The Plan (Jun 4, 7am)

Mom called me early this morning and we talked about the plan for the next couple weeks. The surgery was originally scheduled for the morning of Friday Jun 11, but it turned out that the surgery center was completely booked that day, so they moved it to Monday Jun 14.

Mom is supposed to stop taking the Coumadin this coming Monday (Jun 7), and she has to go into town on Monday to the cardiac clinic for a Protime test to check her Coumadin level. Dr. Kubac's assistant (Glenda) will give mom the replacement drug (Lovenox) and give her instructions on how to use it. She'll be going from oral Coumadin to injections of Lovenox. Mom said very plainly that she has decided that she will not drive until she has the pacemaker, and she has no problem asking one of her Rocky Point friends to drive her into town.

I asked her if maybe I should be there next week in case anything goes wrong during the transition from Coumadin to Lovenox, but she said that she has been through this before, when she had to have surgery to remove a melanoma from her face. She assured me that it was no big deal. So I told her that I would be calling her every day to make sure she's OK, and she agreed (but called me a worry wart and told me not to call during her nap time after lunch or at 4pm on Sunday when she watches 60 minutes from the east coast satellite!).

So the current plan is that I will go to Rocky Point the weekend after next (the weekend of June 12th) so I can be there for the surgery and for at least the two weeks after that for her recovery. She said that she asked about the recovery period and was told that the only restriction is that she should not lift anything heavy or reach over her head or stretch the area where the pacemaker is implanted for a week or so, but there are no restrictions other than that.