Monday 4 December 2006

Surgery Stress!

Those who read my blog on a regular basis would know that we are taking our daughter Amber(5) to Sydney for open heart surgery at the end of the week. It is a 5 hour drive in the car (with 3 kids under 6 in the back seat!)
Last time we went to Sydney for Ambers previous surgery appointment we had our accommodation cancelled only a couple of days before we were due to arrive which was a major problem, but we found an alternative (which ended up costing us a fortune).


Amber has been booked in for what is hopefully her last open heart surgery for the past 10 weeks. We have had our accommodation at Ronald McDonald House booked for 10 weeks (same place that cancelled last time). They had asked me to ring a couple of working days before we arrive to confirm the booking. So I rang this morning. She hadn't checked the books yet and asked me to ring back later this afternoon. It is quite stressful not knowing for sure if you have somewhere to stay or not, but I thought ok, I can wait a few more hours and ring back.


In the mean time I needed to find out when Amber needs to stop her Asprin (blood thinner), so I rang the cardiac department to ask. The doctor needed to be paged to ask him about the Asprin, so the lady from the Cardiac department said she would ring back with the answer.


A few hours later she rang back and told me the Asprin needed to be stopped today - 7 days before the surgery. Oh and one other minor detail... the child who was supposed to be having surgery this morning was sick (a cold or something) and couldn't have surgery and they might do his surgery next Monday instead of Ambers! Amber's surgery may be put off for a week, she said she would ring back today and let me know either way.


I couldn't believe it. We have had to arrange so many things in preperation for going to Sydney, the accommodation is one of the big things but then there is all the other things like paying bills in advance, taking Jade out of school for 2 weeks to go to Sydney, arranging to have her school report sent to us because she wouldn't be ther to pick it up, taking Amber out of Preschool for the rest of the year, and the list goes on and on. As we will be away for at least 2 weeks it is quite a big task.


I couldn't help but think, why couldn't the child who was to sick today have their surgery in 2 weeks (on the day Ambers surgery might be pushed back to) rather than the day Amber has been booked in for for the last 10 weeks?? Or why couldn't this child take the surgery day of another child who lives more locally? I know this child also has heart problems too, but it just doesn't seem fair. We are under so much stress as it is without having to deal with 'maybe' accommodation and now this.


As it turned out the lady from the cardiac department never rang back today to let us know what on earth is going on. I haven't been able to think about anything else all day. All I have done is watched the clock wondering when she was going to ring... but she never did. I suppose I will have to ring in the morning to find out what is happening.


I think it is fair to want to know what is going on when it is only 2 days before you arrive and I can't ring to confirm our accommodation until I know what day her surgery will be!



.... Just another day ....

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