Yesterday I went in for ass surgery round four - this time with the new surgeon from Wake Forest. I'll never willingly undergo surgery at Forsyth Medical Center again unless it's my absolute only choice. The difference in how things were handled at the two hospitals was just startling. It started with my pre-op anesthesia appointment. WF does it as a separate event, so I went in at 7am on Monday morning. First appointment of the day was awesome - they tell you it can take up to 2 hours, but I was in and out in just about 45 minutes.
We were told to arrive yesterday at the outpatient surgery center at 1:30pm for a 2:30 procedure. I checked in at the desk and had barely sat down and we were called back. After I was undressed and ready to go on the gurney, the nurse came in and started my IV, the anesthesiology resident and primary anesthesiologist both came in and talked with me, my surgeon came in, and then the OR nurse came in - I really didn't have an opportunity to read more than a page or two in the book I'd brought between visits.
My surgeon suggested that we could do what she needed under sedation rather than full general anesthesia - sedation like you'd have with a colonoscopy. I was a bit anxious about that, but she said recovery is obviously quicker (and having had a colonoscopy I knew this). I said I'd go with it if she assured me that if I had any negative awareness that they'd crank up the drugs. She laughed and said definitely, so we went with that idea.
The plan for the day was to have her take a look around at what was going on, and insert a seton - basically a loop of rubber band like material through the fistula tunnel that would connect externally - rather like an ass ring (oh, that's a painful visual).
They took me back, had me lay prone on the table with several nice foam pieces to keep my head positioned well so I could breathe. The next thing I knew, they were asking me to roll back over onto the gurney, and rolled me out into recovery. They brought the Man back in to see me, and he said the surgeon told him she didn't need to put in the rubber band, and had opened part of the tunnel up to heal on it's own, and the rest had gone away.
I'm still a little confused as to which part was opened and which had closed - the part closest to external was bigger than the internal bit - but I've sent my surgeon a message to clarify, and I have an appointment to see her in 2 weeks (I love Wake Forest's electronic patient access system - you can securely email any care giver, and they will answer promptly).
The Man said she seemed pretty confident that this was over now. Hooray! That means I can make the appointment with our reproductive endocrinologist (also at Wake Forest) and see what we might be able to do about baby making.
Success!
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