Pre-op and prep work: DONE

One word to describe the University of Iowa Hospitals: thorough. I think mom expected to be in and out of there today in about an hour, but it didn't work out that way. We arrived at the Cancer Center for her appointment at 9:30 a.m. and went through all of the steps that we did back in April: visit with the resident, the physician assistant, get a chest x-ray, an EKG, give more blood, talk to anesthesiologist... just when you think you are done there is always one more thing to do. So we got out of there today a little before 4:00 p.m., but she has ALL of the instructions needed and has talked to the resident and signed the surgery consent form (again). In theory she could have surgery tomorrow if needed.

There were a lot of little instructions, like what to eat and when to stop eating before surgery. No vitamins, aspirin or ibuprofen the week before (Tylenol ok). And she can take her Lovenox shot the day before but not the day of surgery.

I'm not going to talk about the "bowel prep" part... that's about as scary as the surgery.

She has an appointment next week at Trinity 7th Street Moline to flush her port cath out again just to make sure that they can access it during surgery. When it goes without use it will get clogged up with misc. tissue and fibers that the body produces when something foreign is in the body. The last thing she needs is problems with the port the day of surgery.

The surgeon's office will call her on Monday, the day before surgery, to tell her what time to report to the hospital on Tuesday. We accidentally walked into the surgery floor when we were wandering around the hospital trying to find the cafeteria, so at least we know where to go that morning. The U of I Hospital is gi-nor-mous and you could spend a week in there and never step a foot outside. One woman we were with in Elevator H said that she hadn't been outside in two days.

She hasn't said what she wants to do for her birthday yet (Tuesday the 15th!!! Get your cards in the mail!!!), but I'm thinking that we will go out to dinner on Tuesday night to a new place out in Geneseo that just opened up recently. She was tired today - and just plain achy.... and ready for this surgery to be over with. She's already talking about trips that she wants to take next year and has signed up for one with her "Classic Club" and is also thinking about a trip to AZ in the spring. It will be nice to see her having fun once again after this is all over.