I had my preop appointment, my lab work and ekg, my covid testing. All the boxes were checked, and the surgery was still on. I kept waiting for something to happen, for it to be cancelled or delayed. I couldn’t sleep the night before, I stayed up until midnight the night before finishing a puzzle and trying not to think about surgery. I finally fell into a restless sleep, tossing and turning.

Finally the day had come! Adhering to my npo status I had nothing to eat or drink, but simply got dressed in clothes I meticulously laid out the day before, grabbed my bag that was packed the day before, and got into the car that I filled with fuel the day before. Did I mention I like to be prepared? Sean drove me to Buffalo, and we got there 20 minutes early, in compliance with our personalities. I presented my driver’s license and insurance, and was called back where the nurse Jill promptly wished me happy birthday. I signed a bunch of things, which I thought was odd. Why wait until 2 hours before the surgery to have me sign consent? Isn’t that something a person would want taken care of? Then there was the separate anesthesia consent. Like, duh? Am I going to consent to surgery but not to anesthesia? What insanity do we live in where it is not assumed that the risks of anesthesia come with the risks of surgery? Also, they doped me up with pre-op meds before having me sign the consent, which I thought was questionable at best, but I wasn’t going to quibble. I would have signed it before I took the drugs, so it’s all good. Then I had to sign a form saying that I was informed that I was having surgery in the middle of a pandemic. What? A pandemic? When did that happen? Oh well forget that then, nevermind, I’ll just limp forever. Then the anesthesiologist came in to do the nerve block with a crna student and an ultrasound machine. They shoved some propofol into my IV with all the grace of a piledriver, and then I watched while the student manipulated the ultrasound for a particularly long time until the attending told him where to go. Then deep needle into the thigh. I assumed there was enough lidocaine in that needle to numb anything anywhere near that nerve, so even with a student it was a failsafe.

They wheeled me into the operating suite, bright lights, lots of blue scrubs and hair nets and gloves and packaging. Blue walls, white lights, bright and shiny and clean. Just in case you are doped up on stuff and get confused with heaven. Then my arm gets strapped down to a board, they put a mask over my mouth and told me that it’s going to taste funny. I expected it to be like the laughing gas when I was in labor, which I felt was just to make you take deep breaths, not to actually relieve any pain. I took a few deep breaths, then started to count backwards from 10. Not because they told me to, but because that’s what they say in movies. I got to 8.

Then I’m rag-doll limp, and someone is wrestling me into my shirt. I don’t fight them, but I’m sure I was not very helpful. Also, my IV was annoyingly in my AC, so my long sleeve shirt caught on it. Then I go back to sleep. These people underestimate how much I love sleep. Then they want me to get up to a chair. Excuse me? First of all I can’t keep my eyes open, and second of all, there are about 3 chairs blurring in front of me. And my leg hurts! I didn’t expect that. I know that sounds stupid, but I figured the anesthesia and the nerve block would mean I wouldn’t feel the pain yet. Wrong. So I stand up wobbling like a new baby deer, and pivot with all the grace of a wounded turkey, and collapse into a chair, dozing once more. They asked me what I wanted to drink, and I had to focus to form words, like I was learning to talk, and the sounds felt huge and foreign in my mouth. Ginger ale appeared at my side, although I’m not sure that’s what I requested. I slipped and found I could swallow. That was exciting. Then the guy next to me retched loudly. Yikes, at least I didn’t have that issue. I told them ahead of time to double dose the zofran. The brace rep showed up and had me sign the form for the brace. Are you kidding me? The anesthesia consent after the oral tramadol was questionable, but signing for a brace they already put on my leg, after I just regained consciousness from full anesthesia??? Shadey shadey.

Then a wheelchair showed up and I again gracefully flailed my way from the stable chair to the wheeled chair. Then Sean was in the car, and I was being folded into the passenger side, and we were off. That was it, I had my first surgery in the books, and it seemed pretty anticlimactic to be back in the car 6 hours later, leg hurting and brain foggy.

I don’t know what I expected, but this definitely did not live up to it. I did get to keep my underwear on, and I wasn’t intubated, they use LMA’s, so three of my fears (catheters, being naked on the table, and intubation) were non-issues. In the last 50 years surgeries have come so far, what would have been a major incision with days in the hospital recovering, now was a ‘same day procedure.’ Kind of amazing. Happy birthday to me!