A lot more info

4 MONTH CHECK UP

So it’s now March! A few weeks ago back in February I had my 4 month check up appointment at the Royal Children’s Hospital. I went in not knowing how much information I was going to get for it was my first appointment there. First they took my height and I was almost the exact same height as 4 months ago (4mm shorter!) I got more X-rays and found out my curve had increased by 6 degrees, so it is currently 54 degrees. Because it had increased so quickly we wanted the surgery sooner rather than later. We sat down with one of the surgeons there who I hadn’t met before.. He was lovely and actually the first surgeon ever to tell me that surgery is my choice and if I really don’t want it I don’t need it. He then sent me onto Donna who does all the administration and surgery booking, she checked what dates I could potentially have surgery. First she offered me a possible date. A date depending on how many beds were available in icu, where I’d need to go to sleep eating no food. Then, the next morning, they’d call me and either say yes come in and have surgery – or no come in another day and we’ll organise a new date! This was a bit too anxiety filled for me as I really wanted a set date which I could prepare for. Donna was lovely and completely understood this. She found a date where I could have it with a surgeon I’d seen previously. This date is now the 27th of March. Exactly 10 days today.

PRE-OP

A few days ago I had my pre-op! It was basically a day where I got a bit more information and had a few tests. First we were an hour early so had to wait around for ages. When it was finally time Donna met us and we went to have a chat with her. She pretty much told us everything that’s going to happen from when I first go in to when I leave a few days after surgery. I had to practise rolling onto my side in preparation for when I do that with the nurses after the op. It was quite a relaxed discussion but it did make it all very real. Realising it was just two weeks until surgery!

After seeing Donna she sent us off to have a few tests. All the tests were next to the meerkat enclosure so at least I had something to look at while I was waiting.

First I did a heart test where I pretty much got to just lay on a bed with a bunch of stickers on me all attached to wires. It was quite relaxing actually. Next was lung function test. I sat in a little clear booth with an annoying little nose piece on(which kept falling off) with a big tube like machine next to me. I did two tests, one where I had to breathe out super quickly as much as I could as forcefully as I could; next test I just had to breathe completely normally, in and out of the tube. In the second test after a few breaths they put this little shutter down which made it so hard to breathe. It was horrible, I actually felt like I wasn’t breathing.

Next up was the one test I had been dreading all day. THE BLOOD TEST! I know it sounds stupid but I’d never had one before and I’d been told bad things. A really scary old lady walked out to get someone to have a blood test and I was very worried she was coming to get me but she didn’t, instead I had a really nice lady. The blood test wasn’t even that bad. I just sat there and watched Playschool which was on (hehe). She then gave me a Snow White bandaid which made it even better (haha).

The final thing to do was get photos taken. I had to have professional photos done in a full on photography room. The photographer had to keep adjusting the lighting so he could get the shadow right to see my curve, which since I’m quite into photography I found quite interesting. These were just so I can compare my back before and after surgery.

It’s now become very real and with all these tests done I’m realising just how close it is to the surgery day. I am a little nervous but I’m feeling quite prepared which helps. Not long now!!