Operation Canceled Last Minute Despite Confirmation

I was told at my pre-op assessment a couple of weeks ago that my operation could be canceled due to the amount of flu going around, but was assured I'd be called at the last minute if it was. It got to late last night and I'd heard nothing, so I was happy that it must still have been going ahead. Just to make sure, I called the hospital this morning anyway and they said yes, no problem, it's still happening. So I get all my bags ready, etc., go to the hospital, and check in at the Surgical Admissions Lounge. I'm the second operation of the day, so I think great, chances are there are beds free. I have another quick meeting with the Anesthetist to check over everything and then get my wristbands, etc., from a nurse and sit back in the waiting room. I've just bought a new book for my 10-14 days in hospital, so I crack it out and whip through the first 50 or so pages. After just over 2 hours of waiting and reading, I get called through and told that the operation has now been canceled because there's no room in Intensive Care for me. The fact that there are ill people that deserve and need the bed more than me doesn't bother me at all; that's how things are and should be. I am, however, pissed off with the fact that I've wasted my entire morning just because some idiot couldn't ring the Intensive Care unit just to ask if there were any beds free. I now have to wait for another date to come through the post and have been told it could be at least a month or two. Great. Guess I best put another order in to Coloplast for some more Ostomy Bags. =(

Aww, I am sorry, Steve - that happened to me once... gowned up in the theatre and cancelled minutes before I was due to go in - they didn't have any normal ward beds, never mind ITU. By this time, my other half had gone to work in a different area of the country, and I was stuck with no money or transport to get back home, so I insisted they provide me with some... it cost the NHS £160 to taxi me back into another county as I wasn't a local patient - what made me mad was, it was the 'bed manager' who determined my clinical need and not my doctor, who had no control over the situation whatsoever... grrrr!

Thank goodness you didn't have the flu at least, or worse, had to deal with some nonsense I had during one of my check-ups leaving to go home.

I got pulled off an airplane after being told that morning everything was fine. However, 6 hours after my CT scan, the radiology people called my doctor to have me come back in. So, security at the airport had to get all my stuff off the plane and threw me on an ambulance that took me to the wrong hospital. Long story short, four hours later they sent me back to the correct hospital to their ER. Then I was dumped in the hallway to stay overnight because someone did not call upstairs to tell them that I was there. Which, by the way, they had a bed for me. So, I stayed in the ER hallway overnight, then was dragged upstairs the next morning and, like another four hours later, they did a procedure with no anesthesia to put drain tubes in my abdomen. Yeah...they could have done it an hour after the CT scan result was done. Now that is a waste of a day.

At least you got to get some good reading out of it.