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Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:30 am
by Nightshade
Had my surgery yesterday, all went well. At least I'm told it all went well, I was knocked da FUCK out. I had no idea this was going to happen, but they did the entire surgery with my leg completely submerged in water. Weird.
I am wearing the mother of all braces, this thing has levers, switches, I have no idea how it works. I couldn't take it off even if I was allowed to, which I can't until Friday.
PuFF, you're in for it buddy, this shit HURTS. They gave me Versed and Fentanyl prior to surgery, and administered a femoral nerve block. My entire right leg was numb almost instantly, and I was looped. All I remember is them wheeling me to the OR, shifting on to the table, and then they placed the mask on my face. Told me it was just oxygen to start, and that's it as far as memories. I regained consciousness in the recovery room, and I was groggy as FUCK. I'm told that I have no tolerance for meds, and I believe it. I could NOT stay awake, which was fine because I was in a lot of pain.
I wasn't allowed to eat anything after midnight on Monday, so I was fucking starving by the time I got home Tuesday afternoon. I think I was at the hospital for about five hours total. My fiancee rules, she got me soda, crackers, and chocolate ice cream. The bad thing is that the pain meds (hydrocodone) make me nauseous, so the ice cream ended up getting lobbed into the shitter after a rapid and painful shuffle to the bathroom. I haven't yarked since, as they gave me something for the nausea as well.
So, the upshot of this is, don't tear your ACL, it sucks. Oh, and fuck American healthcare (Mazda, tell your gay friend Mat he can still eat a dick), I have a $2500 deductible. I should have gone to Thailand.
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:31 am
by MKJ
im glad as FUCK you're alright.
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:42 am
by Nightshade
Thanks man.
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 9:02 am
by Eraser
Good to hear all went relatively well. How did you tear up your knee?
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 9:16 am
by Nightshade
Skiing, caught an edge. Tore my ACL and sprained my MCL.
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 10:16 am
by GONNAFISTYA
Good to hear you've come through.
I don't know if you've ever been "put under" before but I'd just like to point out that you've just experienced the closest thing to death you possibly could without actually dying. You lose consciousness no matter how much effort you put into staying awake and you have no sense of time whatsoever. Even while sleeping you have a sense of time, but not while being under.
When I was put under for the reconstructive surgery on my thumb, I remember the doctor telling me that same lie when they put the mask on: it's just some oxygen to relax you. I even remember the doc saying to me as I went under,"See you soon" and poof...I was out. It was like someone was turning down the volume and brightness while he was talking to me.
Then BAM...I woke up two and a half hours later with no sense of how much time had passed. It felt instantaneous.
So yeah...now you know what it's like to die.

Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 10:45 am
by Nightshade
Yeah, tbh I was more antsy about the anesthesia than I was about the surgery. I've never had a general before, so it definitely a trip. What you described is exactly what I experienced. No idea of how much time had gone by, it was a bit disconcerting.
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 10:56 am
by MKJ
Dear Penthouse, I want to tell you about an experience I recently had. As an avid reader I've always wondered if the letters are real. I'm a dentist and one afternoon my hygienist and I decided to have a little fun with one of our patients. Of course none of our patients had any idea exactly of what we were up to..
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 11:04 am
by Mat Linnett
When I had my eye burst, I had 5 surgeries in a year, all under general anaesthetic. Freaky as fuck, innit?
Glad to hear it went well dude, and wish you a speedy recovery

Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 11:08 am
by GONNAFISTYA
Nightshade wrote:Yeah, tbh I was more antsy about the anesthesia than I was about the surgery. I've never had a general before, so it definitely a trip. What you described is exactly what I experienced. No idea of how much time had gone by, it was a bit disconcerting.
I wasn't too groggy when I woke up. My oxygen mask was on upside down, so when I opened my eyes everything was foggy. After a second or two I realized what was what and re-fitted my mask. It was fucked because either a nurse was a moron or I thrashed on the gurney as I began to come to...which I don't remember doing.
Then about 2 minutes later I asked the first nurse that walked past how long I was out, because I was so freaked about the loss of time. It was the first time I'd ever experienced that "snap two hours have gone by and I didn't notice" feeling.
Because of that experience I'm quite certain that if I died tomorrow and was revived 20 million years from now I wouldn't have noticed any time passing at all....just like I didn't notice the 13.7 billion years before I was born. Pretty freaky when you think about it.
*lights bong*
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 11:21 am
by Nightshade
I was talking to a guy not too long ago that had been in a bad snowmobile accident. He was on a snowed-in road with some friends. He came ripping around a corner and smacked into the grill of a stuck van, he said that he was going about 40mph. He said he felt nothing, just the start of the impact, then everything went black. I forget where he was when he came to, but he said the same thing. Nothing but lights out...
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 12:41 pm
by scared?
walk it off zak...too bad u weren't around here...my wife could have done ur anesthesia...i would have told her to up the propofol and do a michael jackson on ya...scared?...
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 12:51 pm
by HM-PuFFNSTuFF
Glad it went well man. Let me know how the rehab goes.
I suspect I'm going to have a fair bit of post-op pain due to a high tolerance for opiates.

Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 1:00 pm
by scared?
lol drug addicts...
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 1:11 pm
by HM-PuFFNSTuFF

ownt
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 1:32 pm
by m4shke
Welcome back man, no skiing for you for a while eh
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 1:36 pm
by obsidian
Glad you're okay.
Best of luck on your surgery, PuFF.
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 1:57 pm
by Eraser
Should've left the skiing to the pro's eh?

Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 2:14 pm
by andyman
Cool they did it underwater like Wolverine in the xmen movies?
get well!
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 2:24 pm
by Nightshade
scared? wrote:walk it off zak...too bad u weren't around here...my wife could have done ur anesthesia...i would have told her to up the propofol and do a michael jackson on ya...scared?...
lol, I actually warned the gas passer not to Michael Jackson me.
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 6:01 pm
by Underpants?
any chance they transplant the hair from your ass to your head while they were at it?
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 6:06 pm
by seremtan
that all sounds pretty shit. glad you're gonna be ok though. one day you'll look back on this and laugh. one day
i bet that no-sense-of-time disorientation thing would apply if someone were in suspended animation or cryogenically frozen etc. could be really weird if it was 1,000 years after going under and on another planet
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 6:10 pm
by Underpants?
yeah the GKY description pretty much nailed the most startling part of a surgical experience. In all seriousness though, good to hear it's done and the PT should be a snap for your big Jiu-Jitsu lovin ass
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 9:00 pm
by lars63
Glad things turned out well, the effects of the operation and anesthetics doesn't sound like something I would like to experience
Re: Surgery successful
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 10:35 pm
by Tormentius
Good to hear it went well NS. How long until you're able to train again?
I've been under a couple of times due to bad breaks in years past and its a bizarre experience. Like GFY said, the worst was coming to in recovery while my mind was still in a haze and whirling trying to sort wtf happened and how long I was out for.