Cuttin' time

Yesterday I got to experience surgery for the first time.
Well, sort-of.
I don't remember anything about the surgery, but I'm pretty sure it happened, because my lower back is in plenty of pain and my right leg is not. So something must have been done. Plus, my back was painted orange with iodine, and I have an occlusive dressing covered by a transparent dressing on my lower back.
That, and my throat hurts. Which makes sense if someone placed a breathing tube down into my trachea. Oh, and I have some lung congestion and atelectasis (my small airways aren't opening all the way and have some mucus in them. This is because artificial breathing does not really work at fully opening airways, since the positive pressure needed to force them open usually ends up damaging the lungs. Yeah, breathing naturally is better, since the diaphragm and abdominal muscles can create negative pressure to pull air into the airways and open those little alveoli up). I'm sad I didn't get an incentive spirometer.

The night before surgery, I had to shampoo and shower as I normally do, then scrub neck-down with surgical scrub (aka CHG). And then repeat that in the morning. And repeat that again (but with bath wipes and CHG wipes) once in the hospital. I was definitely close to being sterile. Which reminds me, the hospital tested me for pregnancy the morning of, just in case I got pregnant in 6 days since my last pregnancy test when I got a pre-op work-up (or that is what I assume. maybe they just like testing urine for pregnancies). It was negative. In case you missed the clues.

I got to put on a disposable patient gown that absolutely enveloped me and then some. On the bright side, I could hook the gown up to a wall temperature regulator thing and have a personalized climate just from adjusting the temp of the air that was blown into closed pockets of the gown.
I also got thigh-high compression stockings and SCD leg wraps (to push blood from my legs back up to my heart). And non-slip socks. And lastly, a silver elasticated hair cover. Pretty sure I looked AWESOME.

That silver hair cover is the last thing I remember. I don't even actually remember getting the cap on; all I got in my memory files is an image of an anesthesiologist or OR tech standing at the foot of my bed with this space-suit-silver-looking thing, and knowing that it would go on my head.
And then the next thing I remember is talking to Mark, and asking if he had eaten or slept. Or rather, I remember one of the times I asked Mark if he had eaten or slept. Apparently I repeated my conversation with him on a 45-second loop, rotating through 1) if he ate, 2) if he slept, 3) that I didn't remember leaving the pre-op room, and sometimes 4) if I was behaving nicely on drugs. He assured me that I was being friendly, and I vaguely remember replying, "Oh good. I'm glad I'm happy on drugs and not bitchy." He was amused by that. Further amusement came when he asked if I remembered the word I used to describe how I could have been on drugs...I widened my eyes and said "Oohhh!" and then told the PACU (post-anesthesia care unit) nurse that I don't normally swear.

Being a PACU nurse must be fun. But then again, you probably will never get much patient appreciation, because your patients don't really remember you. I knew she existed, and that she was in a chair by my head. And that's it.

Yay for nurses! Especially the unappreciated ones!