The third time's the charm
Note: One-armed typers can get away with typos after surgery.Typing 1 handed now that shoulder surgery is over. (48 hours ago.) First they had me on Vicodin then Percoset. Now I have to switch bavk and forth between the two for daytime and nightime. I hate drgs. They make me sick.UAgh. I am so out of it. Here’s a play-by-play of arthroscopic surgery day.I got checkec in and the nurse gave me an IV. Thrn the Anestheiologist came by and told me thery had to numb a nerve in my arm and shoulder before surgery. They had to do this while I was still awake. The picture is of the puncture in my neck where they numbed the nerve. Brett said, “It’s better to have a poke in the neck than a pain in the ass.”As the anesthetiologist pushed the numbing agent through it made my arm start to jerk and pulsate out of my control. They told me this would happen and I was prepared for it but it falt like a seizure and that sucked. The assistant said, “Wow, this one has her breathing down.” That made me feel cool… I am glad at least someone other than me is impressedwith my breathing skills.
After that I had to wait 20 minutes for my arm and shoulder to go numb. Brett got to hang out with me. After a while more than just my arm was numb… it was also the right side of my chest which weighed heavily on my right lung, and my right vocal cords which turned my voice scratchy. The bad part was that all this odd sensation felt like a seizure aura and my heart beat started increasing. I went from 68 BPM to 89 BPM.I asked the nurse for some anti-anxiety meds to help me. Brett said it took them 5 minutes to get the meds from when I made the request, but for me it felt like forever. My heart rate went over 100 BPM so I had to resort to my ultimate anti-anxiety trick: singing. I busted out some old show tunes and really impressed my nurse.I cant remember much after that, but when I woke up I looked something like a crack baby in a Pricess Leia costume (see picture).Then I got to go home–which was really cool because brain surgery isn’t as casusl and I’m a pro now when it comes to the receiving end of a craniotomy (not that I ever want to be part of one again).I felt really goodfor a while after I got home because my nerves were still all numb. I was thinking that this shoulder business was going to be easy-peasy (see the smiling photo below taken just 5 hours after I got home).
But then the nerve number wore off around 4 a.m. Ah… what I would give for another one of those fake seizure simulators just to get out of this uncomfortable situation.But you know what they say, right? No pain, no gain?I hate that phrase.
