Pre-Op

The next morning, 11/19, I had my pre-op appointment at The Medical Center of Aurora. I already had most of my labs done before I left for Denver, so the only thing remaining was a chest x-ray. This was good, because at this point my cough still hadn't left, and I was becoming more worried that they would either cancel the surgery or I'd cough my stitches off once I emerged from the fog of anesthesia.

I have to say that although the pre-op process took a few hours, it was very organized so no complaints there. Roger was good enough to come along and listen to my cough neuroses, and politely reminded me that he was in no danger of catching my psycho-somatic cough.

Once the labs were done and my anxiety was on THREAT LEVEL: RED, we picked up a late lunch at Panera Bread (great sandwiches, and a generally nice place to relax) and waited to pick up Stace from the airport. Her flight was delayed by 30 minutes (thanks United; are you charging for delays now also?), but we eventually picked her up and brought her back to her new home for the next 8+ days.

Once settled in, we all headed down to the now-famous grill at the hotel (delicious food if your only other option is Sam's Rat Burgers) and Stacey and Roger did their best to keep my mind off of the surgery by reminding me constantly about the surgery. (Okay, they didn't really do that, but it added a little more drama to the blog entry.)

All we had left to do was wait, and wait is what we did. The hours became minutes, the minutes became seconds, and I counted every single one as a lay in bed tossing and turning, waiting for my perma-cough to eventually go away.

Coming up Next: Day 1 - Surgery