Surgery Canceled

Yep, surgery was canceled yesterday. I was laying on the gurney with the needle in my hand all dressed to go into surgery and the anesthesiologist came up to the foot of my bed and started asking me questions.

I remembered him from my last surgery there for my gallbladder. He was only looking at his little three ring binder at first asking me questions and then I coughed.

I didn't want to cough but I did. Just a little dry puff of a cough and sure enough he stopped and looked up at me and asked,

"Why are you coughing?"

Just like that. He stopped what he was doing and zeroed in on one little cough. I knew I had to talk about my asthma and the damn cold or what ever I have been having for six weeks now. I can not say here what awful words were going through my mind at that moment. Why couldn't he just keep ignoring me in front of him and keep looking at that darn book and asking me questions. But nope. He had to stop and actually look at me and converse with me. The only time ever I didn't want a Dr. to actually notice me and talk to me. humm.

We spent ten or more minutes talking about my cough and the more I talked the more I coughed. But just a little dry nothing cough. I didn't want to talk cause I knew it was going to make me cough more.

I told him, "I haven't been allowed even water or anything to drink since midnight last night and my throat is dry, I have Sjogren's disease which makes everything single thing in your body dry in the first place and I have chronic asthma. "

I told him that my primary Dr. told me I was ok for surgery, my surgeon had told me I was ok for surgery, the pre admission Dr. for surgery had told me I was ok for surgery!!! And most of all my asthma Dr who had been working with me almost every week or two getting me ready for surgery told me I was ready for surgery. They all told me I was ok for surgery. I had told them every thing and I had been asking and worrying and wanted to make sure I was ready and ok for surgery and I had been asking everyone of them.

He said, " Well that is debatable."

I started crying and told him through my little fighting back tears, "Don't tell me I can't have surgery. I have waited three months to have this. I can't wait any longer. Don't you dare tell me you are going to cancel this on me."

He just turned away from me and walked away.

My nurse came to me and was trying to settle me down and she told me to stop and not get emotional or start crying because then I would surely start coughing really bad. I knew she was right and I got a hold of myself and stopped right away. I couldn't have that.

She was very good and talked to me for awhile and calmed me down and then.......

I saw them coming.

Both the surgeon and the anesthesiologist came together and I saw the writing on the wall.

I said, "Oh no. It's a consult. Don't tell me." , out loud to them. They were still walking toward me.

They started to sit on both sides of my bed and that is NEVER a good sign. When a Dr. wants to sit on your bed to talk to you it always serious every time. I know this from experience. There is some psychological aspect they are trying to get on your level and be intimate with you or something. All they have done is get in your space to let you know this is the right thing for you. I know this, this is what they do. This time I was being ganged up on...and this is never good either. If more than one Dr. comes to sit on your bed or talk to you, you've had it.

"Don't tell me you are canceling this. Don't tell me that. I have to have this surgery today I can't wait any longer. I just can't." I was angry and I wasn't hiding it.

I was not pretending to be noble or logical or that everything is fine and that I can take anything you dish out. None of that was with me yesterday. I had had it. My logical self stepped out to the waiting room and my emotional self was right there full blast and getting full voice. I mean full voice and for the next hour or more. It was horrible and that is being nice.

They were in fact telling me now in stereo that the surgery needed to be postponed. I was having a fit. The surgeon said we can do part of it today and do just the tumor to get that out and then do the lymph nodes on another day. She thought this was giving me good news. I wasn't having it.

"I don't want two surgeries! And what if I come back in a month and I cough once and you tell me no surgery then too!" I was looking straight at the anesthesiologist. This was a very real possibility.

He said, "That is a very good question. I don't know."

I was really having a fit. I was hitting the bed with my hands and just getting madder and madder. I told them I could have a little cough like this for months. We argued about this over and over. How long would I have to wait and I couldn't wait any longer. I had had enough of this. I told them I discovered this August 6 and this was Nov 18 and I just couldn't wait months more. I couldn't take anymore of this. It was one of the worst times in my life.

The surgeon was talking to the other Dr. and was talking about the wire and stuff and I'm thinking what wire!!!

Then she says wait, "You don't have a wire do you" and she looks at my breast and she turns to the other Dr. and says,"I can't do the surgery on her tumor either. She can't have any surgery today."

I was so angry at that moment it was all I could do to keep from ripping the i.v. out of my hand and running out of that place. If you had been there with me you would know how serious I am.

These people didn't have their shit together at all. She didn't even know if I had a freakin wire in my breast for surgery or not!!! I guess that is to help locate the tumor but mine is so blasted big you can just feel it by the touch. You don't need no freakin wire. Then she realized, I assume, that minor surgery was out of the question and I have to be put out for that too.

We had a lot of words after that. A lot. I was there from 10:30 to 12:00 without having surgery.
They could have done surgery faster than that. I'm serious. They told me surgery would from an hour to hour and a half.

When the surgeon and I finally agreed on having surgery next Tues at the main campus with a regular hospital and full staff and me going back to see my asthma Dr that day for more meds, I began to calm down. I was accepting it but not at all happy.

I was finally smiling and laughing and thanking everyone for helping me and putting up with me. I was really much better at the moment and I know they have a very hard time of dealing with patients. I do know that. And I wanted to thank the nurses especially because they really are the best and they were very very good with me and they were the ones that calmed me down. That is really the truth. I don't think Dr.s and others and maybe patients too, realize how special, important and indispensable they are. Every time I have ever been in the hospital the nurses are the ones that have made it not only livable but sometimes life saving. That is not over stating it either.

So I got through my surgeon being very over dramatic and yelling at me. I did even have a talk with her about that too. It was a long long day.

She had done this with me before in her office and now she was really doing it much more here.

Finally I said," You sound like you are mad at me. You're yelling at me and throwing your arms around and making faces at me."

"I'm not mad at you, I'm just trying to work things out for you." which she said angerly.

I just waited for a long moment and kept looking at her. I was really having second thoughts about this entire thing. I was really wondering if I should change my whole plan and place for my treatments. I just kept looking at this women and thinking do I want this women working on me and this whole place that keep messing up on me.

She told me, "I can squeeze you in next Tuesday for surgery and we do all of it then."

She was still making faces and empathizing that she could squeeze me in then. It didn't feel good to me, any of it. I didn't want my surgery to be squeezed in. Especially not by a Dr that was angry at me already.

"Well why don't we just wait and I'll schedule for when you aren't so busy and I'm better. I think that might be better." At this point I wasn't so sure of any of this anyway.

"I'm busy all the time." She started leaning over that darn little table at the end of my bed again. She was getting angry once again and making those darn faces. I really don't think she knows how she looks or sounds to the patient. Surgeons are notorious for terrible bedside manor and she took the cake for me.

"I'm over booked through January and I'll have to squeeze you in no matter what. I happy to do that. I want to book you and I will take all the time you need when I am working with you. I take all the time every patient needs, I do not hurry with anyone." She was leaning over that table and dropping her arms down and pushing her head toward me and just exhausted even telling me.

I told her, " You seem more upset about all this than me and I'm having a hard time. "

She didn't like that one bit which I've never talked to a Dr. like that before but I've never had a Dr. act so unprofessional before and I have had a lot of that with this group since I found the damn tumor.

She dropped more and leaned in more, "I'm just trying to do everything I can for you. What more do you want from me?"

Oh please. I want you to be more professional on every level for one. The only level I can figure out is that everyone tells me you are a good surgeon. Is that enough to go on? I've asked Dr.s and patients. On several occasions and sometimes more than once. About her. They all came back and said she was good. I never asked about her bedside manor.

I said ok lets do it on Tues. Lets do it. She got very calm and happy then. She was even smiling. I guess that made her very happy.

After that her nurse, the surgeon"s nurse came in to talk to me. After all this.

She came in and kneeled down beside me and started rubbing my arm and my back and I thought I was going to smack her. I know I sound awful. But she was irritating me so much. She kept telling me every thing was ok and every thing would work out.

I wasn't scared, I wasn't nervous about surgery! I was very pissed off and irritated. Finally I just told her to stop putting her hands on me and telling me every thing was ok. I started yelling at her.

"Everything is NOT ok. It's not ok. Nothing is ok. You people keep pulling my strings and hanging me around. You tell me to let it go and just keep going forward and I can't go forward. No one will let me go forward. Nothing is ok. Stop telling me everything is ok. I've waited over 3 months for this to go forward and for everything to be ok. Stop telling me everything is ok!"

I was awful, I'm really telling you.

I told her I wanted the needle out of my hand and she said to me,

" Well you need that in your hand and don't drink any water til we know when you're having surgery or how things might be changed."

I wanted to smack her.

I told her it had been canceled. I told her again, it's already been canceled. She kept talking smack and not knowing a thing she was talking about and suddenly to my surprise I turned to her little head sitting right by my freaking elbow and I said,

"Do you know anything you are talking about? Do you really know anything?"

"I'm here for you Valorie. I'm here just for you." she said in this really sickening insincere voice that I felt at the moment no matter how sincere she was or ever could have been.

I was looking right DOWN at her and I said in a very unpleasant voice I'm sure,

"Do you really have any idea what you are talking about?" I wanted an answer, not smack to placate me and treat me like I was five!!! She told me she had just gotten there and didn't know everything but she was here just for me.

"Then you better go catch up with things and get up to date before you start telling me things you don't know anything about because I have had my fill of that today alone."

I was just so furious and irritated I really didn't want anyone to touch me. My sister started to put her hand on me and I shrugged her away and said I didn't want anyone touching me, I really needed space right then. I was kind of afraid if any one touched me I was going to hit them or something. My feelings were so raw it was all I could do to contain them and I wasn't doing a very good job of it.

So I finally, finally got out of there and my sister and I went to lunch. We had a good lunch and my sister is really great. I can talk to her so much and just let my feelings out. She can too and we can get angry too with each other sometimes.

We will get angry with each other and I guess if anyone else is listening we must sound terrible, but then three mins later we are just great and laughing. That's how we are. I love it and that is what makes us have a great relationship. We don't let anything get pent up. We like it that way. She told me once that when we had a big big fight about something and she told her husband she was never going to talk to me again. We must have a had a huge fight about something. This was a long time ago. We hardly ever, never fight a whole day.

Her husband told her she would be talking to me the next day and she was mad at him cause he was right and he's always right. She doesn't remember what the fight was about but that her husband was always right. lol

So I had to tell so many people that I had not had the surgery. Boy, the support is great but the telling of everyone all the steps and missteps gets hard sometimes. My sister helped with that too. I couldn't even post simply that I did not have surgery. I thought about it, but I couldn't even do that.

When I went to bed last night I was a wreck. My asthma Dr. put me on 50mg of prednisone for the third time now and added another inhaler. Can't sleep on prednisone if you don't already know that. Now I'm on 3 inhalers, a rescue inhaler and the nebulizer with xzopenx again to get me up to the surgery so they don't turn me away again on Tues.!! I have to get better with all that, right? And now it's going to be just two days before Thanksgiving. I hate that. I do not want to stay home for Thanksgiving. I had to do that for my gallbladder and it made me sooo depressed I never want to do anything like again.

Thanksgiving is my most favorite holiday of the year too! No one has to buy gifts or anything and everyone just gets together and joins in food and celebration in giving thanks for what they have and have had. I love it. It's the best of all. I'm not missing it if I have to be hauled in on a stretcher. LOL. I'm just not. It's an hour drive to my niece's house is the only hard part I think. We shall see.

So enough, a long post again. It's got to get better from here.

So I'm going to play dominoes with my very good friends today instead of doing recovery with the boob tube and that will be the best thing in the world for me. First everyone will be shocked as hell that I am there unless Marie gets there before me and others, for her to tell them.

Marie is such a good friend. I walked into the surgery department and there was Marie!! I was so shocked. She was already there and I didn't know she was going to show up. So while I was waiting to be taken in it was really nice chatting with her and my sister. Then I went in by myself to get ready and then went through all that crap. They came in and discovered it was canceled and I was a wreck. Poor Marie. I felt bad she was seeing me like that but I couldn't stop my emotions. She is such a good friend and she has breast cancer and has gone through all this at some level so she understands a lot of the emotions that go with it too. She has been a blessing. She has had breast cancer for two years now.

She is doing really well but she says, "Every time you go in for a check up, your heart beats and you are scared no matter what. It just happens until you leave and everything is ok. You have to do that for so long.". I knew that from her talking before I knew I had breast cancer and I have found that out since. Five years is much longer than regular five years when you have cancer.


So I'm off to get ready for a much better day and maybe shopping this weekend because buying things has just got to make things better. It just has to. I don't usually shop, you have to understand. I spend all my shopping money on art supplies and not much on clothing. One women told me she understood it completely. She said that it would make me feel better when I started all this stuff. I could put on new clothes and feel more important and feel like a I looked better. So I think I just might go out and buy some more clothes. I knew there was something behind it. :)