the chilly temperature of the lab but that is nothing new. Within an hour I was in the recovery area where I had to lay dead flat for 4 hours while cath site healed over. These were an excruciating 4 hours, couldn't decide which hurt worse my back or my bladder but I did make it through the required time counting every second of the last last hour. I was surprised that they had me up and walking within about 5 minutes. Anyhow seems as those they found 2 arteries that could use a little bypass work so they were to be added to the next day's agenda. Well several more hours went by before a room became available were I could be admitted for the surgery the next day. It was probably 6 pm before I saw anyone from surgeons office where he informed me that I was the third surgery scheduled for that particular opering room and wouldn't get in there before probaly 1pm. He also kind of warned me that the hospital was extremely busy and emergent case took precedence over elective surgeries meaning don't be surprised it I get bumped until Thursday. Not much I can do about it so I'll just have to see how it all goes.
I wasn't a great night for getting much rest between the anxiety, my roomate that was having some problems and seemily being stuck with a needle or otherwise being awakened every hours or so it was a little rough.
My room was on the elevnth floor adjacent to the Heli-pad for the Penn life-star helicoptor, it seemed to come and go all through the night every couple of hours. I think the number of these emergencies played a big part in what would happen to me later in the day.
So the morning brought the usual preparations for the surgery like multiple washings with the hibiclens soap and starting an IV etc. All looked like it was still going ahead as planned untill about 2 hrs beforehand when a team fom my surgeons office comes into my room and closes the the door behind them. One of the team was Dr. Bavaria's scheduler, she asked "you probably know why we're here don't you?". I look at the scheduling book she had clenched in her arms and knew that it could not be good. They told me that hospital was out of critical care beds and that they could not perform elective surgeries without have a critical care bed available, not today and not even tomorrow... I had to go home! As much as I wanted to scream I knew that it would do any good and just asked how soon we could reschedule. Well the date we all agreed on ended up being 1/2/08 not as early as I would have like but the only other opening would have had me in over Christmas and since I still have one of two boys that still believes in Santa I thought I would like to be home for holidays.
My frustrations on that day were not nearly over with as it took almost two hours to get discharged from the hospital. After that another 2 hours rescheduling my surgery in the doctors office then another hour at the hospital pre-admissions office where they had to draw even more blood and fill out more forms. What a day, I didn't get out of there unit almost 4 pm just in time to start hitting heavy traffic for the trip home (about an hour w/o traffic). Did I mention that I had been NPO since midnight.
ust to add one little twist My Parents, wife and two kids all drove down to the hospital to wait during my operation, they showed up about 30 seconds after the team left after giving me the bad news. The problem is the car they came in was full, I had no ride home and by wife had taken my coat home the night before (it was snowing out). So after some discussion my parents volunteered to take the train home. Turns out that they got home hours before we did and they enjoyed the ride so maybe that wasn't all bad.
Someday I hope we can get a good laugh out of what happened but right now I'm just pretty disappointed.
Thanks for taking the time to read my story.. and thanks to all those that where thinking of me.
Nick
Went into the hospital Tues 12/3 for a 7:00 am appointment at the cath lab, didn't even get to sit down. They brought me back to prep area and they starting getting me ready almost immediately. After not much time I was prepped, briefed, and signed off so they wheeled me into the cath lab for a 8:00 am stick time (hospital talk). The procedure was neerly painless and the only discomfort was the chilly temperature of the lab but that is nothing new. Within an hour I was in the recovery area where I had to lay dead flat for 4 hours while cath site healed over. These were an excruciating 4 hours, couldn't decide which hurt worse my back or my bladder but I did make it through the required time counting every second of the last last hour. I was surprised that they had me up and walking within about 5 minutes. Anyhow seems as those they found 2 arteries that could use a little bypass work so they were to be added to the next day's agenda. Well several more hours went by before a room became available were I could be admitted for the surgery the next day. It was probably 6 pm before I saw anyone from surgeons office where he informed me that I was the third surgery scheduled for that particular opering room and wouldn't get in there before probaly 1pm. He also kind of warned me that the hospital was extremely busy and emergent case took precedence over elective surgeries meaning don't be surprised it I get bumped until Thursday. Not much I can do about it so I'll just have to see how it all goes.
I wasn't a great night for getting much rest between the anxiety, my roomate that was having some problems and seemily being stuck with a needle or otherwise being awakened every hours or so it was a little rough.
My room was on the elevnth floor adjacent to the Heli-pad for the Penn life-star helicoptor, it seemed to come and go all through the night every couple of hours. I think the number of these emergencies played a big part in what would happen to me later in the day.
So the morning brought the usual preparations for the surgery like multiple washings with the hibiclens soap and starting an IV etc. All looked like it was still going ahead as planned untill about 2 hrs beforehand when a team fom my surgeons office comes into my room and closes the the door behind them. One of the team was Dr. Bavaria's scheduler, she asked "you probably know why we're here don't you?". I look at the scheduling book she had clenched in her arms and knew that it could not be good. They told me that hospital was out of critical care beds and that they could not perform elective surgeries without have a critical care bed available, not today and not even tomorrow... I had to go home! As much as I wanted to scream I knew that it would do any good and just asked how soon we could reschedule. Well the date we all agreed on ended up being 1/2/08 not as early as I would have like but the only other opening would have had me in over Christmas and since I still have one of two boys that still believes in Santa I thought I would like to be home for holidays.
My frustrations on that day were not nearly over with as it took almost two hours to get discharged from the hospital. After that another 2 hours rescheduling my surgery in the doctors office then another hour at the hospital pre-admissions office where they had to draw even more blood and fill out more forms. What a day, I didn't get out of there unit almost 4 pm just in time to start hitting heavy traffic for the trip home (about an hour w/o traffic). Did I mention that I had been NPO since midnight.
ust to add one little twist My Parents, wife and two kids all drove down to the hospital to wait during my operation, they showed up about 30 seconds after the team left after giving me the bad news. The problem is the car they came in was full, I had no ride home and by wife had taken my coat home the night before (it was snowing out). So after some discussion my parents volunteered to take the train home. Turns out that they got home hours before we did and they enjoyed the ride so maybe that wasn't all bad.
Someday I hope we can get a good laugh out of what happened but right now I'm just pretty disappointed.
Thanks for taking the time to read my story.. and thanks to all those that where thinking of me.
Nick
