Page 83 - The Freckled Eye - Book

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Nov 7 .

Jay and I drive down the night before my procedure, from Tahoe, just like we'd
done last week. We stayed at his mom’s house, where there was an extra
room. I needed a place for a week, so that I could be separate from everyone
while the radiation plaque was on. The room was perfect. I went to bed early
that night so I’d be well rested for the procedure the next day.

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November 8

Since we had a trial run the week before, getting out of the house today was a
bit smoother. Mom drove down from San Ramon to meet us at Kaiser Santa
Clara, as she had done the week before. We repeated the same pre-surgery
process, arriving in the same parking lot of the hospital as we did
before. Mom got there on time, as usual and we all walked into the hospital
as we had done before. Up to the elevator to the 4 floor and into the
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registration room.

I met with Rose again, the front desk administrator gal, who checked me
before. I must say again, she was one of the highlights from the week
before. She’s such a sweet heart. I was glad to see her again. We had a little
joke about her name, and I was excited to tell her I hadn’t forgotten it.

I walked into the registration area where dear Rose sat. Rose did a perfect
job (again) getting me set up. She put my registration band on my arm and
then sent me back to the waiting room where I’d wait with mom and Jay.

This time Dave and Ruth were back. Ruth was already in surgery having the
procedure. After talking to Dave a bit, we learned that poor Ruth had been
through hell last week. She was actually the first person they attempted to
place the radiation plaque on, but had to stop mid way. Dr. Phan realized the
plaque was to small, so she looked at the rest of the plaques (mine included),
to discover that all the plaques were wrong. Rose had basically had the
procedure done, but then they had to remove it. This was Ruth’s second full
procedure. I felt so badly for her.

David also said Ruth had already been in surgery for over an hour, which I
thought was a bit weird, since the procedure wasn’t supposed to take that
long. In the process of him telling me the story, the nurse came out of the pre-
op area and called my name. David said a few words of encouragement, like
he'd done before. I said bye to mom and Jay and I went in to get prepped. I