Friday, May 21, 2010

The Day I Felt Like Jesus

I completely forgot that I have not posted about the day I felt like Jesus. I started the post many times but evidently never published it. That’s what happens when the hamster that runs on the little wheel that operates my brain eats too much junk food. So I shall now regale you with the story of my very first surgery.

So clearly I have never ever had surgery in my entire life, which means I’ve never been put under anesthetic. The closest I have come to that was the epidural I got while in labor with Lily and so that doesn’t really count. Over quite a few months I kept getting these horrid stomach aches, especially at night. At first they weren’t bad and just felt like I was recovering from someone punching me in the stomach. But over time they got really, really bad where I would be up all night in pain. Finally after two episodes of this in a week I broke down and went to the doctor.

Due to the location of the pain and the tenderness she sent me off for an ultrasound of my liver and gall bladder. Now I am as ultrasound illiterate as they come. I look at ultrasounds from when I was pregnant and still can’t understand that it looks like a baby. But even I could see that there were spots that didn’t belong in what supposedly was my gall bladder. The ultrasound technician called my doctor and told her I had at minimum 4 rather large stones which dun, dun, dun means surgery. So alas I make yet another appointment with yet another doctor, this time a surgeon. A very tall surgeon that made me think of the jolly green giant in his scrubs. He was very nice and explained what a simple procedure it would be to remove my gall bladder, various side effects and scheduled my surgery for Feb. 24.

The morning of Feb. 24 I get up at the buttcrack of dawn and went to the hospital. Of course by this time it’s sunk in that I’m going to have surgery and I’m already dreading things and thinking of what if’s. By the time they get me checked in I of course am in a calm state of paranoia. To the untrained eye I look cool as a cucumber but anyone with telepathic ability would see otherwise. What if they give me too much anesthetic and I die, what if I’m awake during surgery and they don’t know it, what if it takes more than one try to get that damned IV in my arm. The latter was my biggest concern. My fear of needles has mostly subsided over the years but I hate and I repeat HATE IV’s.

After I got into my little drafty gown that really serves no purpose as it’s mainly see through and lie back down on the gurney, the nurse comes over to get my IV set up. Thankfully she was a wonderfuly experienced nurse who got it on the first try and I hardly felt a thing. I also was rather proud of my Zen like skills at keeping my heart rate normal and not stroking out. Once my IV is in she leaves me alone for a bit to go let my Mom come back with me and semi closes the curtain around my bed. I can still see people going in and out of the OR and am very pleased to see a very cute male nurse go by. I mumbled something about him being cute and could be my nurse anytime, and then to my utter horror I realize he along with another nurse are standing just outside my curtain looking at my chart. Needless to say I was as red as a tomato when they all opened my curtain with my Mom following. I then find it necessary to tell her what I had mumbled out loud while they were still standing there. Mind you this is all before they give me any drugs so the only excuse I have is I was a bit anxious and get rather stupid when I’m close to having an anxiety attack.

Well as the cute assistant nurse and his boss start going over with me all of the proceedings along with the anesthesiologist my nice nurse that did my IV gives me this amazing little pre knock out drug to loosen me up a bit. And boy did it ever! Not sure how many of you ever watch Bill Engvall but I started quoting his latest piece about when he goes in for his colonoscopy. “Why thank you bartender I’ll have a double” and many more little witty things that had everyone around me laughing either because they were really funny or because I was a certifiable loon at that point in time.

As I am babbling away they take me for the nice swift ride twenty feet into the OR. Once in there they don’t even bother trying to ask me to move over to the operating table on my own, they just lift/push me onto it. They then proceed to tell me to put my arms straight out to my sides and straighten my legs, then they strap me down. I’m glad I was doped up otherwise this would have felt a bit alarming to me. As they continue to fasten me to the table I look up and it being a Catholic hospital (I’m not catholic by the way) I see a crucifix up on the wall. I hear someone mumble that they are injecting the anesthetic and the last thing I remember saying is “I feel like Jesus”.

I groggily wake up after surgery and they get me settled into my own room and I’m not appreciating the happy drugs going out of my system and no one would give me another round. The doctor came in and explained to me that he was very happy that I had my surgery when I did. Evidently my gall bladder was in very sad shape and was chalked full of gall stones. He was actually amazed it hadn’t ruptured yet. I spent the night in the hospital in a Percocet induced haze and toddled off home the next day.

Makes me wonder what it would be like to be a fly on the wall in the OR.

2 Comments:

At 2:53 PM , Blogger Sarah said...

I had that drug for my own surgery. I forgot to ask what it was, but it's by far my favs :)

 
At 4:19 AM , Blogger Ummie said...

nice reading.

 

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