For those of you who know me and have been wondering:
My surgery was postponed four times because I was sick. The anesthesiologist doesn't want to mess with someone who has a respiratory infection unless the surgery is urgently needed to correct a life-threatening condition. My problem could have eventually become life-threatening, but for now, it was just painful and annoying. So he put the kibash on the first three go-arounds. I was somewhat relieved, because all those stab wounds sutures in the abdomen really hurt when you cough. After the second postponement, they put me on all sorts of drugs, including steroids, which all had the ironic effect of making me feel very tired and weak. I don't think they improved my bat speed a bit.
The surgery finally went forward on Tuesday. They checked me in, had me strip down to an undignified surgical "robe", shoved an IV into my hand, and asked me a series of questions, including whether I used street drugs, whether anyone is abusing me and whether I had any thoughts of suicide or other desires to hurt myself. There was about another thirty minute delay caused by some confusion in the surgery room schedule and my chart. They had me listed on two of the records as a 40 year old woman. This made me quite nervous. I'm not a 40 year old woman, and never have been. I had no desire to wake up with a huge set of silicone breasts, or to have a doctor explain to me that they went in to remove my uterus only to find that I didn't have one in the first place. But they fixed the problem, and assured me that everyone knew who my surgeon was and what I was having done, and then literally every single nurse asked the same set of questions, and both the surgeon and the anesthesiologist confirmed with me who I was and what I was there to have done. So by the time they dropped the knockout juice into my IV, I wasn't too anxious.
I woke up about an hour later, and I was out of the hospital before dark. I looked like I was on death's door, but it wasn't really that bad. It hurt, but it was nothing like the painful hours immediately after my appendectomy earlier this year. I've been out of work all week, but I've weaned myself off the vicodin and I expect to be back to work this week.
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