Oh, remember the knickers situation? This morning I pulled out every pair I had. Some were too grubby, some were too sexy, some were too skimpy. But, then I found the PERFECT pair for surgery: black, silky lycra, not too skimpy and not too granny. Perfect. But as the nurse handed me my gown, she asked "are your knickers made of cotton?". "No" I replied warily. "You've got to wear these then" she says, and hands me some paper knickers. PAPER. And they were baggy and bulky, like a nappy. Oh my god, I am 33 years old and wearing a paper nappy!
Not long after that, Mr Brackley came along to say hello and draw on my leg. He marked off the four centimetres he was going to take off my calf, and he checked the marking at the top of my thigh was still there. He was a nice chap, I liked him. Here was what he drew. It seemed like a lot of skin.
After him, the anaesthesiologist came along. I have to be honest, I didn't like her too much. She just didn't seem interested in my case and didn't really make much eye contact. I wanted to be friends with her so she would give me the good drugs but she wasn't having any of it. Maybe she's like Facebook and has a friend limit. After that, the lovely porter brought a trolley in and we were off. It was a bit like being in Casualty or something, although I told him I was capable of walking (I only said this after we'd gone up a floor and he joked that I waited til he'd pushed me there til I said it). All in all, he was pretty good at putting me at my ease; it can't be the easiest job pushing sick scared people around. We got to Operating Room 3 and into the anaesthesia bay which was bloody FREEZING! The nurse there was called Mary and was really lovely. She knew I was nervous (I think my fidgeting gave me away although I was trying to be cool) and she asked me about my pets and leisure time and whatnot to try and get me to relax. There'd been a mix-up because the anaesthesiologist didn't arrive in time so the surgical team was in with another patient doing a local anaesthetic procedure. Because I had to wait and it was so cold, Mary got me a heated blanket and tucked me up like I was a little kid. Half an hour later, the anaesthesiologist came in and they got to work. Mary needed to hook me up to the ECG heart monitor. She told me to untie my gown and lean forward...and then she noticed I was wearing my bra. It turns out you're not meant to, so off it came. This happened with my ECG the other week too. Rocks learn faster than I do...!
She put one of those clippy things onto my finger and then my heartbeat was up on the screen. It was hovering around the 80bpm mark so I passed the time by trying to make it go slower by willing it. It turns out I don't have that skill and in fact each time I'd look at the monitor it would actually speed up. Bloody hell, I am meant to be superhuman. It's bad enough my body has pulled this cancer crap and now my heart won't even comply. Mary took my temperature with the ear thermometer (interesting fact - it uses infrared which is how it measures so quickly). Lastly, she inserted the cannula into my hand:
and then the anaesthesiologist injected a syringeful of painkiller into it. To be fair, she did warn me that I might go lightheaded and good god, did I. Without wanting to sound whingy it wasn't a nice feeling. I don't remember her telling me she was injecting the general anaesthetic, although I was trying to think about my pet chickens so I must have known I was going under. I remember looking at Mary and it seemed to take ages and I didn't think it was going to work, but it clearly did. I woke up what seemed immediately but actually it was two and a bit hours later in a totally different place.
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