Day Two - A day of rest?

Day one was a day of travel, Day two recoup from travel and check out the hotel and grounds, Day three PreOp and surgery. Sounds great!!!!


Day Two, everyone was up early. We head down to the restaurant and have breakfast. Fresh fruit, cheese omelets, toast, and waffles, very tasty. After breakfast, Luis (From passport medical) took us around the gardens. Wow, there are some very nice hotels in Costa Rica but The Hotel Bougainvillea must have the most beautiful gardens of them all.


10 acres filled with butterflies, flowers, coffee bushes, orange and banana trees, even bird watching towers. Luis said that Costa Rica has more species of birds then North America has total. The gardens have a path bricked path winding through all 10 acres so Don can drive has scooter and enjoy them.


We checked out the pool and weight room where Don will be doing his physio after the surgery. The pool looks amazing and the weight room is quite big. We met Gabby who runs the physiotherapy and she was very nice. Turns out she tried to do a physio assessment on Don this morning but we were out for breakfast.


Well it turns out the day of rest is a full day of PreOp stuff. We arrived in Costa Rica late, had a snack and went to bed last night. What we should have done is check the information board, it would have told us that Don has surgery tomorrow at 6:30am and needed to have all the PreOp stuff done today.

We met up with Gabby at 11am and she tested strength in Don's arm's and legs, circulation and feeling as well. She was very nice and explained that Don would start in the gym and when his incision healed he would do physio in the pool. If we had any questions Gabby's email address would be provided for us to write and receive answers.

After we left Gabby we all piled into a van, Don, Donna, Gary, Betty (new friends) Me and Luis (driver) and we drove over to a private clinic that they just started using. Don and Gary were the first Passport Medical patients to be sent there. It was amazing, far nicer than a clinic in Vancouver. It was a bit of a waiting game as the doctor was running behind. As soon as the doctor arrived Don was taken into an exam room.

The doctor was great but didn't speak a lot of english. No worries as Passport Medical had a translator there to ask our questions and explain what the doctor was telling us. The Doppler exam (ultrasound) took about 50min. Way more thorough than the False Creek exam with a more advanced Doppler machine. But, the same outcome, there is something wrong on your right side, the Venogram will show more.

After the Doppler, Gary went in for his ultrasound and we waited. Once Gary was done we were all tired and were ready to go home. Except that we were told that they both had to have EKG readings on their hearts. The kicker, the EKG Doctor wasn't there.... So we waited some more. The Doctor arrived and it took him 10min to get a reading on both and we were out the door.

I think we were there for about 4 and a half hours, half of that time waiting. Funny thing is it didn't matter. Everyone is so happy to be here, and everyone understands that they have double the patients because of the "balloon incident" and having to rebook everyone.

After the clinic we jump back into the van and drove back to the hotel, about 5mins away. Before we could walk through the front door we were greeted and told that the Neurologist was waiting to do her assessment of Don and Gary.

Holy cow, for a day of rest this is turning into a marathon. We all go to Don's room and the Neurologist starts asking her questions. Do you have trouble with your eyes, Bladder issues, Balance, Strength, Can you walk unassisted.... That with the knee tap test to see his reflex and she was done. Don is a 6.5, yup means nothing to us to. I guess the higher the number the more dependant you are on others.

There you go, a full day of PreOp. Up early tomorrow, I've been told that the hospital has internet access so I should be able to post in the afternoon on how everything goes. Also if something doesn't make sense or you would like more info about something please just leave a comment and I can fill in the blanks. Sometimes the brain doesn't work well on little sleep and lots of anxiety.