Surgery Quest - Chestbursterectomy

[bloodyrosemccoy]

The Insurance Part

ME: Hi, billing lady! I've been working out every single possible angle of this whole "paying for surgery" business. I think I've worked out how to pay for it all, but I just need reassurance. Does this payment plan work?
BILLING LADY: Oh, totally! All set! We've got your deductible all worked out!
ME: Great! And this won't turn out to be all fucked up later, right?
BILLING LADY: Of course not!
ME: ... Against my better judgment, I am going to believe you.

Pre-Op

NURSE: Okay, just a few more things to go through. First, please put all your stuff into this bag
ME: Right!
NURSE: Then put on this paper bag and matching booties!
ME: You got it!
NURSE: Then pee into this container.
ME: Sure th--wait, what the hell is this?
NURSE: We need a sample of your urine.
ME: In a toothpaste cap?
NURSE: Now, now. It's at least thimble-sized.
ME: What, you need, like, half a cubic centimeter, tops?
NURSE: Well, you haven't drunk anything since last night, have you? How much are you expecting to have to pee now?

So I went into the bathroom to change into my paper bag and Pee In The Cup. And, in order to make this as inconvenient as possible, the tiny bathroom contained exactly two things: a toilet and a roll of toilet paper. Which means that once you've whizzed all over yourself and into the cup, you 1) have no where to set the cup, and 2) have to exit the bathroom to wash your hands. Which is also awkward when trying to adjust your paper bag.

ME: This is a hazing, isn't it.
NURSE: You have to prove your devotion to the surgery!
ME: The thousands of dollars didn't do that already?

Op Op

One of the things about getting surgery in the hospital where your dad works is that all the staff know your dad. It's weird to have the anesthesiologist laughing that "she even rolls her eyes just like her dad!"

It also means that I know a little bit of doctor-dynamics backstory.

ANESTHESIOLOGIST: Well, hi there! Lie on this table. We'll get you all straightened out.
ME: Is that the Rolling Stones playing?
ANESTHESIOLOGIST: Nope, it's the Who.
ME: Don't get to play that when you do surgeries with Dad, do you?
ANESTHESIOLOGIST: Well ... he likes classic rock ...
ME: I know. But not for surgery.
ANESTHESIOLOGIST: He prefers ... well ...
ME: Smooth jazz.
ANESTHESIOLOGIST: *wistful sigh* Yes. Yes, he does.
ME: I feel ya, buddy.

Anesthesia Is WHACK

ANESTHESIOLOGIST: Anyway! Let's get started. Here, I'll just put some local anesthetic in your hand here ...
ME: DAMN! That is a big old bump on my hand!
ANESTHESIOLOGIST: And then I'm going to put in the general anesthesia itself ...
ME: Sounds good!
RECOVERY NURSE: I see you're waking up!
ME: ... wharrgarbl?
RECOVERY NURSE: Yup. Surgery's over. We'll have you on your way home in a little while!
ME: ... did I ... miss ... something?
RECOVERY NURSE: Just your gallbladder!

Seriously, y'all. Anesthesia doesn't give you the same sense as when you're asleep. When you sleep, you have at least some sense that you have been asleep. Anesthesia is more like those couple of times I've passed out--it's less like feeling you've been unconscious and more a sense that you just hit one of those time skips the Harlem Globetrotters kept running into in Futurama--you're in one place, and then suddenly BAMF and you're struggling to comprehend how the hell you wound up in the recovery room.*

I also became aware, before I really was paying attention to anything else, that I was hooting with every exhale.

I'm not sure why, but when I am feeling under the weather, I have this tendency to hoot. Or hum, or moan--I'm not sure what you'd call it. I just make these little soft moany noises. For some reason, it makes me feel better. Here, though, I couldn't seem to not hoot. Every time I let out a breath, it was with a little noise. Mom informs me that I was constantly commenting on it ("oh, I just did it again"), but all I remember is trying not to just to see if I could stop. I couldn't.

Home To Sock Jail

The other thing I hadn't thought about was that I was going to be taking compression socks home with me--little leg wraps that puff up to help with circulation, so's to prevent deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. Mom got me set up with them that first day. Pain in the ass, they are. Every time I had to pee I'd either have to take them off or unplug their little motor and carry it with me to the bathroom.

It also presented another issue.

CAT: Oh, you've just had surgery? So what? In case you haven't noticed, I am stuck outside, and am at your window demanding that you make the long trip around to the back door to let my fuzzy ass inside.
ME: You're lucky I'm so goddamn nice, cat. All right, I'm going back to Sock Jail.
CAT: I'll probably want to go out again in a few minutes. First I'll come check out your room and OH SHIT WHAT THE HELL IS THAT
ME: It's my sock motor.
CAT: HOLY FUCKING FUCK IT IS MAKING NOISE
ME: Yeah, it does that.
CAT: IT WILL GET US ALL
ME: Don't worry. It's a rental. It'll be gone soon.
CAT: I AM ON TO YOU, BUZZING THING. YOU'RE IN LEAGUE WITH THE TRAIN, AREN'T YOU
ME: At least you have good survival instincts.

Insurance Strikes Back

INSURANCE COMPANY: Guess what! Your insurance payment plan is all fucked up!
ME: I wish you jerks wouldn't deliver these letters on Friday afternoons. Now I gotta wait all weekend before I can call you and yell about this.

And So

So that was what happened a couple of weeks ago. And then I loafed around for two weeks having mood swings and feeling like stomped shit, and the only thing that made it really bearable was that lineup of audiobooks I got.** But now, it's been enough time that I think I'm starting to feel normal! It's kind of a nice feeling. My sleep schedule is still Even More Fucked than it was before this whole gallbladdery disaster, but hopefully that will get fixed soon.

The other weird thing is feeling the very obvious absence of a gallbladder that has been very much PRESENT for a couple of years. It doesn't feel like an empty space; I'm just not getting the sense of some large, bilious*** alien sitting just under my boob.

And it wasn't just a subjective feeling. I went in for my post-op the other day and my doctor just about burst into the room.

DOCTOR: YOUR GALLBLADDER WAS THE BIGGEST, INFLAMEDEST GALLBLADDER I HAVE EVER SEEN! IT'S A GOOD THING WE GOT IT OUT!
ME: So peeing in the toothpaste cap was justified after all!

It's always a validation to realize that you felt rotten for a reason. Hopefully I will now feel less rotten. Every day seems to be getting better about that!


*Or, that one memorable time when I passed out, why the hell you're lying in a wet bathtub with your Dad throwing a towel over the shower door at you so you'll be decent when he opens it up to see if you're still alive.

**For the record, Bruce Coville's Full-Cast Audio Unicorn Chronicles are pretty excellent. A few of the voice actors' choices were Not How I Imagined Them (the attempt to Ed Wynn-ize Medafil was weird, and the first book's voice for Lightfoot was kind of ridiculous), but overall they are audiobooks as they should be.

***"Bilious" is a rather startlingly apt description. Before all this nonsense I hadn't realized it, but there is a very specific feeling associated with it. The closest other description I have is "sour"--as in, it felt like there was a big sour THING just sitting in there--but really, even that doesn't work.

Comments

[beccastareyes]

There are times when I am grateful that my mother didn't start working for the physics department of the university I attended until after I graduated. I already had Dad and my stepmother in chemistry. It meant that she got to be 'Rebecca's mother' instead of me being 'Karen's daughter, the older one' like I was at the insurance office.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

At Dad's office, I am referred to as "the daughter." As in "Now, are you the daughter?" It's weird.

[mel-redcap.livejournal.com]

Anywhere in [Town Mum Lives In] that deals with her as a real estate agent, I'm "[Mum's] daughter, the one from [City], not the one from New Zealand." :P

[daiq.livejournal.com]

My dad has done that throw towels over the door at me to make sure i am decent as well! At least the time i was locked in the shower (yes) i was able to grab the towel and ensure i was covered!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Now who puts locks on showers?!

[daiq.livejournal.com]

The door jammed :)

[linda-lupos.livejournal.com]

I had orthognatic surgery in november, and what I dreaded more than the pain afterwards was the anaesthesia (those horrid stories of people being concious through surgery...). But actually it was pretty fun! That 'blink and it's several hours later' part was what amused me most. I was immediately fully awake and not nauseous at all, so it really did feel more like a few hours had been cut out of my life rather than that I had been awake.

My mom is a nurse at the hospital where I had my surgery, so she met a few colleagues when she visited me... weird experience.

Good to know everything is going well! Hopefully you'll be released out of sock jail soon.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I get more worried about the fact that every once in a while somebody permanently changes due to anesthesia. Creepy.

I'm out of sock jail, as long as I move around some to keep the blood flowing! Yay!

[childthursday.livejournal.com]

You have the best descriptions. I imagine your gallbladder looking something like The Oatmeal's Blerrch. Sucks about the insurance, though...seriously, is there a surgery to have those people removed? That would relieve a lot of bili-ality.

(Also, anesthesiologists are my favorite medical professionals. They've always been really hilarious to me, I think because they have ONE JOB and that's to make sure the patient is comfortable. They are damn well going to see that happens, while the other doctors get happy making people hurt. Yep.)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

For some reason I have this very specific image of it in my head--not quite the Blerch, but more a kind of swollen, three-armed starfish. No idea what it actually looked like, though.

Anesthesiologists also spend most of their time during surgeries just futzing around on their phones until something is needed. At least, according to Dad.

[mel-redcap.livejournal.com]

You mean you didn't get pictures?! Awwww mannnnnn! :P

*hugs* Glad you're getting better, and yay for being out of sock jail! Boo for the insurance company futzing up, hopefully it will get straightened out soon without un-fun amounts of needing to yell at people.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

I imagine it's like the thing Buckaroo Banzai pulled off the undercarriage of the jet car after traveling through the 8th dimension.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

... Wait just a goddamn minute. My iPod disappeared INTO the 8th dimension today. Coincidence? OR VENGEANCE?!

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the *blink* of general anaesthesia is weird. I remember that from when I got my wisdom teeth out.

And also yeah, it's really nice to get confirmation that there was a real reason you were feeling bad, and it's a thing. And hopefully they successfully did something about the thing, and it will be better.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Man, I got MILD anesthesia for my wisdom teeth. I was loopy but conscious through the whole thing, and as soon as they were done I got up and walked out under my own power.

Doctor also assures me that I'll probably have more energy than I've had for a long time. She figures I spent quite a bit of it over the past couple of years battling this inflamed monster.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

I told them I didn't want to experience the procedure, and they went with it. It probably helped that I have a history of really high tolerance for local anaesthetic documented by my dentist.

I often kind of wonder if part of my low energy levels is due to something other than depression, something else that my body is trying to deal with like that. The couple of times I've gotten doctors to check, tho, they say I'm fine other than the extra weight.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes sense. I suspect dentists get a lot of requests like that. I am always pretty blase about dental work, so honestly general anesthesia didn't occur to me as an option, but I might have preferred that had I thought of it. (Also, apparently I was just more tolerant of the stuff they did give me--my sister got the same treatment soon afterward, and she was knocked silly and doesn't remember any of the procedure. But she's a lot skinnier than me ...)

[shadesofmauve]

I think I got something similar to what you had for my wisdom teeth, but my reaction was more your sisters'. They SWEAR I was only sedated, loopy-but-concious, but I don't remember a damn thing. Felt like the full meal deal to me.

[marsdejahthoris.livejournal.com]

Heh. They wanted to put me under with seconal in an IV. I told them of my deep and abiding fear of needles. So they gave me nitrous so that I wouldn't notice when they put the needle in. Apparently I responded so well the the nitrous that they didn't BOTHER with the seconal, just shot me full of novocaine and went to work. I woke up once during the procedure, didn't quite figure out what was going on, and passed right back out again. Interestingly enough, once they gave me oxygen, I woke right up, without the groggy reaction a lot of people have to Seconal.

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

Best. Surgery. Story. EVER.

[shadesofmauve]

YES, anesthesia is exactly that *blink*. I always think it's weird when there's a story where someone wakes up from sleep and doesn't know where they are -- never happened to me -- but not knowing where you are when waking from anesthesia is par for the course. "You're going to sleep now" "When? Where? Who? What's that wire in me?"

I was two for my first general. The first one I remember I was 13, and I was under six hours -- and woke up feeling like death that hadn't been fully warmed over. Every time I've been under since then feels like a breeze, comparatively.

Glad to hear your inflamed alien is gone!

[michellerz.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear you're on the mend!