surgery… day 1

ok, so brian already gave an update, but i thought i’d fill in here with the full nitty gritty of what went down at the hospital.

to start things off…. they gave me this soap to cleanse with both the night before surgery, and the morning of.  it was some heavy duty antibacterial stuff.  once i started to apply it, i knew why they said ‘do not use above your neck!’ as it was some stinging potent mix.  and it really dried your skin.

after showering and getting my bag together, headed out to the car to make sure the snow that had fallen since saturday wasn’t too much.  driving around, with chains on, it was obvious that i still needed to go easy and take it slow.  upon return to pick up the family, the drivers side windows started to fall again.  for those that didn’t get the reasoning on this, a few weeks back, the window regulator had failed during my CT scan, and the glass was just resting inside the door until the mech at the dealer managed to pull hte glass and just jam it into place as a temp fix until i could get it truly resolved. and now the temp fix was failing.  i really didn’t want to have any potential stress after the surgery.  last thing i needed was to wake up from surgery and find my car had been f*cked with.  so we called the back up driver.

dave showed up in just a few minutes and safely got all of us [mom, dad, sis and i] to the surgery pavilion of the hospital with time to spare.  upon checking in, i was handed another pamplet of papers to entertain myself with and was asked to wait until the surgeon was ready for me in pre-op.

i managed to keep my cool for the entire waiting period until right at the end, when i finally broke down.  it was hellish.  not only was i a mess, but the dry air caused me to get a bloody nose.  so here i am, in tears and bleeding all over my shirt and the guy walks out and starts to call my name.  it was a mess.  so the dude proceeds to walk us all to the real waiting room and i say my goodbyes and head with him to pre-op.

upon walking into pre-op, i noticed my name on the board, but no station number next to my name.  this caused a whole panic with the nurses.  turns out they had called me in too early.  so i was asked to wait with my family in the waiting room.  then a few minutes later, i was asked to wait back in the surgery pavilion waiting area until they were ready for me.  so i went back and waited.  it was real cool.

finally they came to get me.  said my goodbyes again and off i went into pre-op.  laying there on the table, i couldn’t help but listen to the patient next to me.  it sounded really really bad.  and painful.  and complicated.  all it did was get my mind spinning and i started to get really nervous again.  finally a nurse showed up and started to prep me.  they covered me with an air blanket that was hooked up to a heater to keep me super warm before surgery [i was told it helps to prevent infections, as the surgery rooms are usually so cool]. i was asked all the usual questions by multiple people, how old are you, what’s your birthday, who’s your surgeon, when did you eat last, what is the procedure you’re here for, what time was your last drink of water at….

then the anaesthesiologist shows up.  nice german dude.  i ask how big a catheter they are gonna use today.  he says 16 gauge.  16 gauge! i think to myself.  shit… that’s huge.  last surgery they used a 20 gauge and i thought that was plenty enough.  then.. he just skips the needle, and proceeds to numb the back of my hand and just went for it with this huge IV catheter.  it was both painful and impressive that he got it in, and it stayed in.  about this time i started to freak again, and i asked him if it was normal for people to get nervous before this operation.  he stated ‘we would be more nervous if you weren’t nervous’ then he left and came back with a big needle of stuff.  he injected it into me, gave me a wink and said ‘this should help you mellow out’ and whaddya know?  i felt fine almost immediately.

got wheeled into the surgery room, strapped down, asked a ton more questions by the other anaesthesiologist, and that’s all i remember.

waking up was a bit more difficult than during my biopsy procedure.  my biopsy procedure i was up and fine in just a few minutes.  waking up from the median sternotomy was a whole different ordeal.  i could hear the doctors and nurses arguing on whether i should be in the ICU or not.  giving this reason and that reason.  i was starting to get nervous again.  finally i was able to open my eyes, and i tugged on the nurses shirt and asked her what was up.  how long have i been in post-op?  why am i in so much pain and bloated feeling.

turns out a few complications had occurred.  first, i was severly dehydrated, even though they had pumped me full of fluids through the IV during the procedure [they do this to keep your HR and BP steady throughout].  secondly, they couldn’t tell if i was recognizing all the fluids, as nothing was being drained out [i had a foley catheter in place by this point].  lastly, they were fearing i was losing BP [blood pressure] due to internal bleeding, but couldn’t figure out where from.

finally they found a way to stabilize me, and off to my room i went.  eight hours in post-op.  it was torture.  upon making it to my room, my family were all there.  i was feeling pretty shitty.  it had been a super long day, i was super drugged up and i was just wanting to sleep.  my dad stayed the night with me, to make sure everything was ok.  the typical every hour checkup woke me up, but it was fine.  it kept me on top of my PCA [patient controlled analgesia] which was hydromorphone.  supposedly 10x stronger than morphine.  it was hardly keeping the pain at bay.

i had two chest tubes coming out from below my rib cage, and every movement i made caused them to move inside my chest.  it was hell.

i hadn’t been told, but the surgeon had informed my family after the surgery about the procedure.  he was glad they had chosen the more invasive method, as it allowed them to get in and extract all the cyst.  he was also glad that the cyst had started to grow behind the phrenic nerve, which made removal even easier without affecting the main nerve that drives your diaphragm.  he did mention that he had never seen a cyst like the one inside of me in all his years of being a surgeon.  it was both sticky, fatty and nodular.  the entire thing is in the hands of pathology right now to confirm that there is nothing of cancerous origin there.

follow up on the fun of day 2 to come shortly.