Pre-Op Appointment Today

Friday October 4, 1991

I didn't sleep from 2:30-4:45 a.m. last night so sleep in til 9 a.m. I still don't feel rested. Maybe I'm depressed. I have my pre-op appointments today at 3 p.m. at Kaiser. I am concerned about the Lemona house but last night I couldn't stop thinking about the house we saw for Gary.

I accomplish little other than getting ready to go to Kaiser. I feel fine by then. A shower does wonders. We talk at great length with my surgeon, Dr. Bienstock. He is a 35-40 year old small Jewish man. Not bad looking, not good. His manner is polite and unrushed. I tell him I'm praying for him to have a steady, accurate hand and mind for my surgery. He tells me he has been operating 5 years and has done 4 ovarian cancer surgeries this week. When I ask how those patients are doing, he replies "Not as well as you. I removed their cancers and female organs." Dr. Bienstock says he will remove my appendix and take many biopsies while I'm on the table. We decide that morphine would probably be best as I had dry heaves with Demerol years ago.

Next we spend time with the surgery nurses going over the procedures for Monday where to check in and where they will take me and everything that will happen. We meet with the anesthesiologist. He's a nice young man but not the one who will assist on Monday. He agrees we should try morphine. Next I go to the lab to have some more blood work.

Today the doctor said I could need as much as 4 pints of blood. That's not what he said a few weeks ago. Had we known we could have asked Paul and Phil (Frank's sons) to donate. I will pray that I don't need any and that the blood Frank and Gary donated will help someone else. I signed many forms and received lots of information and booklets. We feel well informed.

We go out for Mexican food and margaritas. Later I feel ill and go to bed early.

I am completely touched. Mom is about to undergo a hysterectomy and she is losing sleep, not over worry for her health, but over the house for her son. I think in the back of her mind though she is experiencing anxiety over her surgery. She mentions being depressed and she felt ill after eating dinner.