These next couple weeks may or may not have any regularity to posting, but I have a reason – a vacation of sorts. I’m recovering from hernia surgery. But this isn’t an update post for those few people who might care enough out there, it is also one of those art/life/teachable moments that I thought someone else out there might be able to get something out of. So let’s start.
People who know me, know that I will research the living daylights out of any new situation that I’m going into, so my surgery was no different. And even though hernias are common as are their surgeries, this was my first – much like the first child – so out and online I went.
While I was online, I found hundreds of resources, some of them not worth the bandwidth they were carried on, but others that were a great resource – and as luck would have it, I found the best one a couple days before heading in. Someone, a few years ago posted a “trip report” on their surgery. Of course knowing the caveat that every surgery is the different it was very helpful to know how things went for someone who isn’t just complaining about symptoms (not linking to all those as there are more an enough out there and that is pretty easy Google foo to find… squeaky wheels and all). I also had my brother who is a surgery resident to help explain the process to me as well – as did my surgeon who was (despite his resistance to talk about anything other than the procedure at hand, is a great resource as well). So between all these resources I had a “better than lay – I would say” vocabulary when it came time to be sliced. I certianly didn’t fall into this sort of situation (sorry no deep link on the embed code yet – hint hint Google). Now while I didn’t talk with the surgeon for anywhere near as long with the nurses and the other support docs, but those who I did talk to really seemed to like being able to use “their” language rather than trying to explain things in “really lay” terms.
My experience so far has been very much like the one that I linked to. The experience started with laying and waiting in a paddock of sorts, waiting for the various residents and docs to toddle by. The anesthesia resident was the first to really comment how he liked that I had done some background reading, mentioning that one of the down sides to day surgery is that there wasn’t any time to really inform the patients before or after – so I guess my connection will be as much part of my post op recovery as the nurses would have been in the old days. The resident explained that they would start an IV in my hand after putting on a turnkey and giving me a cozy warmed blanket, he told me that I would be on IV, antibiotics and then finally the “sleep juice”. He also said that all my running resulted in a “near textbook case” (HR 63 and BP 113/68 before going to sleep if I remember) for the drugs (though I wonder if they tell everyone who comes in healthy) so I would not have any issues, and I certainly would not have a chance of “waking up” during the procedure as so many ‘net horror stories have described. The doc explained that that were more likely to happen if the patient was too sick to handle the meds and that because I was “making things easy” I probably would not have too much extra sleep to deal with afterward.
When it comes time to do all the hookups, they were all done for me in the OR, I thought it was going to be a little scary at first, but seeing the window and knowing where I was in the hospital based on the view was a real bonus. The nurses were all very friendly, like my brother had told me (he likely has worked with them as well) and after the IV was in they were ready for the sleep juice after filling my lungs with oxygen. They described the “snakebite” that was the injection of the sleeping agent and while I was telling the nurse of “my favorite place to be” – Disneyland if you want to know – I was gone, I think I just barely got out “land”, noticing the “Great Pumpkin” on her head covering, and then I woke up telling another nurse and my wife “’cause of the Mickey Mouse bars”… literally I didn’t experience the operation at all.
The rest of the day in the ward (and it was – 2h procedure and 11h at the hospital) was spent relaxing, spacing out and micro-napping. Finally getting home, I was able to start on soft food right way (there is a real mix of opinion between docs and nurses – solids vs soupy) and toward the end of the night I was also able to speak at full volume as the drugs wore off, but with that I could feel my throat that was obviously scratched up/irritated during intubation. As a result of getting the meds out of my body, I also got quite the attack of post op hiccups – and while some of them hurt, the only impact so far is not letting me sleep overnight… and that is where I’m at now. Thankfully I’m not on narcotics for the pain, rather Tylenol/Ibuprofen to control inflammation and pain.
I’ll post more if it’s pertinent, but so far things are going good… and I leave you with a tribute to my former life- also a link ’cause Big G has disabled embedding for this.
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