[Potironette]

Oh gosh, I completely missed the part about this being the third time
Hopefully it'll work soon D:

[Boris]

Pink, I wish I could help you get your surgery done. Why didn't they call to let you know that the appointment was cancelled?

[Den]

Originally Posted by Gallagher

they don't want you eating or drinking anything for the hours before going under anesthesia because you could end up vomiting and causing a lot of complications that, if they don't interfere with the actual surgery, can give you problems in recovery. empty stomach is for a very good reason.

Which is what happened to me, because due to anxiety, my system slowed down, and I vomited. ended up having to have a breathing tube put in during surgery, and then I ended up vomiting a second time. Ended up going home with a super scratchy throat, and an inhaler. but now I know to go NPO (Nada por oro, aka nothing by mouth) even earlier than I did for this surgery. I was super sore after the surgery for about four days after the surgery, too, so I relied on ibuprofen and Tylenol for pain management.

[Pinkie]

I have no idea why I was not notified. All I can hope is to get a call tomorrow with a new date then the wait starts again.

It's a huge pain in my rear end.

[Den]

I don't doubt it. Here's hoping everything works out soon!

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Originally Posted by Pink pantzer

See my issue is that I get so close to it. Even the day of and it gets canceled. 3 times this has happened and I have waited over 6 years for this surgery and it keeps getting pushed back. I think I am getting more frustrated and upset by the day the longer this goes on.

I am almost at the point of saying screw it and just going back to work and stuff even though I'm not supposed to. I am just so fed up with this all and yet canada is supposed to have a great medical field...haha yeah okay then.

Sad fact of life unfortunately. Where I live now, the doctor crunch is so bad that it can take months to find a gp, if you get one at all, and ER waits are horrendous because there is simply too many people for the system.

Unfortunately, with long wait lists comes lots of room for jostling. I had an emergency surgery delayed for 9 hours because people came in who were in worse shape than I was. That surgery took twice as long as it was supposed to, so now I've just delayed the next person's procedure. Even my transplant surgery was delayed by 2 hours. I forget why. It's not something that can get fixed without simply getting more than we've currently got. If you are able to wait, you do.

It sucks though. Odd that they didn't tell you about your surgery being cancelled. Human oversight would be my guess. If I recall correctly, back surgeries are notorious for being put off.

[Pinkie]

Yeah mine is a major one and the first of three. The only reason why I'm so upset is because of how long I have waited for it and the fact that I was not told anything. Not even from admition. You think they would know as well. That's the piss off.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

I imagine privacy laws and such make things tangled up. Someone's health care is not public information, so it can't just be fired around the place to everyone who might benefit from having it. There are computer systems that keep track of things but only to a point. I simple take the initiative and deal with information management myself. For example, I have so many specialists that if I get a test on the order of one, I'll get that sent to my gp or other specialists if I think it's important for them to know. Each of my doctors will have a file, bit it will not always have the same stuff. I've made myself a health binder where I keep all the test results and paperwork I can get my hands on, so that I have records of what my health has been like for when I end up at a new doctors' office or in the ER.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

On a more personal note, I can understand the frustrations of waiting and hoping that things might get fixed, only to be told when the times does come around that you have to wait more. All I can say is try to keep up with the intention of going through with it when it does happen. Something like that can really make your life for the better, and are you any worse off if it doesn't happen? I was scared to get my transplant to the point where I might have backed out, and part of the difficultly I had was trying to get "better" wrapped around my head as a concept, since I've been sub-par for so long and all I really cared about was that things stay reasonably normal, even if that normalcy sucked. It's the little things that hit the most, I found. Even during recovery, not having to have dialysis treatment three times a week was so new, I almost didn't believe all the extra time I suddenly had. It made me feel much better, even though I was still sore and in hospital for other reasons.

[Coda]

Having worked on the IT side of those health privacy laws before, I can tell you: They're there for very good reasons and the inconveniences are a price worth paying to make sure that someone can't walk up to the nurse's station when nobody's looking and get a list of all of the mental disorders you've been evaluated for.

That said, the laws are supposed to always let the patient be able to access their own information, so if they're having administrative problems with getting information to the people that need it, you can't blame the law for that -- that's just an underperforming clerical staff. (Which might be due to overloading.)

[Quiet Man Cometh]

In the lower mainland of BC here our health care system is overburdened to crisis point. If I have an issue, I generally try to go one district over and get admitted there. Regions have different health authorities and the one I'm currently in is the worst off. Different health authorities can also have an awkward time sharing records. That's part of why I have my "blue binder" of my own health records to tote back and forth.

I'm not sure how it works, but I know some people go out of province or out of region for health care if their region is having problems. Sometimes it's welcome because it can lighten up the local load. I know a couple relatives of mine would go to Alberta for certain health matters because the wait lists for a specific specialist were shorter. So long as you are willing to make the trip, it can help out with long lists or bumped surgeries. I know an eye surgeon here gets a lot of patients from the northern end of the province because they can fly down and get surgery in a matter of weeks instead of months. It depends on the local allocation of resources.

[Pinkie]

Thank you everyone. You have given me a lot to think about. It took some time and some waiting but I finally got my new date. I go on the 23rd of June so next Friday. Hopefully this time goes through nd it won't be a cancel again.

Shitty time for an event to come out lol

[Moonshadow]

Pink: I'm glad you finally have a date.
Hope all goes well.

[Pinkie]

Well I went through surgery. They were going to do one and instead did two in one. So because of that I have a stay in the hospital. I hopefully get to go home tomorrow. Just got the tube taken out of my back and it sucked but now I am on the road to recovery so yay!

Thank you all so much for your support.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Well if you're only in for a few days than it's probably not too bad. Hope things go well for you and you get to be home soon.

[Pinkie]

I was supposed to leave Friday but nope weekend stay. Oh well