first surgery experience

I had my first surgery experience yesterday morning (yes, lucky, had never been in surgery before)... 730AM.  Bright and early my husband took me to the hospital at around 530/6AM.  Monday.  It was a long day.

You know... it was nothing at all like what I imagined it to be (this, from books, watching television and movies, ....).  Actually, what I experienced is completely missing from the "knowledge" of what it's like to have surgery from the media.  When you suspend disbelief and watch a television show...  the subject (person in the show) about to have surgery gets wheeled in (in a wheelchair) or is on a table getting wheeled into the operating room.  As you enter the operating room, the view is dark or maybe focused on the table with a bright light shining over it - as a viewer in these scenarios all you see is the table...  that's where we are heading.  THEN, the subject looks up to bright lights and a doctor wearing a mask and a hair cap who starts counting down as the subject gets drowsy....  "10-9-8-7....".   Lights out.  A flurry of activity goes on in the operating room and then voila ...  the subject is in the recovery room surrounded by flowers and loved ones.

While I can't share the photos of the actual operating room or experience with you...  and while quite unflattering... you can see the before and after photos of the early morning fun we had yesterday.  

Here's the actual experience.  You get stuck with the IV needle so they start the fluids and such on you.  (BTW Painful afterwards - my hand is blue and purple on the top of my left hand where the IV needle was (currently massaging it to health again).  I was shivering in my hospital gown, so they covered me head to toe in heated blankets while I waited.  ....  Now for the entering the surgery room experience.  When your viewing experience is controlled while watching television for instance, your field of vision is pretty focused on the ominous operating table.  When you're conscious and entering the operating room as I was yesterday, your eyes are going everywhere.  I'm scared and nervous.  Teeth chattering.  My eyes, big, looked forward and I see the operating table.  It's actually a funny shaped table sort of like a stainless steel cross with towels and gauze all over it - a place where I lay, and extensions for where my arms will go. Okay, that's where I'm going... creepy. The room is actually bright... well lit, not what I expected for some reason.  I look right, there's a stainless steel table with gadgets on it... Oh gosh... oh gosh, looks scary.  Yikes...  I recognize the Anesthesia doctor there.  To my left, a wall of stainless steel sinks and counter-tops with random things I don't recognize.  I recognize the doctor and the nurse.  ...  They instruct me to get on the table.  I climb on to the table while awkwardly trying to manage the damn IV line that's hindering my movement.  My arms get placed out on the stainless steel extensions - it's cold.  They cover me with more heated blankets.  The Anesthesia doctor comes over to me and asks, how are you feeling?  I'm cold...  Doctor, I feel so loopy .... spinning..  The Anesthesia doctor responds, "hmm it should not be affecting you that quickly, let me adjust...  " 

Then ... [BLANK]  I have no idea what happens next.

I wake up and regain conscious memory with my darling husband touching my face... and a nurse asking me what juice I wanted.  Apple juice... ...  blacked out again.  Woke up...  the nurse pulls the IV needle out of my hand finally.  ...  

That's it.  In TV/movies you get everything that the subject/patient doesn't experience/see/remember.  In real life, you get everything else - and it's WAY more dramatic.  My hand is still sore from the IV experience.  My throat is sore from the intubation experience (breathing tubes).  I slept most of the day/night yesterday.  I sit here with heating pads, seaweed soup (courtesy of my mother in law), and my darling Shiba, Mochi by my side.

Thanks for letting me share that.  Hopefully you found it semi-interesting/amusing.  Shared my thoughts on this with my husband last night and he seemed like he really enjoyed the story.  Hopefully a rare story and I won't have to visit the surgery experience too often in life....
--Arry