Tuesday, July 3, 2012

3/7/12

I should be practising for my UKCAT which is tomorrow, as I'm entirely not ready and there's a lot riding on it.  But I my head's not there at the moment.  It was bad planning on my part really.

I saw my consultant today (after 7 weeks, with an MRI in the middle), "the good news is the MRI doesn't show any abnormalities with your elbow".  After a bit more prodding he convinced himself again that there is something going on and so my best option would be surgery.  After last time I wasn't wholly happy with this but after a brief chat decided that I agreed with him. He says there's a 50:50 chance of him actually finding (and fixing) something, but if he doesn't find anything the risk of any damage being done is pretty low as long as I can put up with a sore elbow (nothing new there), and bit of stiffness for a while and a friend for my existing scar.

Part of the discussion was anaesthetic, related.  He originally wanted to do it under a general anaesthetic but I wasn't keen on this so have opted for a regional block.  Someone tell me this isn't something I'm going to regret later?! (he seemed surprised, as did the pre-op assessment lady!)


I had kind of seen this coming - the options as I saw them were either the MRI showed something and surgery would fix it, or it showed nothing and it's my nerves and therefore I'm stuffed.  I hadn't really considered this middle of the road option, and even though I thought surgery was a possibility it still took me a back a bit.  I left the consultation room, explained to my grandparents who were accompanying me where I needed to go, and then promptly nearly fell down the stairs because I'd gone all wobbly and my legs were shaking.  

Despite my pulse measuring 90 bpm (it usually sits just under 60!), I passed the pre-anaesthetic checks so am now waiting for a letter in the post as I don't have a surgery date and am on a waiting list of indeterminate length.  Given that it has been almost a year since the crash, and 7 weeks since I first saw my new consultant I really hope I don't have to wait to long.

I'm starting to feel very worn down with it all to be honest.  (As I've said before) I know there are many people worse off than me but there's only so much I can take.  I've not really helped myself because my schedule is a bit full and high pressure at the moment so hopefully I'll feel a bit better once things settle down.  Having been with my grandparents for a couple of hours, once I dropped them off home I had some time to myself.  I stopped on the drive home to get some air, and let things sink in a little bit...





Right.  I'll stop waffling now.  Need to get my head back in the game and get ready for tomorrow.  Slightly panicking because I need a good score on this.

Bring on Saturday.  A day off!

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