My First Blood Transfusion
The day before my surgery I had to go in to the hospital to answer questionnaires and have lab work done. In pre-op on surgery day, the really fun anaesthesiologist, Dr. Dawaskiba wanted to know about my lab results. I told him they had been done the previous day, so he went to find them. My doctor came back with the bad news. My blood count was way down and I’d need a transfusion before I could go through surgery. Okay. Margo had already put in my IV (it was my first ever IV, too, a little ouchy, but not too bad), so they just brought a bag of blood and hooked it up to the IV to start dripping it into my vein, too.
I had always thought the words “blood transfusion” so daunting. Like something strange and complicated that people only near death experience. It was a piece of cake. Michael and I sat there (me in my stylish pre-op hat, shoes and johnnie) watching the rich, red blood drip into the line that went into my vein. It was cold. So now I’d be cold-blooded. I’ve been called that and worse. Margo came in to check on us and said the aneasthesia team would probably come and warm it up for me. Sure enough, five minutes later, Dr. Dawaskiba was there with a handy dandy little blood warming machine so the blood would be nice and warm before it entered my arm. Very spiffy. Michael kept adjusting the drip. We joked that he could do that despite the fact that he hadn’t stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
I asked Dr. D if he could arrange the anaesthesia drugs to make me have nice dreams about snorkeling and swimming with dolphins. He said “sure”, and that he had some really good stuff for me. Cool! I still remember the dream I had 40 years ago when I was under having my tonsils out. Finally, after two units of blood I was ready to go in. My color was much better and I felt like I could run a marathon. But they had other plans for me….I smooched with my hubby and took off into the wild blue operating room (it really did have blue tiles on the walls). It felt strange being wheeled around on a gurney like a sick person. When I got in there, a bunch of people started doing things to me. Putting monitor thingies on my chest, strapping me to the table spreading my arms out onto warm armrests (or whatever they were). Then I just slipped off into La La Land……
Tags: St. Croix
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:04 am
Oh my…you need to monitor that anemia better Terry.
Being put under is quite strange. One second you are there and the next second you are trying to figure out what happened. Meanwhile hours have passed and you were clueless to the passing time.
I had abdominal surgery many years ago. It seemed every muscle in my body was attached to that incision.
But then, suddenly I began gaining strength and the soreness disappeared. By suddenly I mean days and weeks. After the first 96 hours I felt much better.
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:08 am
Yeah, it’s amazing how much we use our abdominal muscles. But that makes me wonder whay there are still so many people around with huge bulging guts? Don’t they move?