What the heck is a panendoscopy?

My appointment on the 8th was for 10:15 am. I hadn’t eaten since 8:00 pm the night before. My wife and I got to the check-in desk at 9:45 am. They took us into another room, took my blood pressure (it was high), filled out some paper work and was given a pair of nice little booties and two hospital gowns (put one on frontwards, and one on backwards). We then went to a room, a regular hospital room only without a bed and waited. About an hour later, they came in and said they needed the room for someone coming out of surgery, could we please move to the waiting room. We moved. At 12:00 pm my wife went to check if we’d been forgotten. I had gotten a splitting headache, bordering on a migraine. At 12:15 they finally came and got me.

I was taken into the pre-surgery prep room and they proceeded to try and find a vein. That was a lost cause, but after trying several places they finally found one in my left arm. The anesthesiologist came in, assembled what he called the peace pipe and had me breath through it for a while, his assistant then gave me two shots . . . and then it was 4:30 in the afternoon.

I woke up with a sore throat and lots of confusion. It’s all pretty much a blur until the couch in the living room. My wife was trying to make me comfortable and I remember trying to eat some soup. I don’t care what anybody says, do not eat ice cream after a panendoscopy, you will regret it. If I remember right, water wasn’t much better. Then I took a Percocet and everything was good. When my head cleared the next day my wife went over the conversation she had with Dr. Eller after I came out of surgery. I was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). The next 4 days were pretty much just sitting around trying to deal with a sore throat. Every day it got better.