Pre-op day 2

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.