On Monday I met with my new doctor at Mt. Sinai hospital. He seemed friendly enough, made a couple of jokes and had us all smiling (my mom and my boyfriend came with me). He said I probably would not need any surgeries if I was finished growing.

I found that hard to believe. I’m sure I’ll have more surgeries within my adult life, there are a couple of tumors I have that cause me discomfort that I would like to have removed. Nobody likes being uncomfortable all the time, even if those tumors cause no other problems. I wanted to fix my fingers so I could wear rings, and my ankle so I didn’t smash it off of everything (it sticks out a lot, almost more then my ears!).

However I am afraid to come to this new doctor with my problems. According to his statistics I won’t need any surgeries, and I don’t want to appear vain or anything. But I will have to get those bumps that are uncomfortable removed!

On May 15th, I have an appointment in the hemophilia clinic for my “final visit before transfer”. I’ve mentioned earlier about my move from Sick Kids to an adult hospital, and how I’m nervous about it. I think at this present moment I’m more nervous about my blood clinic visit.

You see, the blood clinic at Sick Kids has always been, well, eager for my blood. It seemed like every time I had sugery, they’d be up visiting me every day trying to poke holes in my fingers and draw blood. I’m a veteran when it comes to blood work, but I still flat out refuse to have what they called “finger pricks”. My fingers are small, the needles are huge. I’d much rather them take blood from a different location, like my arm. Your fingers are more sensitive then your arm, and they bleed more. I don’t like blood very much, who does? I always felt sick when I watched the huge needle suck away blood and fill up the containers – which weren’t very small.

I know that blood work is very important after surgery; they need to do it to ensure that you didn’t loose to much blood and that your white blood cell count is still good and all that jazz, but I hated how they were always so eager. They would come in with huge smiles practically drooling and stare at my vains as if they were seeing a meal they’d like very much to eat…

 Ok, maybe I’m over reacting a bit here…but I can’t help it. The blood clinic has and probably always will creep me out. I’m hoping the blood clinic at the “adult” hospital won’t be so creepy and take my blood so eagerly.

I don’t think I will ever forget that “major” surgery I had on my hip; I lost a lot of blood and the blood clinic was in ever day practically begging me to take the blood transfusion they offered. The first time they were so excited, but they got really desperate after my parents firmly said no. That small percentage of a risk is too great for them, especially considering I wow the doctors with the things that happen to me – like that time they froze what they thought was my whole arm so I wouldn’t ache so much afterwards but the freezing completely skipped my shoulder where the majority of the surgery was and completely froze my hand, which only had a minor surgery. Talk about fun times.

Anyway, it turns out that I was able to solve that problem with Iron pills alone; so a transfusion was definitely not needed, and thankfully never received.

Clearly, you can tell that I’m ever so excited about this visit.

Apparently it’s National Delurking Week, I’ve already posted on my other blog about it but I figured it would be interesting to find out a little about the people who read my blog. I want to hear from all you regulars who never leave coments and all the regulars who do.

So everyone, have you ever been to the hospital? For what reason? What happened and how did you feel? Comment me with the answers, because it would be interesting to read. If you’ve never been to the hospital at all for yourself but you have had either a family member or friend, then feel free to talk about them (you don’t have to use names).

I’ve been to the hospital countless times, but everyone knows that so I decided to write about my Granny. My Granny is diabetic, and before Christmas last year she had a diabetic reaction. Her sugar level was way to high, and she was sent to the hospital for a couple of days. I remember when my parents told me about what happened; it was just after they picked me up for work. I was so scared because at the time we didn’t really know if it was a diabetic reaction or a stroke. A few days later, my dad drove us all down to visit her. She looked well enough, but the doctors were still concerned about her sugar level.

Both my grandparents have given me scares, and if they’re reading this G&P then stop with the scaring of the me! You two are not aloud in hospitals, do you hear me? Good, now that we’ve got that covered, lets hear from all you lurkers out there.

My doctor’s appointment at Sick Kids was today. We left at about 6:30-7 a.m and got held up big time in traffic. It took us an hour to get from one town to another that normally would have taken around ten minutes. I fell asleep luckily, and I missed out on all the fun of road rage. I woke up a couple of times to my parents arguing over the traffic and if they should call the hospital to warn them that we would be late – as I had to be there for 8:30 am and it was going on 8 am.

We finally got there around nine, and waited in the waiting room for several hours until my doctor could see me. I didn’t mind too much, it’s worth the wait; Dr. Wright is a good man. He’s never let us down or disappointed us in anyway, and that’s saying something because I’m easily disappointed.

I was expecting to hear that I would need one more surgery to reconstruct the toes on my left foot, but all that worrying was for nothing. My doctor said that I should just stop cutting that one toenail (yeah…I attempted to cut it last night and it ended up bleeding – again) but other then that there was nothing we could do. My toes will probably always be deformed and in some sort of pain, so it’s best to leave them now and if they get worse down the road then we’ll take action. For now I’ll just have to suck it up and stop complaining.

That means that today was the last time I would be in Sick Kids – for myself anyway. I’m being referred to a Dr. Wonder over at Mount Sinai Hospital. Isn’t that funny? I go from a Dr. Wright to a Dr. Wonder, that must be a good omen of some sorts. Maybe that he’ll work wonders? Who knows, I won’t meet him for another 6 to 12 months. I’m still really nervous about the hospital switch, but if Dr. Wright say’s I have nothing to worry about then I should have nothing to worry about. He did hand pick my future new doctor. However, I’m still a little nervous. That’s a whole lot of starting over and getting used to new faces poking at me. I’m sure Dr. Wonder will be wonderful, but who knows what the staff will be like. Yeah, I’ve seen all those TV shows about adult hospitals being boring and lifeless and all the nurses being bitches – but I assure you that it’s probably just my over active imagination talking. The nurses are probably just as wonderful as the ones at Sick Kids.

I have to admit though, I did have a nice farewell to Sick Kids though. Right outside the elevator doors there was a clown entertaining a young child with bubbles. It was so cute, the child looked amazed by the clown as he rolled around on the floor, and it brought a smile to his little face. I told myself that I had grown out of Sick Kids and that my leaving would allow another child to be helped by the wonderful doctors that helped me. Not to mention, I’d probably be back anyway – if I ever decide to have kids (but thankfully that won’t be for several years). If I did have a child who had MHE, then I would choose Sick Kids because the staff and volunteers were so amazing to me, I’ve been spoiled. I’ll probably constantly compair things to Sick Kids, but at least I had Sick Kids at the crucial parts of my childhood. It made having to go to the hospital often growing up a lot easier on me. So thank you, all staff members of Sick Kids; for making my experiences at the hospital bearable.

Mount Sinai Hospital is just another chapter in my life, and I’m sure it won’t be nearly as terrible as those lifeless hospital’s you see on TV. Who knows, maybe Dr. Wonder will be really hot, like McDreamy from Grey’s Anatomy – at least that would give my mom and I something to look forward too every time.

I have been trying to update this blog for two days now, but I can’t really think of one topic to focus on, as there are so many floating through my head right now.

Firstly; I’m nervous about the prospect of having another surgery. In two weeks, term one will be over, and I will be starting term two. In term two, I’m taking Writers Craft and co-oping at Sunrise Youth Group. It’s going to be a heavy semester due to the fact that you must show up every day and get the required hours to pass the course. Obviously if I have the surgery on my toes, showing up everyday won’t be an option. I don’t want Niki regretting taking me on as a co-op student.

Secondly; lately my right ankle has been poping and hurting a lot when I walk long distances. I consider this to be a bad thing because the surgery my parents will want me to have is on my left foot, and I will need my right leg to bare most of my weight during the recovery stage. I’ll most likely want to get back in the game of co-oping and going to school as soon as possible, even if I’m doped up on drugs. I’m sick of being “that girl that misses a lot of school”, and I’m really not looking forward to this June because I won’t be graduating with my friends. I wouldn’t go to prom if it wasn’t for the mere fact that if I didn’t, then I wouldn’t get to share that experience with my friends. I’d have to share it with a bunch of people I don’t really know.

Thirdly; I’m nervous as to what effect having a surgery will have on my relationship with my boyfriend. Yes, I know – it’s a stupid thing to fear, especially since I know he isn’t the type to just walk out for something like that – but still. It’s difficult to prevent myself from thinking something negetive like that, even though he’s nothing like the other guy’s I’ve dated – which is why I like him so much.

I’m not a negative person, I prefer to look at is as I face reality. I’ve had past experiences that spur me to think what some people consider “negatively”.

But I suppose I will find out in four days time.

Sometimes, my kioloid scars can be very annoying. I have a few that get irritated by clothes and itch like mad. The surgery I had on both my legs at the beginning of summer in ‘06 left one scar on the inside of my right leg that has barely healed at all. It’s really puffy and red, and it itches a lot. My dad said that it was probably because that’s where the seam of my jeans is and it probably irritates it a lot – causing the itching. My mom tells me to just put lots of moisturizing cream on it. I’ll have to tell my doctor about it.

Speaking of which, Sick Kids called yesterday with an appointment. I’m to go on the 10th of January for an 8:30 a.m appointment. My parents are both coming with me, because my mom will have just got off a midnight and will most likely be unable to drive but she still wants to come with me.

Issues I have to remember to ask about are:

• My lovely toes on my left foot. They’ve been bothering me a lot lately, and like I said before..I’d much rather have a doctor I’m familiar with do the operation.
• The off colour patches on my feet that look like bruising. The one on my left foot is most likely caused by my deformed toes, and I think the one on my right foot has been there ever since my grade 8 surgery on my leg.
• My right ankle – the tumour on it is huge and I’m not too sure if I should leave it for much longer because the vain sort of looks aggravated.
• My left ankle that keeps on locking up – it’s really annoying.
• My left middle finger that keeps snaping whenever I move it.

And I think that’s about all I feel like covering. Those are the most annoying/painful things I can think of at the moment. Maybe I’ll ask him if he has any solutions to my ugly scars and any ideas on how I can make them less offensive to the eyes.

Speaking of offensive on the eyes scars, that reminded me of something that happened while I was at the SYG New Years weekend. I was dressed in a strapless black dress and I was pouring the punch into the bowl, not even thinking about feeling uncomfortable with my exposed arms because I was at Sunrise after all. One of the volunteers asked really loudly and rudely, “What happened to your arm? It looks like a bear attacked you!”

I found that really rude and uncalled for because of the place and situation I was in. Most of the members have scars like I do, and Ian (that’s the volunteer that said that) doesn’t say things like that to them. Why should he treat volunteers any differently? If he knows what a surgery scar looks like, then why would he say ‘it looks like a bear attacked you’ to me?

So I shall put the whole scar topic on the top of my list, seeing as I’m getting fed up of dealing with ignorant people. There’s a difference between asking what happened to my arm and telling me it looks like a bear attacked me – in other words, telling me it’s huge and ugly and abnormal.