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Impressions: 1) Boy do they ever keep ya waiting. 2) The staff people I met were friendly. 3) Ow. 4) I must be some kind of impressive recovery person or something.
We got there a few minutes before 8, as instructed. Filled out papers. Waited for at least an hour. Got taken back to pre-op inprocessing, taking vitals, asking questions, etc; the nurse had to take my blood pressure four times before it was low enough to continue. (I was nervous, okay?) Got an IV in my arm. Went vagal. Rob came back to join me and got to talk me through the dizzy-sweat-clammy. We waited for well over another hour, maybe close to two.
I kept whining about how hungry I was, and Liz, my inprocessing nurse, made sure to tell me she got a snack on break. It was just the right level of teasing.
I had the word "Yes" written on my right leg.
Dr. C showed up. I signed the consent form for "if we can't get an IV in your foot, we can try the spinal." Rolled into the OR. Monitors on. Versed and some other drug for heart rate in. Tourniquet on...
...and sure enough, they couldn't get an IV in my foot. They tried, too. They tried hard. OW. There was blood on the sheet afterward.
You would not believe the number of needles and syringes that started coming out then. That may have been one of the times they dumped another dose of Versed down my IV.
So they rolled me off the gurney onto the operating table. Monitors and such all off, roooooll over, monitors and such all back on. Local anesthetic injected next to my spine. (OW. Somebody even gave me a hand to grip for that one. I don't know who; I was facedown. I gripped it all right.)
Then one, maybe two, big needles went in about an inch to the right of my spine. They moved them, took a "picture" (I don't know what kind of imaging they were using), moved them, looked, moved them... Apparently it's really hard to get the needle to JUST the right nerve. There was enough shoving and moving that they put in more local anesthetic. I remember asking for copies of the pictures, but now I'm not at all sure Dr. C took me seriously.
"Okay," said Dr. C when everything was ready, "if you have any ringing in your ears or numbness or tingling in your mouth I want you to tell me." Dose went in. "Anything?" No. Dose. "Anything?" No. There were four repeats.
Then they had to clean me all off, apply bandages, and send me out, standard post-op type of monitoring and all. After I got dressed there was some discussion of whether I could walk out. They were having none of it. I honestly have no idea how they expected me to change into my street clothes with no one there to catch me if I fell, if they didn't believe I could walk to the elevator even with someone beside me. No clue. Anyway, I was obviously feeling absolutely nothing from the Versed. (Quotes from that chunk of time: "She's had five of Versed. There's no WAY she's walking out." "Should I tap dance, to show you I'm okay?" I did, too, a little.) I think that, as with Valium, enough nervousness can eat up a fair amount of the effect of the drug.
So I walked out. I'm apparently the first one they've ever walked out rather than wheeled out. So said the guy walking next to me, anyway.
Five hours after our arrival, I was home. They'd told me three. I suppose that's not too far off, huh? :-/
Now my back aches just a little (expected), my right leg feels warm (expected), and everything I have tried to eat tastes like vinegar. If you could make vinegar into a dry paste, and then get my mouth to secrete it so that no amount of rinsing will help, that'd be what this is like. My beloved cheese pockets taste like they've been pickled. Fortunately I am hungry enough to get past such a puny obstacle.
I get to do nothing involving driving, heavy machinery, or signing legally binding contracts for the rest of the day. No alcohol or sleepy-making drugs for about 24 hours. Apparently this Versed is usually powerful stuff.
We got there a few minutes before 8, as instructed. Filled out papers. Waited for at least an hour. Got taken back to pre-op inprocessing, taking vitals, asking questions, etc; the nurse had to take my blood pressure four times before it was low enough to continue. (I was nervous, okay?) Got an IV in my arm. Went vagal. Rob came back to join me and got to talk me through the dizzy-sweat-clammy. We waited for well over another hour, maybe close to two.
I kept whining about how hungry I was, and Liz, my inprocessing nurse, made sure to tell me she got a snack on break. It was just the right level of teasing.
I had the word "Yes" written on my right leg.
Dr. C showed up. I signed the consent form for "if we can't get an IV in your foot, we can try the spinal." Rolled into the OR. Monitors on. Versed and some other drug for heart rate in. Tourniquet on...
...and sure enough, they couldn't get an IV in my foot. They tried, too. They tried hard. OW. There was blood on the sheet afterward.
You would not believe the number of needles and syringes that started coming out then. That may have been one of the times they dumped another dose of Versed down my IV.
So they rolled me off the gurney onto the operating table. Monitors and such all off, roooooll over, monitors and such all back on. Local anesthetic injected next to my spine. (OW. Somebody even gave me a hand to grip for that one. I don't know who; I was facedown. I gripped it all right.)
Then one, maybe two, big needles went in about an inch to the right of my spine. They moved them, took a "picture" (I don't know what kind of imaging they were using), moved them, looked, moved them... Apparently it's really hard to get the needle to JUST the right nerve. There was enough shoving and moving that they put in more local anesthetic. I remember asking for copies of the pictures, but now I'm not at all sure Dr. C took me seriously.
"Okay," said Dr. C when everything was ready, "if you have any ringing in your ears or numbness or tingling in your mouth I want you to tell me." Dose went in. "Anything?" No. Dose. "Anything?" No. There were four repeats.
Then they had to clean me all off, apply bandages, and send me out, standard post-op type of monitoring and all. After I got dressed there was some discussion of whether I could walk out. They were having none of it. I honestly have no idea how they expected me to change into my street clothes with no one there to catch me if I fell, if they didn't believe I could walk to the elevator even with someone beside me. No clue. Anyway, I was obviously feeling absolutely nothing from the Versed. (Quotes from that chunk of time: "She's had five of Versed. There's no WAY she's walking out." "Should I tap dance, to show you I'm okay?" I did, too, a little.) I think that, as with Valium, enough nervousness can eat up a fair amount of the effect of the drug.
So I walked out. I'm apparently the first one they've ever walked out rather than wheeled out. So said the guy walking next to me, anyway.
Five hours after our arrival, I was home. They'd told me three. I suppose that's not too far off, huh? :-/
Now my back aches just a little (expected), my right leg feels warm (expected), and everything I have tried to eat tastes like vinegar. If you could make vinegar into a dry paste, and then get my mouth to secrete it so that no amount of rinsing will help, that'd be what this is like. My beloved cheese pockets taste like they've been pickled. Fortunately I am hungry enough to get past such a puny obstacle.
I get to do nothing involving driving, heavy machinery, or signing legally binding contracts for the rest of the day. No alcohol or sleepy-making drugs for about 24 hours. Apparently this Versed is usually powerful stuff.
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Here's hoping for a smooth recovery, and a large measure of success....
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