Thursday, September 20, 2007

Pre-op appointment Tuesday 9-18-07 at OHSU

Tuesday we headed out at 10 am for our 2 pm appointment in Portland. The nausea calmed down and was much better leaving me able to eat again. PHEW!!! However, very LATE in the evening prior I was struck with ear pain in my left ear (opposite of the surgery side). The surgery instructions stated that I was to stop taking anything herbal 1 week (preferably 2 weeks) prior to the surgery. Therefore I did not take any echinacea, multivitamin, vitamin C, or anything else. I thought the ear ache would pass as it had been appearing off and on over the past couple weeks mildly at night and then would disappear by morning. Because I was so out of commission on the weekend, I was awake early, all day, and into the wee hours of tuesday morning making sure I had everything I needed. As a result, with the reduced immunity on the steriods, the stress, and trying to gather everything in the last day I picked up something.

The ear ache accompanied by a headache and fatigue carried with me all day Tuesday. I had the physicians assistant take a look and he could not see anything but proposed I might have picked up a cold or something viral to keep an eye on this week.

The pre-op went well. There was a mistake with reserving a captioner but it still turned out as every examining room is outfitted with a complete technological computer setup and a word processing program. Thus Dr. Delashaw's assistant Steve typed out everything and it worked really well. I feel we had all the questions we could gather in our brain addressed. The entire appointment lasted until a little after 5 pm (no pokes or blood draws either!! :oP )

Afterward we went to the beautiful Spagetti Factory restaurant in Portland just near the hospital on the Willamette river with friends Dave and Christie. They invited us to stay at their condo in Portland just a hop skip and jump up the road from the restaurant and the hospital. We had a lovely evening visiting with them and fortunately some orange juice, acetametaphin, and a good night's sleep cleared up the pain in my left ear by the morning.

Thanks Dave and Christie for your generous hospitality! We had a stressful few day and you really helped us to unwind after a crazy few days! Food, good conversation, a relaxing atmosphere, and a good night's sleep is really what we were needing!

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