What the hell happened? You open your eyes and find yourself staring at the harsh, florescent lights above. You're still groggy but manage to lift yourself off of the table, pull the tube out of your arm, and take in the room. Chrome canisters, medical supplies atop white counters. It's sterile, eerily sterile, and the quiet gives no indication of what the walls have seen.
In honor of my cats having surgery, tell us: What led you to the operating room? What procedure did you have done? And were there any "complications"?
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Yikes.. this post is literally making me want to pass out on my keyboard from the sheer memory of this day:
June 2004-- I was finally getting a hernia fixed after 9 years of having my intestines sticking clear out of my body. (My wooziness is now setting in). So it takes them literally 45 minutes just to get my IV in because I wouldn't put my arm down for them to get it in. then they wheel me in the operating room and have me count down. I think it went something like this:
10... I hate all of you... 9.. I just want to die.. 8.. when I wake up I will drop kick you across the room 7.. wait, I didn't mean that.. 6..wow, your eyes look really blue 5... I kinda want to hold your hand 4.. I love you! 3.. let me have your baby! 2.. And I didn't get past 2 because all the lights went out in the entire hospital. Apparently someone hit a pole outside and killed all the electricity. They wheeled me back to some room and I had to wait another 3 hours before I could have the real surgery.
I want to barf now. Thanks Lyds ;)
Me too, Erin. Not to downplay that horrific episode but, why oh why did you wait 9 years to get that shit fixed?! Did you have to plan your accessories around it?
Just in case anyone else is worried about bringing up repressed memories, I really meant this as a "make-believe" day, not necessarily true stories. (I didn't think any of us actually had health insurance, let alone coverage for major surgeries.)
My most serious injury happened in seventh grade and sent me to surgery. I broke my arm while doing a back handspring for cheerleading tryouts. I actually heard the cracking noise before I hit the wrestling mat and saw my right forearm bent into a 90 degree angle. Pretty traumatic actually.
I had to spend 36 hours in the hospital bed with my arm in an ace bandage and the most horrible medical item ever, the IV. They kept starving me because they kept telling me surgery was just around the corner. The doctor must have been on vacation or something. Miraculously, I never felt any pain from the break, and I can't really explain that because I'm pretty sure adrenaline doesn't last for days straight.
Anyway, I guess in the hospital world, age 13 is still a little kid because my room had big bird all over the walls. I'm not complaining about that, but I will still be pissed off that when I went into surgery they would not let me wear a shirt. And trust me, I had boobies, all be them little; they would have definitely needed to be covered by a black bar if they were on tv. So when I think of counting from ten into a deep sleep, I can't help but remember looking down to my seventh grade boobies and being mortified.
Never really realized how many cans of worms I've got crowding up my head...here goes another one.
Hmmm...which near death story to tell??
Well, since this about surgery in particular, I guess we'll go there.
Once upon a time, I had a uterus. Her name was Eunice. She bore me the best things in my life so was therefore my best friend.
The beech went and died on me.
Getting her out was supposed to be a cinch...happens all the time...no biggie.
Hmmm...wait, am I still supposed to be feeling an ungodly amount of pain immediately upon waking from surgery? Is my stomach supposed to be blowing up like a pregnancy watched in super-high speed? Oh, I'm sorry! Am I screaming too loudly in the "recovery" room? You'll just give me lots more morphine and move me into a private room and not come and check on me, even though I'm crying and screaming and alone and PUSHING THE HELP BUTTON. Oh, I see, I just need to calm down while you give me more morphine...and some good advice: no, I really shouldn't be feeling pain, why don't I try to sleep and I'll feel better once I wake up.
Hmmm...Nurse Joy (my miracle nurse, if you know the story) came in cuz she randomly saw my name on the list and wanted to say "Hi". Miracle Nurse Joy took one look at me, checked my vitals and ran out of the room. I was back in surgery within 4 minutes. They pumped 2 liters of blood out of stomach due to a little something we like to call internal bleeding. The doctor had nicked my stomach lining while removing Eunice. Miracle Nurse Joy told me later that I had been about 20 minutes away from not coming back.
Needless to say, Eunice is no longer my best friend.
Shannon! This story still makes my eyes leak like a 90 year old woman remembering her first love. Thank the lawd you are ok now even though Eunice has left us.
Lyds-- who knows why it took me nine years. Probably from not having the insurance you mentioned above. Long live health care!
i'm a nerd.
Lyds,
I'll chime in with a for-realsies medical procedure as well. Everybody else seems to have followed your original instructions to the letter.
Everybody else,
Hi. I'm Lydia's friend Paco, not some random weirdo waxing douchey. Well, I should say "not just," making me both Lydia's friend Paco AND some random weirdo waxing douchey.
I got into a pretty gnarly car accident on Christmas Eve of 2006 in which I wrapped my car around a light pole about a foot away from a huge transformer. A couple funny points before the hospital:
1) The first cop on the scene asked me where my driver's license was. I told him it was in my wallet in my back pocket. He says "All right, sir. I'm going to reach into your pants now," pauses for a beat and continues, "but only to get your wallet."
2) They had to use the jaws of life to cut me out and the firefighter that was on the machine was both a woman and a trainee. There was (what looked like to me) a lumberjack-looking dude behind her giving her instructions. When she started getting closer to my leg, I turned to the lumberjack and asked (very politely) "No offense, but is there anyway you could do this part? I'm not really against her doing it because she's a woman, but because it sounds like you know what you're doing a little better." He replied, "Brother, you're in good hands. She's the best female trainee we could find tonight."
When they finally cut me out (she did a fine job) and put me on the gurney, everybody in earshot said "Yup, that's broken." Both of the bones in my shin (tib/fib, for those in the know) had decided to check out what was going on outside of my leg.
The EMT (who only referred to me as "bro") kept offering me morphine and I explained to him that I didn't want to be a girl about the pain and that I'd be fine on the 20 minute ride to the hospital. Roughly seven minutes later, I admitted that I was, in fact, a girl and asked if the morphine option was still on the table.
Christmas Eve is a busy night in any ER and I timed my accident well enough to get the last actual "room." They cut off my jeans and underpants (and gave them back to me when I left, which I thought was weird) and left me hanging (so to speak) with the curtain wide open. After the fourth attempt to get someone's attention about getting me something to cover up, a nurse walked in. She rolled her eyes when I asked for a blanket or something. "Sorry," I said, "I realize this isn't exactly the time or place to be worried about modesty... but, it's cold."
Absolutely no joke: she covers me with a blanket and on her way out she says "Yeah, it is," under her breath.
Fast forward: the surgeon comes in and starts explaining things to me as they're vacuuming glass out of my hair and face. He's still talking as I start to pass out and the last thing I remember was him talking about me not being able to smoke during recovery because it affects blah, blah, blah. My eyes are growing heavy and this medical professional grabs my face, gives it a not-so-gentle shake and says "Oh no you don't. I know you heard me about the smoking thing."
I wake up and all I want is a cigarette. The incredibly cool and funny, but oh-so large nurse is checking tubes and whatnot and I ask her what the surgeon's name was. "You mean Dr. Toomah?"
"Hold on... he's a surgeon named Toomah?" Being the mental nine year old that I am, I actually put my hand in front of my mouth to hold in the giggling.
She deadpans. "Just say it already."
"It's not a Toomah!"
Zero expression. "Wow. Try to take a wild guess how many times he's probably heard that just today?"
"Does that make it less funny?"
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