Admission for surgery! The ‘D’ day!
As discussed earlier, it is important we get admitted several hours ahead, may be the night before if it is a intestinal surgery. Early admission helps us get acclimatised to the new surroundings. Also, the hospital gets enough time to ensure all the preparatory steps are completed in time.
Hospitals need to prepare the patient by shaving the surgical parts, preparing the bowels if needed and administering any pre surgical medication. Also the duty anaesthetist is going to examine us again to make sure everything is ok. Ensure the incharge nurse verifies the pre approval from Insurance, since it is not easy to pay for medical bills, from our pockets these days.
We all need to remember, we still bleed when we are cut open for surgery and also blood is not manufactured. So making sure we have arranged for some donors to chip in is a good idea. Best way to handle this issue is to get our friends one or two units of blood and the blood bank would reserve a equal number of units of cross matched blood in our name. Crossmatched? Our blood sample is mixed with the donor blood to make sure it is compatible. When blood banks reserve, a bag of blood is cross matched and kept ready for our use in case of need. Usually blood banks release the blood for others after the surgery is done.
Anesthesia
Usually we are wheeled into the pre op room, a room close to the operation theatre, to wait for the theatre to get ready. Usually one of your close relative will be with you during this wait and an another round of counselling and consent signatures are taken. At the right moment you are wheeled in after a line is put in your vein and a sedation given to calm you. Of course, everybody needs that, as no body is a pro in this sort of business!
Inside the anaesthetist receives you, as he talks to you many others will be doing many other things. Somebody gives you medication through the IV set on your arm, while somebody else is putting a cautery pad under your leg. The nurse is busy arranging the instruments on the trolly while the anaesthesia technician is getting the mask onto your face. Don’t be too worried about so many people busy scurrying around you while innumerable machines beeping all at once! This cacophony is an outcome of a systematic routine out of a military precision. They know what they are doing! Let us get to sleep. That is our job!