I had disc surgery. L 4-5. For some reason anesthesia isn't scary to me at all. I figure, Oh my GOD how great that they invented this stuff so I can take a nap while they're fixing me up, way to go mankind.
And jp, you speak to your doctor beforehand in a serious voice about how you're trusting him to keep you comfortable afterward, and all.
I was so delighted to have the disc pain stop I was cheery throughout. And I was in a foreign country (RSA) by myself!
And this happened afterward: I was just lying there very still after the surgery, and aching, but not thinking much about it, being sleepy still, even though I'd been lying there for two or three hours, and a nurse came in and I asked her if I couldn't have something for pain, please. And she said very snippily, "When it's due! When was your last shot?" and I said, "I haven't had one," and she looked startled and ran out and back in with a shot in ten seconds-- she had forgotten to give me the ordered shot. I enjoyed her discomfiture.
Then in a little while this happened: (I'm proud of this one because I was groggy from medication and yet made a mildly snappy comeback.) Four nurses came in to turn me over in a tricky way, sort of like flipping a flapjack in a pan, only they lifted the four corners of a cloth I was lying on and did something that sort of flipped/rolled me over, and I said, "OWWWW," of course, and one of the staff of snippy nurses said in a snippy voice, "It hurts only because you are tense," and I replied, "Or, alternatively, I am tense only because it hurts."
It isn't that snappy, but I was drugged at the time.
Anyway, to me disc surgery wasn't a terrible experience at all. I wouldn't be frightened a bit to get up tomorrow and do it again. I wouldn't choose to do it just for the chance to lie in bed and read for a while; but don't be afraid, really. Anesthesia is a WONDERFUL invention.
But then I've always thought choosing natural childbirth was insane, if there was an alternative safe for the baby. |
