Drugs and surgeons

Following a knee arthroscopy I had in February, I’ve got to say that there really isn’t any feeling quite like coming off a general anaesthetic.

Let me describe that day for you:

I woke up around ten, hungry, thirsty, but not allowed to eat or drink anything. Fun.

Mum and Nana came over from Tauranga so they could take me home with them after the surgery and look after me. We had until about four o’clock to kill time so we headed off to browse some shops, and for them to order some delicious looking food and slowly devour it while I looked on miserably.

When we got to the hospital I signed some forms, and the surgeon drew a big arrow on my leg so they knew which one they’d be operating on. In no way did it cause me any concern that they needed a huge arrow to tell them which part of my body to cut open.

I had to change into one of those awkward hospital gowns that open from the back, and spent a good deal of my waiting time holding it closed so people couldn’t see my underwear. The rest of the time was spent sitting on my little hospital bed making objects out of a little container of playdough that my mother had brought along. Yep, feeling like an adult.

After a fair bit of waiting around, they wheeled me off to the operating room, where they stuck a needle in my arm that made the whole thing go numb. It was like I could feel the other needles, but they didn’t hurt. At least, they didn’t hurt until he missed the vein and went a little too deep. Youch.

“Let’s get this party started,” said the anaesthetist as he drugged me up. No kidding, those are the actual words he said. Moments later, the room began to spin, and I started to laugh. I vaguely remember seeing the surgeon walking in wearing white gumboots, and then I was out like a light.

When I woke up, my first thought was “Oh shit! They  haven’t done the surgery! Go back to sleep!” The growing pain in my left knee assured me that my initial concerns were unfounded. My second thought, as I opened my eyes, was “where are my family? I thought they’d be here when I woke up? Maybe they went to get food and didn’t come back in time.” I spent a while feeling a bit sad about that, until I realised I was in a different room than the one I’d left them in. My third thought was “wow, my leg is really itchy”.

I’d been put on an experimental drug trial, so I wasn’t given any painkillers until I woke up. The nice, experimental drug trial lady gave me some pills to take, then had me mark my pain level on a little chart.

“You can put your oxygen mask back on now,” she told me.

About ten minutes later, a nurse came along and laughed. “Who put your mask on? It’s upside down!”

When somebody pulled back the blankets to look at my leg I nearly had a heart attack. It was bright red, like a tomato. My distress was short-lived though, I was informed that it was iodine, and not, as I had thought, my body reacting to something. My boyfriend later joked that I’d be getting changed and discover a bright red handprint on my boob. Luckily, that wasn’t the case.

Now, the feeling of that anaesthetic is something that I would be perfectly happy to never experience again. It was like I didn’t have any energy, but I didn’t have the energy to not have energy. I wanted to stand up, but I wanted to sit down at the same time. My body kept trembling as if I was cold, and I felt like I couldn’t lie still, but I couldn’t move either. It was really just one giant contradiction.

The nice, experimental drug trial lady brought me food, and I was simultaneously excited to eat it, and too tired to chew. Mum took this photo of me during one of the moments where I had to pause and contemplate my jelly and icecream before summoning the willpower to lift my arms and continue to shovel food into my mouth

It may seem like I’m thoughtfully stroking my chin in that picture, but actually I was holding my head up.

It took me a full day to shake off the weird, jittery, exhausted/restless feeling that the anaesthetic gave me. I hated every moment of it. Let’s just hope I never ever ever need surgery again.

Upon further inspection, it sort of looks like I have big muscles in this picture. I don’t want to mislead anyone, those aren’t muscles. It’s all fat.