[Maria]

I edited this to say that if I want to bring strictly a support person along then I don't really care how much experience/education they have with regard to assisting me with my visit. By this I mean someone who's got my back as I'm just too exhausted to deal with it all.

Personally I've not found it that helpful to have my husband along except several times where he demanded I get more attention but not with my OSS visits. In fact I've found that at times the visits have been even more cursory/abbreviated. It probably depends on how the surgeon feels in terms of giving information/educating. Most of the times I've found that these are very busy people (surgeons) and they limit what they say unless you are a surgical candidate. Even then the information is often very abbreviated (IMHO). I was a practicing RN/NP for many years so this isn't surprising to me and doesn't stop me from asking as many questions as I can formulate on my own which is still limited when in shock sometimes from hearing something one doesn't quite expect.

Initial consultations are generally slated for a half hour to hour I believe (with xrays) and I like to have my questions ready on a list, tell the doctor/surgeon I have a brief list of questions that will go quickly and go thru them, cross them off while listening for any new or unknown that he/she might throw at me that I didn't have a question about so I can bring that up again or research it. I always ask for copies of my films and reports so I can go over that with the surgeon.

My preference would to bring Mark along to visits as I feel he is the most knowledgeable/experienced person that can review subjective/objective information and bring up pertinent questions and get the best answers (there's a comradery as the surgical experience is there and the surgeon jargon and all) and/or the next best possible educated/experienced advocate that I could find to bring along.

Otherwise I am probably bringing along someone more for support and that's helpful as well at times as what I might hear may be limited as I'm focusing only on what I want to hear/think/say and yes, my meds make me forgetful so perhaps someone not on medications would be pretty good to bring along to even write down what's being said by the doctor/surgeon. We can compare notes later and 10 to 1 I didn't hear something or remember it!