Surgery Day
I’m reporting for surgery at 6:45am this morning. I want to thank all my family and friends (both “real-life” and online) for all of the prayers, good thoughts, and support during this time. As soon as I feel well enough to blog, I’ll be sure and update you all on how I’m doing. I know, especially for my Facebook friends, my medical updates are probably getting tiring. Hopefully after I recover from this surgery, I can stop with the annoying medical updates and start posting annoying updates about my goal to run a marathon before my fortieth birthday.
A funny story from this morning: I needed an IV put in before the flexible sigmoidoscopy for the sedation. Since I was having a CAT scan afterwards, they needed to use a larger gauge needle so that the IV would work for the CAT scan contrast as well. When the nurse put in the IV, it hurt REALLY bad. It felt like the needle was poking me all the way down to my wrist. As you can imagine, I’ve had several hundred IVs in my life so I knew that this was not normal. I told the nurse that it really hurt and that the crook of my elbow where the needle was inserted was throbbing. She chalked it up to the larger needle (which I’m sure I’ve had before because I’ve had several CAT scans). I was dubious but I figured since she was the nurse she was probably right. Then she flushed it with saline and said that I should be feeling cool rush in my arm and a salty taste in my mouth. I know this, having felt it several times before. This time not only did I not feel the cool sensation from the saline going in but it actually hurt and it felt like my bicep was getting swollen. Again I told the nurse that something was not right and again she told me that the IV flushed just fine.
Fast forward to the procedure room where they give you the sweet, sweet medicine that makes you fall asleep. The procedure nurse (a different nurse from the one who put in my IV) pushed in the meds and …. nothing. Usually I’m asleep before the syringe of milky nectar is empty. I noticed that the doctor had moved into position behind me and that the nurse was getting some supplies ready. “Um, am I supposed to be asleep?” I asked. Yes, I was according to the doctor and nurse, who were both looking very surprised and confused. The nurse gave me another syringe of the good stuff and still nothing. No dreamy, fuzzy feeling at all. At this point, I was getting really worried that I was going to have to have this procedure awake. Why weren’t my little narcotic friends doing their job?
At this point, I explained the problems I had in the IV room. The procedure nurse poked and rubbed my bicep and determined that for whatever reason I needed a new IV. She took out the old and moved the new one to a different spot on my arm. Within minutes I was floating away to my happy place. I hope I can find my happy place a lot easier this morning!
(I’m also wondering if there is any way to siphon the medicine from first two syringes of medicine out of bicep so that I can save it for later. Yum.)
