Surgery Day

Well, the big, scary part is over.   Cold knife has been wielded, and I have survived! 

I got ready in record time that morning!  Up at 5:15…..out of the house by 5:35.  Of course, there really isn’t that much a girl has to primp, when they forbid make-up and fashion isn’t really too important.  No coffee (sucks major bunk that early) and no food, not to mention the drags I took from my boyfriend’s cigarettes caused me minor Catholic-guilt feelings!  I had a bitch of a time trying to get my belly piercing out, though.  Must’ve taken at least five of those minutes agonizing in the bathroom, hoping I don’t drop the damn thing, and Sophia (the cat) eats it while we’re away.  Fourteen years later and I’ve never taken it out.  Thank goodness it went back in!  So, we load up into the pimped-out Mom-van with track-lighting to boot, get all the way out of the driveway, when I say, “Uh honey…..it’s garbage day.”  This, of course, demanded expletives from my other half, and we both jump out of the pimp van, drag the trash and recycling out to the curb, and jump back in the van.  After a short ride, minor heart-palpatations, and a scrapped roof of the pimp van (apparently taller than 7 feet), we arrive at the torture destination aka. the hospital. 

Lucky me, I’m the first one there!  After the obligatory verification and “give me all your money” speech, they escort me to my own semi-private room.  I say semi-private because curtains are not walls, especially when the idiot across the aisle has both her parents, her boyfriend, and at least one stripper-friend with her.  I know for a fact that this chick’s having the same surgery as I am, since I’d ran into her at both my Ob/Gyn, and the pre-op appoinment.   Oh lucky me.   Needless to say, I booted my other half out of there at about 6:30.  All he would do would be to get in the way, irritate me, or genereally become squeamish over the IV injection.  He loathes hospitals.  Besides, there’s a TV in the pimped-out van!  I can honestly say I’d rather be watching the Tyra Banks show right about now.  Plus, it’s damn cold in those rooms!  Who the hell controls that?  I mean, I know the nurses are working their butts off, but I’m hanging out in a little gown with ties right above my ass, and rubber-soled socks!  Do they really want you to be freezing and naked and overly apprehensive beforehand?!  Just knock my ass out already!  Luckily, after the IV ladies hooked me all up, they gave me a mild sedative, so I spent the next 45 minutes or so staring at a blotch on the curtain, and just generally not giving a fuck about much.  Of course, they give you this sedative, and then the docotrs arrive and start asking questions at about a mile a minute, and here I am in my little robe-thing, “Can I have another heated blanket?”.   I’m pretty sure I flipped off the neighbor-pack at one point, but pussies…the lot of them.  It’s only day surgery for Chrissakes!

Next thing I know, they’re wheeling me down the hall, saying things like, “This will only hurt for a minute,”.   I vaguely remember being slightly creeped out by one the nurse-guys, but I think he was new or something.  Nothing like a little coochie-surgery with a man-nurse!  I know, it shouldn’t bug me, but I’ve never even had a male Ob/Gyn, so……………………………………………….after that, who the fuck knows?!  I’m assed-out on the operating table sucking up happy-gas and floating off to Lala-Land!   About two and a half hours later, I wake up in recovery.  That has always irked me: pass out one place, wake up in another, and who knows what’s going on in between?!   As I’m checking for drool marks and trying to find my feet, they start talking to me?!  Um excuse me, but I need a few more minutes to process before I can answer in a coherent sentence.  I guess I must have passed out again, because I wake up in something called “Short Stay Room 5″, which has been carefully labeled to the sticky board to the left of me.  Oh thank God….there’s a phone! 

Blasted!  They’ve stuck me with the weirdest-looking nurse ever, and now she wants me to make a choice.  Graham crackers or saltines?  Water or juice?  I’m feeling rather pukey here….saltines & water, please.  Oh and can I have another blanket?  After two packs of crackers and two glasses of water, here comes the crone, and I proceed to shuffle off to the bathroom, all the while managing to keep this pad wedged up in there and not run into any walls, doors etc.  So I peed, and apparently this hails great applause from the follow ladies in Short Stay (am I allowed to leave now), and am shuffled back to my bed.  I call my boyfriend, who I am assuming is sleeping in the pimp-van, and tell him I’m about there.  I manage to find my clothes and get them on.  I KNEW THERE WAS A REASON I DIDN’T WEAR A BELT TODAY!!!  So I managed to get my clothes on the right way (I think), and collapse into a wheel chair and was shoved out towards the lobby. I inform the nurse that my boyfriend is waiting outside, so we get to the lobby, and she says, “Is that him?”.  I’m staring at some goody-two-shoes bloke in a plaid button-down and thinking, “Yeah right, sister!”.  I like my men mildly scary-looking, musician-type.  But I manage to blurt out, “Um….no.”, as she proceeds to wheel me down the elevator and into the sunlight.  Ahhhh…I’m blind!  After a couple of minutes of yelling randomly in the parking lot for my slightly idiotic other half, who I’m thinking was actually asleep, he pulls the pimp-my-ride around and they load me in.  Halle-fucking-luhah, or however you spell it!   He looks over at me like a wounded pup, and says, “You ready to blow this shit?”.  OF COURSE!!!  This place creeps me out too!  At this point, the vicodin they’ve given has begun to kick in, I’m ravenous, and I’m kicking myself for not bringing pajama-pants.  I have vague recollections of what occured after that, but I remember the omelette (he wouldn’t let me have french fries), and staring at the video he plunks in, as he meadners off to get me some Sprite.  I think I spent most of that day in a pain-killer-induced coma, barely moving.