I just had my second surgery in about 3 years. I've been pretty lucky most of life, having very little to do with doctors and avoiding hospitals. A lot of that is because I get good exercise, eat balanced meals, and don't drink or smoke. But I guess now that I am getting older I should expect more health issues. This surgery was in a lot of ways like my last surgery, which was done in Thailand. I had sugery schedulced to repair a hernia, but because of Covid the surgery was cancelled 4 times, and they never would operate until my intestine was strangulating and it was an emergency issue. The surgery I had Friday was also cancelled 4 times, this time because of a national shortage of saline solution. I found saline solution to be a peculiar item here in the states. In Thailand I could buy a bottle of saline solution anywhere for about a dollar. Here I couldn't even find a bottle of saline solution. It couild only be purchased in expensive cannisters that sprayed out. The doctor said that all the saline solution in the U.S. was made by one factory in North Carolina, and that factory was hit by the floods there.

My surgery was supposed to be a 3 1/2 hour process, after which I would be released to go home. But there was blood clotting and I was kept in the hospital for an extra 11 hours. At that point I was released to go home, but my ride had already returned to the Ogden area, and I wasn't sure I could sitll get my ride to return for me at 10 p.m. I discussed it with the doctor and she said that it woiuldn't change my bill if I stayed until morning. I just wanted to go home and get out of that hospital, but I wish I had stayed. That way if I had any problems the doctors and nurses would be right there to help me. And I did have some serious problems during the night. I had excessive bleeding (much more that they had anticipated) and I shivered all night, even though I had a portable heater blowing on me all night. It just felt like the heater was a fan blowing cold air, and if I turned the heater off, it still felt like a fan was blowing cold air on me. I am lucky I didn't go into shock. On the internet it says that if you lose 20% of your blood you can go into shock. For me, that would be about 1.1 liters, and I believe I have lost at least that much. The doctor instructed me that if I was bleeding too much that I should call her or go to emergency. I tried calling her, but it was the weekend and no one was picking up the phone.There is an emergency room only about a mile from my house, but they aren't even on my insurance's provider list, and my experience is that they don't have any specialists there that would know what to do anyway. They could give me a blood transfusion, which might be critical, but I wasn't sure I wanted the risks that come with a blood transfusion.

Saturday was much better.The shivering stopped and most of the bleeding has slowed down. I have an appointment with the doctor Monday afternoon, so I am trying to make it to that appointment without any further complications.I do need to be careful because of the amount of blood I have lost. A little advice, don't schedule your out patient surgery on a Friday.