Month: April 2016

Corinne and I packed a lunch and headed off to the hospital today for my second day of pre-op. We did less reading today because there was less waiting. We had appointments with an internist, an occupational therapist, and an anaesthetist. They all commented on how young I am. It’s been many years since anyone, besides my 94 year old mother-in-law, has called me young. It’s a relative thing, you see, because most of the joint replacement  patients are over 80. To the joint replacement team, I’m a young man.

I was expecting to be awake for the surgery with just a spinal, but the anaesthetist told me today that they’ll probably knock me out because my surgery will take a long time. Initial hip replacement surgery is done in about an hour, but my revision surgery is complicated and might take up to four hours. I was hoping to be awake to gather material for my blog, but I guess that’s not to be. The good news is that I’ve passed the medical tests, and my surgery will go ahead next Wednesday.

After our hospital appointments I had to visit my dentist for a quick appointment, and Corinne decided to wait in the car. Because my phone was out of power, I plugged it into a charger in the car and turned the ignition key an extra click to the right so that the power was on.
Corinne said to me, “Ron, isn’t that going to run down the battery.”
“No, I scoffed, there’s plenty of power, and my appointment won’t take long.”
As I was leaving the car, Corinne asked me one more time, and I chuckled and reassured her that car would not run out of power.

I had to wait to see the dentist and didn’t return to the car for 45 minutes. Corinne said, “This car won’t let you keep the ignition key turned on. The radio shut off after half an hour.”
“Oh,” I said, “That must be a feature. I guess it’s to keep people from running down their batteries.”

I turned the key to start the car and there was no sound. The shut-off of the electical system was not a feature–the battery was dead. Corinne looked at me intensely, and I gave her a small sheepish smile. I sat for a moment in silence with my hands on the steering wheel staring straight ahead and thinking. Then Corinne said, “Why don’t you call our friend Rick? He lives just around the corner.” And so I did. Rick answered his phone on the first ring and arrived within minutes with booster cables. He saved the day and my marriage. Not only is Rick a heck of a saxophone player, but he’s an excellent roadside technician.

So now I just need to relax and do deep breathing exercises until my surgery on May the 4th. May the 4th be with you and with my surgeon.

As you can see from the x-ray on this site, my old stainless steel hip is toast. For those who don’t know my story–I had a hip replacement 20 years ago, and then some years later, I crashed on my bike and broke the femur. Doctors repaired it with a metal bar, screws, and some twist ties. It worked well for 19 years, but now it’s time for new hardware.

Today I had my pre-op appointment at Hôpital de Hull. I was instructed to bring my coach, Corinne, with me to the appointment. We arrived at 8:15 a.m., and I filled out some forms before seeing a nurse. It turns out that the hospital was unable to schedule all my appointments for today, so we’ll be returning tomorrow.

After meeting with a nurse to learn about my surgery and answer some questions I was sent to various places to have tests done. The tests are to determine whether I’m healthy enough to have surgery. If I am, the operation will be next week on May 4th,  which my friends tell me is Star Wars Day  (May the 4th be with you). I think that’s a good omen.

Sitting and waiting is a skill that’s worth mastering. Today Corinne and I sat in several waiting rooms. Luckily we brought reading material with us. The trick is to not believe that you’re waiting for anything. Rather, you must believe that you’ve chosen to sit in an uncomfortable chair in a room with 50 sick strangers to read a book for two hours. You chose that spot because it was the perfect place to sit and read that book. And if you believe that, as I did today, then waiting is a piece of cake. Tomorrow, Corinne and I will go back to the hospital to do some more reading.