9. Pre-admission Clinic
I had an appointment for 2pm on the Wednesday afternoon, two days before my surgery. I was told to allow 2-3 hours for the appointment. After my first appointment at the clinic, I could see why this might be the case. I had to take a urine sample and all my relevant paperwork and Medicare card. I learnt to never leave home without it.
We arrived and were surprised to find about half a dozen people in the waiting room, not the usual crowd and mayhem. I left my sample in the labelled wooden box on the wall and took a seat. Not long after, a girl took me into a room to do an ECG. It’s standard procedure before surgery. Then we went back to waiting. There appeared to be a few steps in this process, so we waited to see what was next. Up the hallway there was a whiteboard on the wall with each patient’s name on it and each step of their pre-admission was labelled and ticked off as it was completed.
After about 20 minutes we were taken into an office to answer more questions and more paperwork. This was done by the woman with the ‘bunny ears’ I’d seen in the clinic before Easter. She seemed to spend more time interacting with the computer than us. As the day of surgery involved a number of steps and procedures, everything had to line up and be planned. Then it was back to the waiting room. We noted the water cooler hadn’t been fixed since our last visit and felt sorry for the number of people who came up, took a glass, pressed the tap and got nothing. Some noticed the jug of water perched on top of it, others walked off in frustration. Again I was glad I always carry a steel water bottle everywhere I go.
We were pleased with how things were progressing and figured it wouldn’t take all afternoon as the clinic closed at 5pm. We waited about 45 minutes this time and then saw a registrar. More questions about my health. More data entered onto the computer. He was surprised that I was only on one medication, for hypertension. He was impressed with my fitness. I could almost hear the unspoken words ‘for your age’! He had a student with him who checked my heart, lungs and blood pressure. He decided I was fit and healthy enough and didn’t need to see the anaesthetist which was a bonus.
Now it was back to the waiting room. Surely we were nearly at the end of the process. The clerk checked I had my appointments I needed for surgery day (that was going to be a long day). It turns out no one had made an appointment for me at Nuclear Medicine which was to be my first stop for a sentinel node scan. She made that appointment for me and then our last stop was to go to Pathology for blood tests. This was downstairs, not far inside the front door and seemed fitting that after that we would be out the door. Fortunately I didn’t have to wait long and found the nurse very sympathetic when I told her I was having surgery for breast cancer. She offered to send a copy of the results to my GP – always good to have them in a couple of places and avoid my GP sending me for more blood tests as well.
We were finally out after about 2 hours. This was getting serious. Two more sleeps and it was surgery day.