May. 24th, 2009

dodont: (meditate)
As some people know, I got my surgery date yesterday, and it's for much sooner than expected: 2nd June. I should be overjoyed, but for various reasons I'm scared and anxious.

For starters, it's not with the original surgeon, it's with someone I've never met. The surgeon I saw was a bit of a twat personally but is one of the top knee specialists in Edinburgh, and I'd emailed him with some questions and he was going to discuss everything with me before the surgery in the pre-assessment. I am confident that he's seen a zillion knees like mine and will do a good job. I have no idea who this new surgeon is, and from google stalking it appears she's either just out of training or still training and of the couple of papers I have found by her, one is a case study about nicking a nerve during an arthroscopy. She's not listed on the orthopaedic specialists site, the hospital list of consultants, or the university's faculty list. AND the person I'm having the pre-assessment with is someone entirely different again so I wouldn't even get to discuss it with her beforehand.

People have been saying how hard can it be, she'll have the notes and know what to do, one surgeon is like another, but given it's taken this bloody long to make a diagnosis I am worried that there might be something unexpected and if an inexperienced surgeon does it she'll just leave it, patch me back up, and put me back on the waiting list. This surgery *HAS* to go well. It may not be my life, but it's my mobility and it's my sanity, and I don't think I can cope with this not being the end of this stupid episode. It may seem stupid, but I'd prefer to wait a little while to have surgery with an experienced surgeon who knows what he's doing than have it now with someone who might botch it up or leave it unfinished.

And my mum won't be here until the 10th. I would really like her to be here for just after the surgery, because I'm expecting for a little while I'll need a lot of help. I find it hard to ask other people for help because I read a lot of resentment into people's faces, and I feel bad for asking for things. And other people are just not as good at it - of course people want to go off and enjoy the sun or go shopping or just do their own thing. But my mother doesn't seem to resent it at all, I really think she loves being my mum and helping out as much as she can. It seems to make her happy. I really miss having her close by at the moment, and it would be a huge relief for her to be here after surgery. And nobody else would be as comforting if something goes wrong.

And then I'm just scared about having surgery in general. I've never even had *stitches* before. Being put under anaesthetic, being in a hospital, having someone cut bits of me, that's all pretty scary stuff. I made the mistake of looking at lateral release videos on YouTube, because the chondral defect ones were actually pretty interesting. Lateral release looks much worse - they just slice through a bit of tissue willy-nilly and off you go. It's like carving a turkey. And the surgery itself is 70% likely to work anyway. A lot hinges on this surgery, and I am scared to death that I'm going to be that 30% or that something's going to go wrong, and that I'm going to be stuck like this. I am very anxious that it goes well.

Anyway. The plan of action is to call them up and find out why I've been given a different surgeon, find out how much experience she's had, and find out when Wade's next opening is. If I can be seen by Wade say a couple of weeks later, I would feel much more comfortable doing that. I did try calling yesterday but I guess they're not there for the weekend which probably means bank holiday too, which leaves Tuesday, which is a week from the surgery date ...
dodont: (el chupacabra!)
Ignore my last post. I've been doing some epic google stalking and it sounds like this new surgeon is perfectly well qualified, if not as experienced as the first one. Maybe it would help to have someone with newer ideas or something. But anyway, I'm feeling a lot more confident about it, I think I was just thrown by not knowing what to expect. I don't like surprises. Holy crap surgery a week on Tuesday!

edit: And my mum's going to see if she can fly out earlier.

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