Posted on 10/31/2014 3:14:25 PM PDT by lee martell
I was supposed to have surgery on one of my ankles to reduce chronic pain. Eventually, I will need flatfoot corrective surgery on the right foot too. I've been ready for quite some time, and miss being able to walk without limping like an old man. The procedure would be a Sub-Talar Fusion. I have Veterans' Health Insurance only. I was less than 3 days away from the surgery date when I got a call from one of the Resident Surgeons. Apparently, he had been told that I use e-cigs and sometime actual cigarettes. My actual cig use is very low, from one to three a day, if at all. The concern was that the level of nicotine in my system would make healing more difficult. Therefore, the surgery I had waited over a year for was off. However, I was offered a chance to take a blood test, and if nicotine levels were significantly lower, I could still have the procedure in the first half of November. Was I interested? Of course I said yes, put me down for that date. The thing is, not once was I told verbatim that if my nicotine levels were to exceed a certain threshold, the doctors would cancel the procedure. I was given advisories, but never a clear directive, a definition of a 'dealbreaker' from my end of it.
Not much later, I realized that by having my surgery then in the middle of November, I would screw up the work schedule for all my coworkers. I work at a Care Facility for mentally ill adults. I had hoped to be ready by mid December to take some of those shifts open because of other's taking their Christmas Breaks. I;m probably the oldest person on staff, and I don't want to take too many chances with my position, i.e., absences due to recovery times. I realized I would be better off just dealing with the discomfort until after the holidays. I'm now waiting to get a new surgery date that is hopefully in January or February. I dealt with the change of plans logically and I think stoically. However, I felt a crushing disappointment inside, knowing that I would not be starting on the road to repair after all. I was still stuck on 'Pain Island'. I requested to meet with one of the Attending Surgeons next week, just to give them an update view on my general health and demeanor. I wonder how common it is for hospitals to cancel surgery within the last three days prior to the procedure. I've somewhat recovered now, a week since that phone call. However, I don't think that I have felt quite so down in years. The last time I felt that bad was when my mother died. Now, I have less trust in the doctors, but, I'm stuck for now. Have others had this kind of experience?
See post 100
I’d be willing to bet you’ll never forget the sarcasm tag again.
:-)
.
You got that right.
Did I really need a sarc tag for that?
Evidently so...by the number of comments you received :-)
And please tell me your dad is on some form of government insurance because I love paying for heart surgery for smokers.
“In case you haven’t figured it out they are trying to bully you into quitting smoking. It is pure BS that ‘high’ nicotine levels in the blood prevent or deter healing. Utter utter crapola”
Crapola vs. science:
http://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/news/2012/04/smokers.html
The nazis used cost as a reason to eliminate people too.
I did too for the first ten years. After that it wasn't pleasant anymore.
Bull.
Oh that is rich.
Someone bragging about multiple surgeries that probably could have been avoided. I really don’t give a hoot about your father. But don’t hask me to carry his sorry ass because he can’t quit smoking. If he wants to take care of himself, that’s fine. I don’t care. If I am paying for it, get your act together.
Gees I’m sorry.
I was caught off guard for surgery this year. It was almost postponed, too, but not for smoking. It did get done, and I am able to both recover and keep working. I am amazed—even by the (gasp) costs.
see 100
I don’t waste my time with your kind.
You may go now.
One of the best ortho surgeons in this area does surgery on over weight patients just because of what you stated. In my case, I dealt with knee pain in both for over forty years. I packed about seventy extra pounds. Had both knees replaced consecutively, last one in April, and six months out have lost around thirty pounds. I go the gym every other day just because I can now.
I have my life back after all this time and bless the doc for helping me.
“Most surgery patients who are smokers usually die after surgery.”
ALL surgery patients who are non-smokers die after surgery. Some may die sooner than others. Some may live to be a hundred. But all DIE!
Yup.
In my situation, I was told that it was a deal breaker and I quit.
But they canceled my spinal surgery for months because my doctor didn’t order the nicotine test that *they* wanted.
Guess what happened two weeks after my surgery?
The pain wasn’t managed and I started smoking again (after being quit for almost a year. I was done with the cravings, but I didn’t have any way to deal with that level of torture.
And I still healed. My pack-a-day habit had zero effect on my 12-level spinal fusion. It fused.
My mother has osteoporosis. Everyone knows that she needs estrogen and she’s not getting it. After a year of calcium supplements and more bone loss, it hit a wall.
She brought it up to her doctor and he said, “Well, you are a smoker. That’s probably the problem.”
She blew up. She has one tiny cigar a day and never inhales. She told him that he was too lazy to research the real problem and that he was passing it all off on smoking when many women her age have the same problem. She’s not getting enough nicotine to do her any damage. An open fire would do more damage.
This is the real issue with the smoking-nazis. They infuse a prejudice that stops medicine. The fact is that there’s less than a 10% chance that a heavy smoker will have issues - at all - in their lifetime. Yet EVERY issue that a smoker has is discounted by smoking.
“Most surgery patients who are smokers usually die after surgery. Second hand smokers don’t fare much better. If we had only known the relationship between post surgery deaths and cigarettes decades ago, we could literally have saved at least 10’s of millions of people.”
You are full of so much crap.
Source? Backup, documentation or link??
He’s NOT a heavy smoker ad you listen about as well as his doctor did.
I often wish FR had an edit feature. I bet you do too!
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