So I stayed awake for surgery...

So this marks my 2nd post within an hour. Maybe that's against blog etiquette. I have no idea. I'm just sorta confined the the couch right now, so laying back and typing is about the most active thing I can do... so I figured I'd blog about the port surgery.

So, I have to say UMC gets high marks for efficiency. My two previous surgeries at the Mayo Clinic always involved long waits for everything. This port placement procedure at UMC had me checked in to out the door in 4 hours! I was very impressed. They also had this neat monitor in the waiting room with a patient number and color codes for pre-op, various stages of the operation, or the recovery area. So Jake got a number when we checked in and he could keep an eye on where I was the whole time. Very cool.

The scariest part of the day was when I had my meeting with the anesthesiologist. He took a look at how my tongue was a bit constrained from moving down and the fact that my previous surgery still had me a bit stiff and harder for me to tilt my head up. He suggested that we just do local anesthesia and just drug me up so I don't really remember what was going on. Even if I didn't remember it, the idea of being in a room where I'd be having things jabbed into my chest while hearing and feeling things going on was really quite frightening. I weighed the pros and cons.... I really wouldn't remember it, I wouldn't have to worry about coming out with a sore throat from being intubated, I would be released quicker, there were less risks involved.... The only con was just the idea of how scary it might be. The anesthesiologist assured me that since we'd be talking, if I indicated I was in pain or uncomfortable, he could always just put me out with general anesthesia. So I went ahead and opted to be awake for surgery.

You know what...it wasn't that bad. I remember discomfort in my hand from the drugs going into the IV. I remember blue sheets over my head. I remember asking if the port was in or asking if they were putting in stitches or whatnot. I remember Dr. Ong telling the resident something about how surgeries were like cooking because you have to line up things ahead of time. I think the resident put in the stitches and I remember Dr. Ong telling him it was one of the best looking ports he's seen. Then as they were cleaning up I started coming back to normal. I was able to move myself from the surgery table to the one that rolled me to the resting area. They got me some juice as they took my vitals and wrote my discharge instructions & prescriptions. Before long I was dressed and in a wheelchair being taken out to Jake's car.

Now I'm laying here on the couch. The local anesthesia is starting to wear off on the incision site. Jake took my prescriptions to Walgreens (all 7 of them! 2 from the RO, 3 from the MO, and 2 from the SO). I think I need to take some of this vicodin soon, but unfortunately the vicodin is still in process and when I just called them to ask the status they said they'd have it ready in an hour. An hour! I'm in pain here! What is wrong with these folks. :(

Jake just left to go talk some sense into them in person. I'm going to try to take a nap until they're ready.

Yay for a good surgery experience. Yay for a good-looking port. Yay for a husband to take care of me. Yay for not having to get IVs again!!!!

Boo for Walgreens pharmacy staff today. (and they're normally so good)