September 8, 2007

• EEW.  SICK. GROSS.
  [yeah- don't worry - there are no gross pictures or anything - just a ridiculously long and rambly post ahead]
  

  So today was the day for my surgery.  In case you missed it up 'til now, today they were going to remove the metal from my foot that was put there in May.  I wasn't too nervous about it, seeing as now I am an old pro with the crutches, pain factor and what not.  Don't get me wrong - if it could have been avoided, I would have - I am many things, but certainly not a glutton for punishment, you know?

  This is supposed to be a relatively quick and simple procedure - they knock me out, do the intubation/catheter, slice me open, take out the metal [think of a battery powered screwdriver backing a screw out of a wall - easy, right?  Right.], sew me back up - wham, bam, thank you ma'am - all done in an hour.  With my surgery time set for 10:30am, I was relatively certain that I would be home resting as comfortably as possible by....ohhhhhh - 1ish?  Certainly 2 at the latest.

  The hospital called a little before 7am and told me that the surgery scheduled before me had been canceled, and asked if there was any way that I could come early?  Now - my thought process was 'Sure - the sooner the better' - but there was still the matter of a shower to be had [because GROSS - who wants to have people looking at your naked body at all - much less a stinky, hairier version?  Shudder.], so I told them that I needed to hop in the shower and that I would be there in 45 minutes. 

  After all [paranoid girl that I am about forgetting things], last night I had already done the prerequisite removal of finger and toenail polish, removal of all jewelry - including the cartilage earring and the belly ring that I forgot to remove last time, and had my clothes for the day laid out and ready to go, all my paperwork in my pocketbook already...certainly I could get there that quickly...[The good thing about surgery being that there is no makeup or hair to think of, so that literally cuts your getting ready time to nothing.]

  Side note here - kk, you would have been proud - I was getting dressed this morning and thought to myself - what is the point really of bothering with undergarments of any kind today?  I am certainly not going to be using them for a good portion of my time out and about...so I totally went completely commando to the hospital   Kinda freeing really - HA!

  Well - it was raining super hard this morning, and the drive that should have taken fifteen minutes ended up being closer to an hour what with the rain and the St Louis rush hour traffic...and wouldn't you know it, even though I still made it early, apparently in the meantime an emergency trauma had come in that my dr was needed for...which meant that I waited in various waiting rooms for FOUR hours - moving from the big waiting room to an hour in the private waiting room, to and hour and a half in the pre-op room.

  ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?  I mean, I am patient and all - but when it was NOON and the anesthesiologist was just coming in to see me?  That is a long time to wait, my friends!  ugh.  I felt so bad for my sweet dad, who had once again been the one to be the driver and main caretaker yesterday...

  So I was already a bit on edge at this point when the anesthesiologist guy comes up and introduces himself to me [incidentally, he had fantastic bedside manner and a very nice handshake], and begins to outline exactly how and what he is going to do to knock me out and keep me that way until after the surgery is over.  After explaining the intubation stuff, he asks me to tilt my head back, open my mouth and say 'ahhhh' - presumably to get a look at how difficult or easy that task was going to be.

  The guy is leaning over my head, looking down my throat and says 'Everything looks great!' and I swear to you - A. PIECE. OF. WHATEVER. HE. HAD. FOR. LUNCH. FLEW. OUT. OF. HIS. MOUTH. AND. LANDED. ON. MY. TONGUE. causing an instantaneous gag reflex in me.   I am throwing up a bit in my mouth thinking about it right now actually.  I was thinking 'OMG.  Did that really just happen?  Surely not - surely I am imagining things'...but the taste of something with a hint of onion [when I hadn't eaten in a really long time] was unmistakeable.
  
  SICK!  GROSS!  EWWWWWWWW!

  Needless to say - I didn't hear another word he, or anyone else said to me for a bit, I was concentrating so hard on not throwing up.

  Everything  for the next couple of hours was kind of anticlimactic after that - they knocked me out, did the surgery, things went well - woke me up, made sure I was feeling good on the painkillers that they gave me [YAY FOR NOT THROWING UP AND BEING SICK BECAUSE OF PAIN MEDS!!!]...and were ready to send me home.

  However, the fun/stress of the day was not yet over.  Right before I left the hospital, I was waiting for the woman from the pharmacy to bring my prescription for the painkillers to take home, when she comes back with the news that they were having trouble running my insurance through and when she called them, they told her that I had been TERMINATED?  WTF?  ARE YOU KIDDING ME TELLING ME THIS RIGHT AS I AM GETTING OUT OF SURGERY?

  Yeah.  I was SUPER not happy about that one....so the entire car ride home [in rush hour traffic again - love that btw] was spent on my cell trying to figure out just what in the heck was going on...turns out there was a bit of a mistake, and we got it fixed, but geez people - do you realize what you just did to my heart rate?  I am supposed to be resting for crying out loud! 

  Finally after driving home in rush hour traffic, I was safely ensconced in my own bed around 5pm this afternoon....where I remain to this point.

  And that is my day in a nutshell.  Thanks to all of you who thought of me and prayed for me today -  it meant so much more than I can ever say....

  Am I glad to be heading to bed for the night! 
  

  • 12:48 am
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