Friday, November 07, 2008

The Surgery. Part 1 – An Introduction

Welcome to the first post in my new series. I’ll warn you now – this is going to be a long one. And it’s going to get really personal, and very detailed. I debated if I was going to talk about all of this, but it’s been taking up such a huge part of my thoughts lately, and will greatly affect my riding, so I thought I’d just get it out there. I’m know I’m not the first person to have to deal with all of this, so maybe someone will read my story and get some comfort or something out of it.

As you can guess by the title, I’m going to be having surgery in December. I’m an extremely nervous person when it comes to anything medical, so this is going to be a huge deal for me. I was concerned that childbirth would be scary for me since it’s all medical and hospitally and stuff, but surprisingly that was no big deal. Sure, I was freaked out when I had to have a C-Section with Lily, but I was already in the hospital, in labor, and didn’t have much of a choice. Little booger had to go and be breech and make her mama get cut open.

Not counting having babies, medical procedures make me faint. It’s just been recently that I can actually stay sitting up for a blood draw. In the past I’ve had to lie down or I would pass out. Even now if they have to draw more than two tubes I need to lie down. And to get an IV I need to be totally on my back, with a wet washcloth already in hand, and they have to put it in the right place. Most nurses want to put it in my left arm radial vein, or the back of my hand, but I tell them that those places are not good and they need to hit the right arm radial vein. Most of the time they don’t listen to me and try the other places first, but once they collapse those veins (and they always do) they go for the one I said in the first place, and it’s a champ.

But the actual sticking of me with needles isn’t the bad part. It’s just the anxiety of waiting for the procedure. I’m a total nerve bag. It’s going to be bad. Plus the seizure two days ago has complicated things to the point that I have to start posting about this to be able to keep up with the events which are currently unfolding.

But I don’t want to get ahead of myself here. There is plenty to talk about.

Part 2 – How it All Started

2 comments:

20 meter circle of life said...

rut roo. I hope this is nothing serious..take care

Stacey Kimmel-Smith said...

Oh, dear. I know it's scary, but I had surgery several years ago and the hospital staff were just wonderful. My parents were there too, but they were so stressed. My mom was all screechy and pessimistic, I ended up leaning on the nurses and doctors. who were to a person, wonderful. good luck and try not to worry!

 
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