Getting my ducks in order

Things are starting to fall into place vis a vis my hip surgery.

The hospital called to book my pre-hab appointment.  They offered me December 19th but that date is booked solid when I'll be staying overnight at my little chickadee's place.  Besides, John has to accompany me to the pre-hab visit, so the 19th wouldn't work.  For various reasons, I didn't like the other dates she offered.  Eventually, we settled on Friday, January 13th.  (My physiotherapist counselled me on the exercises last February so I'm way ahead of the curve on that aspect.  The 13th is plenty of prep time, so I'm told.)

And as for this week being a week of no commitments outside the home, with the exception of my massage therapy today ... well, that fell to the wayside.

On Monday, the hospital called to book my appointment for banking my own blood for the surgery (just in case ...)  Turns out there has to be a consultation (certain criteria must be met in order to bank your own blood).  And they need bloodwork to be done prior to that consultation meeting.

So, they faxed the requisition to me and I went for the bloodwork yesterday morning.  That took me out of the house.  While I was out, I did some grocery shopping (and some other type of shopping).  I did too much walking and suffered terribly for the rest of the day.

Today, I have to leave the house for my massage therapy (originally, the only time I would have had to leave this week).  It's unfortunate that I have to go to the clinic (she normally comes to my home) because it will be especially difficult to manage her stairwell in my now compromised state -- but one must do what one must do.

And now tomorrow, I have to make a trip into the city for the blood consultation visit at the hospital.  At that point, I'll find out if I meet the criteria to bank my own blood.  If I do, I'll have to make another trip into the city, to a different location again, to actually have the blood drawn.  If I don't qualify, they will put into place whatever is necessary to ensure there is sufficient blood of my type available for my surgery date.

One of the stops I made yesterday was to visit the physiotherapy lab at our local hospital to give them a heads up about my surgery.  The Ottawa hospital had indicated to me that instead of my having to go into Ottawa every day for the rehab physio, I could rehab locally.  I needed to know that our physio clinic was agreeable to that.  So that is now in place too.  One less thing to worry about.

You see, I was once a girl guide -- albeit very briefly -- and I took away one very important lesson from those days.  Always be prepared!