Surviving Surgery

I had my knee replacement surgery, and as with all my other surgeries, it was traumatic. In addition to stressing about the IV, I also had to contend with having spinal anesthesia. I went over the procedure with the anesthesiologist, and was still terrified. He must have slipped me a mickie, though, as I kissed my husband good-bye one minute and the next minute I was being wheeled back up to my room by a nice man named Sam. There are so many un-fun things about a hospital stay - the 4 am blood draw, constantly being asked to swallow a thousand pills, and the neverending noises, beeps, bells and whistles. And then there’s the constant estimation of my pain level (1 to 10). The nurses ask, and I give my very best guess, and they write it down like it’s a real set-in-stone number. I’ve never given them a number that I felt good about, and always suspect that a wrong number would cosmically be entered on my Permanent Record (thank you, Catholic school). Pain can really mess you up. The first night, my pain wasn’t well under control. It was decided that I needed a nerve block... in my groin. OMG! And here I thought I had experienced all the heinous needle things under the sun. The doctor who performed the procedure was a friend of my husband’s. He was very nice and gentle, and tried his best to put me at ease. After the procedure, Rick asked how his doctor friend had done. “He saw my cooter” was probably not the expected response. Then, for more up-close-and-personal, I got to have a catheter... twice. The first time it took two nurses to manhandle my lady bits, and the second time it only took one. By the time I got to go home, I had been poked, prodded, sliced and diced, and sawed and drilled, while spending the much of the time in a narcotic fog. Not fun, but I hope the outcome is good. I deserve an awesome knee, one that possibly shoots fireworks or laser beams. Or, doesn’t keep me up at night. That’s really all I ask.