OK, so I’m trying to type entirely with one hand, and it is a bitch. My fingers on my left hand are free, but my cast is formed in such a way that my hand is forced into this odd claw shape. My thumb is completely encased and wrapped multiple times so it looks like I have this big deformity on the side of my hand. I’m awkward and I keep hitting the space bar, so this will have to be a short post.
Here’s what happened during my surgery that I remember:
1. IV in right hand with the sedative so I would go to sleep.
2. IV in left hand that would be for the local anesthesia.
3. Nurse still fiddling with that IV 2 minutes later.
4. Second IV in left hand because she can’t get a good vein.
5. “ow ow ow ow ow”
6. Finally gets IV in.
7. 5 minutes later: “Is this supposed to hurt.” “No hun, but you’ll be asleep soon”
8. Walk to the OR. It is blindingly white and clean and there are nurses everywhere. They sit me down on a big table that looks like a cross and spread my arms. I tell the anesthesiologist that my left hand is hurting and he says it is ok.
9. A nurse asks me if I feel sleepy and I say no, then she covers me with warm blankets. They start wrapping my left hand and arm with a giant blue rubber band to force the blood out, and halfway through (and in the middle of me saying I’m still not feeling sleepy) I fall asleep.
10. (at some point later), my surgeon wakes me up and tells me that they are going to need to put me under general anesthesia after all. I tell them that is fine with me. (I found out later that this was because that IV they put in was up against a valve or something, and it was just easier to put me under than to re-do the IV line they put in. No wonder it was hurting.)
11. My surgeon wakes me up again to tell me that I am all finished. I turn my head and promptly vomit all over the operating room floor. I vaguely remember someone saying “oh dear!” before falling asleep again.
12. I wake up in the recovery room and a nurse comes over to me. I tell her I’m cold, and that I’m going to throw up. She simultaneously puts another warm blanket on me and gives me something to throw up into.
This continues on for several more hours.
So turns out I don’t do too well with anesthesia. They ended up giving me 4 doses of IV medicine to make me stop throwing up and a anti-nausea patch, but I still threw up in the car on the way home. I think I vomited around 15 times in 3 hours, but by the time I got to Peter’s parents house (so his grandma could take care of me while he was at work), I was feeling a little better. I spent the next two days sleeping and not eating, and it was yesterday before I started feeling well again, though I am still tired.
I am currently frustrated by everything in the world, but mostly zippers, buttons, my front door, and laundry. I’m in very little pain, and only ever took two of the pills he prescribed, so I’m just hanging out now waiting for things to heal.
We went and got pumpkins yesterday and we’re going to carve them tonight (oh yes, ha ha, insert knife joke here). I’ll put up some pictures tomorrow.
