Preparing for Surgery
Dear Friend,
My name is Dr. Sumit Das. I am the owner and founder of the Brain and Spine Neurosurgical Institute. Today I'd like to talk about the surgery that has been recommended for you. There are other videos and informational guides located on our website that go into the exact details of your surgery. Before going into surgery, you should understand what we're doing, why we're doing it, and most importantly what you should expect.
Planning for Surgery
Insurance Approval. After we've recommended surgery, we will go to your insurance company and get the required approvals for your insurance.
Collect Spine MRIs, CT scans, and X-Rays. We need all of your films that are necessary for the surgery.
Complete List of Medications. It’s helpful for us to have a complete list of all the medications that you are on.
Preoperative testing. We need to take some tests to ensure that you are ready for the operation and can get through the surgery safely.
Test your heart (EKG)
Look at your chest with an X-ray (CXR)
Complete some blood work
Please go at the time that we ask you to go, simply so we have that data in advance and can check it out and make any necessary corrections.
Before the Day of Surgery
The day before your operation, you will get a call from us telling you when your surgery will be the following morning. Unfortunately, due to the schedule of the hospital and our surgical schedule, we do not have an exact time of surgery until one day prior. In addition, you likely will have to stop eating and drinking after midnight. In most cases, on the morning of surgery, you can take all your normal medications with one sip of water.
You need to be careful of medications that thin your blood, such as Plavix, Coumadin, or high-dose aspirin. In these cases, we will tell you when to stop taking these medications. The other drugs that you need to be careful of are any medications for diabetes. We might have to make some adjustments the night before the surgery.
This surgery is what we call elective surgery. It is not an emergency, so we want to make sure that you're as healthy as possible. Please let us know if there are any health concerns you might have leading up to the surgery. These could include catching a cold, allergies, cuts/scrapes, bug bites, or a recent fall.
What to Bring
You should arrive at the hospital with your belongings to stay for the night. This is true for all cases, even in those where we say you might go home. We want you to be prepared in case any safety reasons might require you to stay overnight.
Please bring a complete list of all medications you are taking. Also please list all the allergies you have. Please bring any films (such as MRIs, CT scans, x-rays) that we’ve asked you to collect. If you are wearing a brace, you must bring this brace to the hospital as well. I encourage you to bring comfortable clothes that you can wear after surgery. Please wear clothes that are easy to remove, such as sweats or T-shirts.
Surgery
On the morning of surgery, I will see you in the preoperative area. I'll talk again with you and your family about any last-minute questions. After the surgery, I will also call the family members that you would like me to call so they are well aware of what's going on.
Length of Surgery
First, it can take almost an hour and a half to set up the patient in the operating room, put them to sleep, and then wake them up. A simple surgery that takes 1/1.5 hrs could end up taking almost 3 hrs because of these preparations. Keep this in mind when you're thinking about the length of a particular surgery.
Second, the patient is typically in the recovery room for almost up to two hours. Unfortunately, in the recovery room, family members are not permitted. So, for family members, the wait time can take a lot longer. For instance, a 4 hr surgery with 1.5 hrs for preparations and another 2 hours in the recovery room is roughly 7 hours of waiting for family. In these cases, I am happy to call family members once the surgery is complete as it may be less stressful and more comfortable to go home.
More Information on Procedures
At BSNI, our mission is to empower you with you need to make informed decisions about your procedure. Click the button below to check out some of our procedure guides to learn more about your upcoming operation.