so, yesterday was the visit to the neurosurgeon, for the consultation about the Vagus Nerve Stimulator...

i dragged mom along to my appointment, cuz i knew she'd have a bazillion questions and i have a tendency to forget everything i wanna ask about when i get into a doctor's office...

so the nurse leads us into an exam room...right off the bat i'm thinking this is some sort of neuro test - the chairs are itty bitty, the cabinets are really short...well, just so happens they put me in a pediatric exam room! it's not a test checking for micropsia and/or macropsia (the symptoms Lewis Carroll had that appeared for form a basis for events in Alice In Wonderland) - it just so happened that the room they had open was intended for small children to visit.

so the doc walks in and promptly drops my file, sending papers scattering everywhere...he made a comment about being so clumsy and we said perhaps that wasn't too good for a neurosurgeon - we all had a good laugh.

he takes a look at my big list of medicines and tells me i'll need to stop taking the aspirin (the eye doc prescribes that) and the naproxen that i take for the carpal tunnel for two weeks prior to surgery - the anti-coagulant properties aren't really good to have in yer system when you're heading in to surgery, we don't need to have any extra bleeding going on there...so i ask him when to stop taking them, he tells me to go ahead and stop taking them now!! eeek - the surgery could be in two weeks!!! all along it's been a distant thing - last year dr. mohan, the neurologist, sent me home with a video and told me to think about it...then in january i met with a guy from the company that manufactures the VNS...the neuro calls the neurosurgeon for a consult, now VIOLA! in two or three weeks!

so he explained where they'd be cutting me (one incision in my neck, one on my upper chest, near my armpit) and that i'd be out of the hospital that day - won't even need to stay in for observation, as i'd read some other patients have had to do...shouldn't miss any work or anything (unless they schedule the surgery for a work day, of course). the scars shouldn't be too big and i'll still be able to wear my bikinis and tube tops, as well as make that last ditch effort for the Miss America crown... ;-)

i'm excited about it - mom's freaked. she says it's too soon. i don't think so, we just didn't expect it to get scheduled during THIS appointment. so now i just wait for them to call and tell me when and where i'll be getting carved up. the surgeon puts it in, but it's not turned on and programmed till i go back to the neurologist a couple of weeks later. the main risk after the surgery is of infection, but i should be fine & dandy...

woo hoo!