Tidbits

[cjsmith]

indyansel, I don't believe this! They're awesome! They arrived in styrofoam with an ice pack. And you knew I liked dark! How'd you know/remember that??

apparentparadox, that pillow thing is a GODSEND. I used it all day yesterday and I'm using it now.

The long-acting local is definitely all gone now. It's interesting learning how to get around without letting either forefoot touch ANYTHING. I am realizing how much easier things would be with one good leg, particularly in the bathroom. But I'm still glad I don't have to go through surgery twice!

I suspect, as ouchy as this is, that I have it easy in the post-surgical pain department. After all, at the bottom of the incision just coincidentally happens to be a spot where I don't have a nerve any more.

Since the local's worn off I can feel my toes... most of them. On each foot there is a spot I will never feel again, and let me just say right now that is the weirdest sensation I have experienced in thirty-seven years on this earth. It's not half so freaky when I know it's an anaesthetic. This is ME; this is how my body is, forever. A local is also, somehow, not quite as complete a loss of sensation. I touch these toes with my fingers and it's like they're not there at all. Someone substituted plastic toes. Except that the other side of each toe is there. At that point my brain segfaults. It simply cannot make sense of the input it is getting.

For some reason I am still thinking of all this as a grand adventure.

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I don't remember a bit of it. This frustrates me because I suspect I was at least partially conscious! But the drug also has amnesiac properties, and I'm bummed to find out that those properties work fine on me.

First I got an IV installed. That caused a stronger pinch than the usual needle because they put the... shunt? whatever... in THROUGH the needle and then withdrew the needle, meaning that the needle had to be bigger than usual. But it really wasn't bad in terms of pain. Just a pinch. My squeamishness about needles was the thing that bugged me.

Then I was hooked up to some saline. Shortly afterward the anaesthesiologist said "You're going to start to feel relaxed." I don't know whether she was giving me the beginnings of the sedation or a separate drug. I allowed as how I was pretty nervous and relaxed sounded very good to me. I had a few more conversational exchanges with the doctor and the nurse, and I have a very vague memory of my surgeon coming in, and that is IT until I was pridefully fighting to be awake in the recovery area.

I had general for my wisdom teeth, and since I've always bounced back well from that, I have no regrets on that score. I had very very very mild queasiness after IV sedation, possibly attributable to being overhungry. A few pretzel rods cured it, anyway.

Good luck with the wisdom tooth!