Afternoon at the Hospital

Today Becky and I went down to Buffalo General Hospital for me to undertake the scheduled Pre-Surgery Admittance Testing. My appointment was for 1:15 pm and we went down there early. We arrived at the parking ramp a little after 12 noon. We had to figure out where to park and ended up at a different ramp on the 4th level. It was actually a better location than the first one we pulled into which turned out to be employees only. So from the ramp we walked down the street to the hospital lobby to register.

When we were there last week we saw that there was a very long line at the registration desk when we left the hospital around noon which is why we wanted to get there early. Well, we walked in today at about 12:15 and there was no line at all. We walked right up to the desk and did our paperwork including that picture ID for the visit. From there we went down the long hall to building C and the PAT center. Becky sat down in the waiting room and I went in to register. We were almost an hour early but the nurses took me in right away and immediately began the process of the pre surgery testing. First they took some bloodwork, meds info, medical history and blood pressure. Then an EKG test. I also needed a chest X-Ray but first I had to meet with someone from anesthesiology department because of my history with malignant hyperthermia reaction to anesthesia gas.

It took a little over an hour for someone from anesthesiology came to talk with me but it was worth the wait. Obviously he was very busy, in scrubs and with a mask around his neck. He was very knowledgeable and asked the right questions. We went over the family history of the malignant hyperthermia and the brain aneurysms. During the hour long wait the nurses at the PAT center called the anesthesiology dept several times reminding them that there was a patient here (me) that needed to be interviewed. The nurses I dealt with were all very professional and very nice people who cared very much about their patients.

During the long wait the nurses went I got Becky who was sitting in the waiting room to come and sit with me in the PAT center where we were able to talk while waiting. She was also there for the interview with the anesthesiologist and contributed to the informational conversation.

After I talked with the anesthesiologist one of the nurses took me and Becky down the long hall to an elevator with the instructions to take it one floor down to the lower level and the the X-Ray center which would be right there at the elevator. We went down and I registered at the desk. About 10 or 15 minutes I had my chest x-ray which only took a few minutes to complete. Then we were done for the day.

The entire visit took about 2 hours but that included an hour wait for the anesthesiologist. Otherwise we would have been done by 1 pm. So around 2 we walked down the street to the parking garage, took the elevator up to the 4th level and found our car right away. The parking cost us $7. About ten minutes later we were home.

Coming down here and parking in the garage was a good dry run practice for my surgery day which is two weeks away. We will get down to the hospital around 7 am. The surgery is scheduled for 9 but there is some preliminary prep to be done. I'm looking forward to getting that all done and over with.