Having Surgery While Sick
The days leading up to surgery can be nerve wracking. You have to do a lot of pre-operative work in order for everything to go smoothly, so you stopped taking blood thinners, prepared to fast before surgery, and went to all of your pre-operative appointments. But sometimes, you cannot prepare for some unexpected turns. Many patients, especially this time of year, get sick before their procedure. What are you supposed to do?
For starters, even though getting sick can sometimes be unavoidable, it doesn’t hurt to be proactive. This means that in order to prevent getting sick, our experts recommend drinking plenty of water and eating nutritious meals full of essential vitamins.
It’s important to note that, while it is likely that your surgery will be rescheduled, it is possible that the surgeon will go ahead with surgery. Our team wants patients to be in the best health to avoid complications during surgery, but if the procedure is urgent, the surgeon may go ahead with the surgery depending on how sick the patient is. We urge our patients to call their surgeon immediately if they become sick or develop any new health condition. The surgeon will then let you know if he or she wants to proceed with the surgery.
Patients should call right away because Specialty Surgical Center does not accept cancellations from anyone other than a doctor, and we want patients to be able to get a new surgery date scheduled as soon as possible.
We consider many factors when deciding to move forward with surgery or not at the currently scheduled date. As previously mentioned, we take the urgency of the procedure into account first. Many of our urogynecology procedures, tonsillectomies, radiation oncology, and more may need to be performed without hesitation. Next, we take into account how severe the illness is. We may reschedule for chest pain, difficulty breathing, bronchial or flu-like symptoms, but the surgeon may go ahead with the procedure if the patient only has a few symptoms. For example, a scratchy throat may turn into an illness, but if that’s the only symptom present at the time of the surgery, we may go ahead and proceed.
Specialty Surgical Center is located in Sparta, New Jersey and our staff consists of board certified surgeons and anesthesiologists performing procedures in Orthopedics, Sports Medicine, Spinal Care, Podiatry, Urology, Pain Management, ENT, Hand Surgery, Lithotripsy, Brachytherapy, GYN and Laser Surgery.
For more information about Specialty Surgical Center, call 973-940-3166 or visit our Contact Page.