Hello all,
My name is Don Cameron and I am writing tonight on behalf of my wife Deborah. She has been journaling the last few days before surgery and asked me to share some of it with you. So here goes:
March 9, 2003
Well this AM I got up and finished some chores around the house to get ready to pack up. Everything begins early in the morning on the 10th so here I go into the new stage of life, The not eating going on clear liquids has been fine so far, I really do not look forward to tomorrow evening when it is time for the fleet enema drink.
March 10, 2003
Well last night was not to bad we made it to the hotel. Don ate enough for both of us. I drank broth until all I could smell was broth. We got up and went to the Dr. Office they took my picture and weight. Then we went to the hospital where everyone found out I have hid a veins. They took blood and pre-registered me first then they sent us down to ultra sound, everything looked good there. Next we went over to X-Ray. They do regular X-Rays of chest and neck then the do the HIDA-Scan which id no fun. They injected nuclear medicine into the vein, which took 3 sticks before they got my vein, that takes forty five minutes laying flat on your back they will prop your knees up while the machine takes pictures of the gallbladder filling up. Then they inject medicine to empty the gallbladder and that takes thirty minutes all the while the machine is taking pictures of your gallbladder while it empties. Then I visited a psychiatrist, which was fine.
Now I am doing the flushing with fleet enema by mouth that was awful and it began in a hurry and lasted about five hours.
March 11, 2003
I Woke up feeling fine I have not had a problem with hunger over the last two days only wanting a drink of water. Now I go to the hospital for surgery at 8:30am and they say I the surgery should start about 10:00am. The surgery should last about two and one half to three and one half hours.
The preceding lines were directly from Deborah’s journal.
I have a few I would like to add.
Deborah went into surgery on March 11, 2003 at about 12:00pm and was in surgery for about three hours. She came through the surgery with flying colors and was starting to take short walks six hours after surgery. On March 12, 2003 she was up for an hour early in the morning and the tube down her throat was removed by 4:00pm and she was out of ICU. When I left at 7:30pm she had just found out that she had a low grade fever but no one seems concerned about it. We have both been pleased at the attitude of the people who work at the hospital here in Palestine TX. That’s all for now, I will keep you posted until Deborah herself can post messages here. Thank you for your time.