#151 Anesthesiologist Appointment (11/02/12)

Well, as part of my TTC journey, I had my anesthesiologist appointment yesterday.  When the nurse was making the appointment with me she warned me to bring water, snacks, and something to read, the appointments would take at least 2-3 hours.  Being I didn’t want to pay for outrageous hospital parking I had arranged to have my MIL to drop me off and pick me up when I was done.  I had also booked the afternoon off work.  My baggage carrying into this appointment was fairly large, I had a big bag of all my medications, and vitamins, with a bottle of water.  Then I had my large purse with a variety of snacks stuffed into it.  Then I had the big book “What to Expect When Your Expecting” by Heidi Murkoff, Sharon Mazel.  (On a side note, I have been told it is not a kind book to people who are overweight, so I’m trying to take any negativity with a grain of salt, and doing a slight skim read instead of reading word for word.  So far it has been worth the read.) and of course a travel coffee mug.  When a hospital says the appointment is going to be 2-3 hours I was ready for longer. 

The appointment was to consist of and EKG, nurse consult, anesthesiologist consult and chest x-ray.  The estimated time waiting was I think because you are forever waiting for the appointment to start on time, then the next person, move to next area and wait, and repeat. 

This is how the appointment ended up going.  Traffic was good, so I was about 15 minutes early.  When I went up to the admissions desk, they thought I was someone else, which had been late.  Because the earlier appointment was late or a no-show, and I was early they put me in that slot.  So I was escorted into the exam room right away by the nurse consultant.  I got my bags put down, and the EKG technician came in right away to do that first.  That was very quick, and unofficially looked good, yay.  The nurse stayed in the room, so once I was done the EKG I sat with her, went over my medications and medical history.  She also took my blood pressure, which was a little high, but we were talking about babies and TTC, so I chalk it up to that, but I think my blood pressure might be something to keep an eye on.  Not good.  Once the consultation was done with her she left the room saying the doctor would be in soon, which I took as I would be waiting for a while.  I read less than two pages in the book and the doctor came in.  We went over my anesthetic options for surgery; she asked a few health questions; then instructed me to go back to the front desk to get my x-ray form and go over to the emergency wing of the hospital to get to imaging diagnostics.  So I did just that. 

Once at the diagnostics area, I handed the form to the front desk, which she then instructed me to have a seat in the waiting room.  I was the only person there.  About a minute later I get called by the x-ray technician to get changed into a very fashionable hospital gown.  Once I was changed I went right in, had two x-rays, and left.  The whole series of events took a little less than 45 minutes.  The down side, I had to go back to work, the up side, I have no red flags for surgery in two weeks.  Yay.