Oh What a Week

This has been a very frustrating week and I am really trying not to freak out. I know that this is a minimally invasive procedure and I am trying to focus on that fact. But, I'm still having trouble with the idea of someone cutting on my neck and fiddling around with my spinal cord.

Oh well....The doctor told us two weeks ago that I needed to go ahead and have the surgery on my neck to correct the two herniated disks. He didn't want to wait any longer since the problem is getting worse and I am experiencing more and more pain and side effects. So, we set up the surgery for this coming Monday. During the week we had to take care of all the pre op tests, i.e. blood test, EKG and lung Xray. That wasn't too bad, everything came out normal, except my cholesterol is a tiny bit high. What do you expect since I haven't been able to exercise for a while? But, the doc said it wasn't too high and wouldn't be a problem with the surgery.

So you may ask what is so frustrating? Well we had to sell our assets in the States to pay for the surgery and have the money wired here to our savings account. Our bank in the States tells us we can't wire that amount of money from outside the USA. Then we came up with the great plan to wire the money to Mark's brother's account and he could then wire it to Ecuador from the USA. Our bank won't allow us to do that either. They enjoy making things difficult I think. All Wednesday we have been going crazy trying to figure this out. You see, the hospital will not allow me to check out unless the amount is paid in full. They will literally keep me prisoner until they get their money. Isn't that crazy? Fortunately, Mark's brother has kindly offered to wire the money from his account to ours and then we can just send him a check to pay him back. We finally got that settled. And another person has kindly offered to loan us what we need to make up the difference for which we are very thankful. So here I an making plans to go into the hospital on Monday and Mark made his plans at work to be off the two days necessary. Then our Doctor called last night to say that he is changing hospitals and that may change the day of the surgery. He now wants to do the surgery in Monte Sinai. We have been told that Monte Sinai is a more expensive hospital especially dealing with foreigners. I guess they think we are all millionaires. HAH! However, the doctor is trying to get us a discount. He seems to think it will be a bit cheaper. We have to wait and see.

I just want this to be over with and be able to get on with my life. Hopefully, this time next week I will be pain free and starting on a new life. Won't that be grand? I apologize for the pity party I'm indulging in, I just needed to let off some steam. Thanks for listening.