Health - Operation
The surgery went pretty well, I think. Mindful of what clockworkhands reported regarding her love's experiences of his local anesthetists as a doctor (most go outside the room to read a book O.o) I was a little nervous. Mostly I'm concerned by this point by the aftereffects, I'm really a lot more trashed than I thought I would be, and in a lot of pain. Because they had to go in so deep, I was given something stronger than Panadeine Forte, which I am saving for use at night, where it is worst.
Basically I headed in, waited for half an hour, filled out the paperwork. Got a moment of rage over there being a $200 excess on top of everything else - this is from Medicare, not the doctors. So much for patient points. Given that they estimated I would get about $300 back, it looks like I'm now getting about $100 back. I pay more than that per month in health care fees, so when I am up to it, Chaos and I are going in to ask them to justify our membership. Anyway, I did not communicate that to the nice processor as they have JUST installed a new computer system. Usability at its worst - she was left to guess at everything and the system was very hard for her to use. At one point she resorted to writing everything down on paper to deal. Looking around her at the screen, I saw that the system was repeatedly crashing. Poor thing.
Went into a room where Condescending Nurse took my blood pressure (120 over 78, elevated through nervousness, so nicely healthy these days), heart rate (slightly elevated through nervousness), and had me take off my jacket, put on a smock, and blue booties and a plastic hood to hold my hair back. She unfortunately had one of those sing-song-dreary voices that tend to make you feel like you are a badly behaved 6 year old.
I was left there with magazines and a TV for a bit until the anesthetist came in and explained what he would be doing. He was amusing, wanted to check if I'd had any alcohol (answer, no, not for a few days leading up in case), any blood thinners (no, not for a few days leading up in case, etc), and so forth. He commented about having had a few ("Ten...or so...") drinks last night himself and commiserated with me that nice tasty things and drinks would be off the menu because, as he said, even if I want them I won't feel up to them. I told him I'd rather he had the drinks than the surgeon, and he said that, no, he had to remain highly alert and would be in the room at all times actively monitoring me. Phew. 'Coz, seriously, they go out and read books sometimes? I'm under a general here!
Anesthetist nurse came in next, went through everything again, checked I was okay, looked at my hands and so on and went 'Oh, you'll be easy'. Thankyou, big veiny wrists. She asked about my fitness level. Apparently I'm 'very good', fitness-wise, my eating is pretty good, and my weight, lack of smoking and blood pressure make operating on me stress-free. And I have easily found veins. Nice to, er, know. -5% protection versus vampires. On the other hand, top 99th percentile of health for an Australian of my age. That's kinda cool, but also kinda disturbing. I don't do that much to maintain it!
The surgeon came in and checked that he really was removing all four wisdom teeth. Told me I was low risk. Said they'd have to go in deep on the left around the nerves, so I'd feel pretty bad, and he promised to numb my jaw up "For at least twelve hours, it'll be awesome."
Anesthetist nurse came back, lead me through. The room was freezing, and very bright. They said something I can't remember about it (about here my memory starts to get fuzzy), and I said it reminded me of an alien abduction. I lay down on the huge surgery bed, and got under the blanket. They put a blood pressure cuff on my left arm. Those auto-inflate things are painful! Then put a tourniquet on my right arm, slapped my right hand about a bit to get the veins to go up, and put the cannula in and plugged me up to the sleepy drug. It was almost painless, very well done. Then they chatted with me for about two minutes or so (? It felt like ten, but I was really getting light headed) before I fell under. They were asking about working for the Bureau, and I remember saying dreamily 'Working with scientists is awesome...' before I blacked out. Actually, I think WHILE I was technically asleep, they were asking me when I'd come over from Wales so I explained how my dad chose my name becausehelikeditzzzz.
I woke up in the recovery feeling really out of it, coughing everywhere, and shaking uncontrollably, with an oxygen mask which was kinda cool. I kept looking at the clock, and time was passing in a whirlwind. 10:15. 10:30. 10:45. I couldn't focus and the hands were whirling around. After a while I noticed the cannula was beginning to hurt in a fairly constant way and the irritation of it woke me up completely. Condescending Nurse was there, calling me 'dearie', and she said they'd gotten over a litre of IV fluids into me. I could hear another patient next door coughing so figured it was normal - maybe they put a tube down my throat for breathing? Then she asked me if I was cold, because the shivering wasn't a giveaway for some reason, and they had to pile blankets on me and put my jacket on before I began to feel okay.
She brought Chaos in, and he sat and showed me the latest Jaycar magazine - there's lots of stuff in there we both want to play with. I believe he's into the walkie talkie comms sets for climbing and hiking purposes, I was curious about the clock mechanisms you can take apart. Anyway. I was talking through gesture mostly because my mouth was packed with gauze and I couldn't shape words and drooled. I could manage single words as long as they were one syllable.
Condescending nurse came back in, blinked at this "He brought you THAT to read? Men!" Chaos tried to explain that it was FOR me, and then she looked at the way I was moving and said "Oh, you CAN talk if you put your mind to it, you know. You can talk just fine."
No, screw you, my face is twice its size, I can't feel my tongue or lips, and I'm coughing and spitting up blood in my drool. If I want to use gesture and grunting with someone I can communicate with at home just by looking at and waggling my eyebrows I will. Bah! Besides, single one-syllable words? That isn't talking!
I muttered something about the vocabulary of my friends and acquaintances and swallowed a lot of blood.
Anyway, she said a few other weird things, yanked out the lumps of gory, bloody gauze and shoved fresh gauze in, which irked me because yeah I can't feel pain but some dignity would be good. Then she handed Chaos my painkiller scripts with the advice that though the surgeon had given me one for a very powerful painkiller, he was not, under any circumstances, to get it. It was way over the top, and ibuprofen and Panadeine Forte would do. Chaos just smiled by this point, and he left to get the car, while I asked to go to the loo (so. Much. Saline) and the nurse led me down and popped me into the vehicle. After an hour or so, the shaking wore off, so maybe it was some form of shock.
Got home. Couldn't sleep. I was wide awake, but bored because I couldn't sit up either. I couldn't read. Couldn't watch movies. I could do precisely one thing at a time, literally. Read or take in what I was reading. Watch something or listen to it. After a while the crap feeling wore off and I worked on leveling fishing in WoW. Chatted briefly with lachlan and Evan. reynardo came over to take care of me for a few hours, which I am very grateful for, because while at the time I was saying 'I'm okay now' I've realized this morning that I wasn't. I just couldn't feel it or sense it. I was doing things like going out to get her a glass of water and forgetting why I was out there and trying to give her cordial (I think I repeated that question about three times). The gauze is awful, by the way. You drink with it in your mouth, so it flushes the dried blood out. NOT VERY TASTY. And continual.
Didn't feel like doing much because I felt too bad. Late at night the numbness wore off and the pain was pretty severe. When I had to remove the gauze to drink some chicken soup, the pain became very severe. Putting fresh gauze back in, it became even worse combined with blood trickling down my throat. I started to get a thumping migraine as a side effect, and Chaos and I decided that was too much, so I took one of the uber painkillers. It worked well after an hour or so, but left me wired and chatty and SO AWAKE. Poor Chaos had to talk to me half the bleeding night before I dropped off.
Irritating addition - I removed my conch piercing for the operation last weekend and the skin has grown back over it. That's a particularly painful piercing to get, so bugger me if I won't have to go and get it redone ASAP. It's my mutant healing factor, or something.
Second addition - my hands and feet have swelled and I can't put my rings back on. Feel kind of naked without them. Why did they swell? No idea.
The bit that is scaring me is that even now...the numbness has not worn off the left side of my lower lip. Oh, the TEETH are not numb (I wish), but I can feel nothing there on my lip at all. Nothing. I could pierce it just fine, put boiling water on it, and never feel it. Everywhere else, it's worn off, but not there. The nerve is clearly bruised, but that side of my mouth is slack and it's freaking me out a bit. I keep hoping it's just bruised and that it'll gradually come back, or else they've damaged the nerve taking out the really deep, impacted tooth and that's it. And I hate the feel of the half-dead-feeling skin and flesh around it. I'd been praying I'd wake up with it okay, but now I'm not happy. Hopefully it's just bruised :( I have a checkup in two weeks.
Basically I headed in, waited for half an hour, filled out the paperwork. Got a moment of rage over there being a $200 excess on top of everything else - this is from Medicare, not the doctors. So much for patient points. Given that they estimated I would get about $300 back, it looks like I'm now getting about $100 back. I pay more than that per month in health care fees, so when I am up to it, Chaos and I are going in to ask them to justify our membership. Anyway, I did not communicate that to the nice processor as they have JUST installed a new computer system. Usability at its worst - she was left to guess at everything and the system was very hard for her to use. At one point she resorted to writing everything down on paper to deal. Looking around her at the screen, I saw that the system was repeatedly crashing. Poor thing.
Went into a room where Condescending Nurse took my blood pressure (120 over 78, elevated through nervousness, so nicely healthy these days), heart rate (slightly elevated through nervousness), and had me take off my jacket, put on a smock, and blue booties and a plastic hood to hold my hair back. She unfortunately had one of those sing-song-dreary voices that tend to make you feel like you are a badly behaved 6 year old.
I was left there with magazines and a TV for a bit until the anesthetist came in and explained what he would be doing. He was amusing, wanted to check if I'd had any alcohol (answer, no, not for a few days leading up in case), any blood thinners (no, not for a few days leading up in case, etc), and so forth. He commented about having had a few ("Ten...or so...") drinks last night himself and commiserated with me that nice tasty things and drinks would be off the menu because, as he said, even if I want them I won't feel up to them. I told him I'd rather he had the drinks than the surgeon, and he said that, no, he had to remain highly alert and would be in the room at all times actively monitoring me. Phew. 'Coz, seriously, they go out and read books sometimes? I'm under a general here!
Anesthetist nurse came in next, went through everything again, checked I was okay, looked at my hands and so on and went 'Oh, you'll be easy'. Thankyou, big veiny wrists. She asked about my fitness level. Apparently I'm 'very good', fitness-wise, my eating is pretty good, and my weight, lack of smoking and blood pressure make operating on me stress-free. And I have easily found veins. Nice to, er, know. -5% protection versus vampires. On the other hand, top 99th percentile of health for an Australian of my age. That's kinda cool, but also kinda disturbing. I don't do that much to maintain it!
The surgeon came in and checked that he really was removing all four wisdom teeth. Told me I was low risk. Said they'd have to go in deep on the left around the nerves, so I'd feel pretty bad, and he promised to numb my jaw up "For at least twelve hours, it'll be awesome."
Anesthetist nurse came back, lead me through. The room was freezing, and very bright. They said something I can't remember about it (about here my memory starts to get fuzzy), and I said it reminded me of an alien abduction. I lay down on the huge surgery bed, and got under the blanket. They put a blood pressure cuff on my left arm. Those auto-inflate things are painful! Then put a tourniquet on my right arm, slapped my right hand about a bit to get the veins to go up, and put the cannula in and plugged me up to the sleepy drug. It was almost painless, very well done. Then they chatted with me for about two minutes or so (? It felt like ten, but I was really getting light headed) before I fell under. They were asking about working for the Bureau, and I remember saying dreamily 'Working with scientists is awesome...' before I blacked out. Actually, I think WHILE I was technically asleep, they were asking me when I'd come over from Wales so I explained how my dad chose my name becausehelikeditzzzz.
I woke up in the recovery feeling really out of it, coughing everywhere, and shaking uncontrollably, with an oxygen mask which was kinda cool. I kept looking at the clock, and time was passing in a whirlwind. 10:15. 10:30. 10:45. I couldn't focus and the hands were whirling around. After a while I noticed the cannula was beginning to hurt in a fairly constant way and the irritation of it woke me up completely. Condescending Nurse was there, calling me 'dearie', and she said they'd gotten over a litre of IV fluids into me. I could hear another patient next door coughing so figured it was normal - maybe they put a tube down my throat for breathing? Then she asked me if I was cold, because the shivering wasn't a giveaway for some reason, and they had to pile blankets on me and put my jacket on before I began to feel okay.
She brought Chaos in, and he sat and showed me the latest Jaycar magazine - there's lots of stuff in there we both want to play with. I believe he's into the walkie talkie comms sets for climbing and hiking purposes, I was curious about the clock mechanisms you can take apart. Anyway. I was talking through gesture mostly because my mouth was packed with gauze and I couldn't shape words and drooled. I could manage single words as long as they were one syllable.
Condescending nurse came back in, blinked at this "He brought you THAT to read? Men!" Chaos tried to explain that it was FOR me, and then she looked at the way I was moving and said "Oh, you CAN talk if you put your mind to it, you know. You can talk just fine."
No, screw you, my face is twice its size, I can't feel my tongue or lips, and I'm coughing and spitting up blood in my drool. If I want to use gesture and grunting with someone I can communicate with at home just by looking at and waggling my eyebrows I will. Bah! Besides, single one-syllable words? That isn't talking!
I muttered something about the vocabulary of my friends and acquaintances and swallowed a lot of blood.
Anyway, she said a few other weird things, yanked out the lumps of gory, bloody gauze and shoved fresh gauze in, which irked me because yeah I can't feel pain but some dignity would be good. Then she handed Chaos my painkiller scripts with the advice that though the surgeon had given me one for a very powerful painkiller, he was not, under any circumstances, to get it. It was way over the top, and ibuprofen and Panadeine Forte would do. Chaos just smiled by this point, and he left to get the car, while I asked to go to the loo (so. Much. Saline) and the nurse led me down and popped me into the vehicle. After an hour or so, the shaking wore off, so maybe it was some form of shock.
Got home. Couldn't sleep. I was wide awake, but bored because I couldn't sit up either. I couldn't read. Couldn't watch movies. I could do precisely one thing at a time, literally. Read or take in what I was reading. Watch something or listen to it. After a while the crap feeling wore off and I worked on leveling fishing in WoW. Chatted briefly with lachlan and Evan. reynardo came over to take care of me for a few hours, which I am very grateful for, because while at the time I was saying 'I'm okay now' I've realized this morning that I wasn't. I just couldn't feel it or sense it. I was doing things like going out to get her a glass of water and forgetting why I was out there and trying to give her cordial (I think I repeated that question about three times). The gauze is awful, by the way. You drink with it in your mouth, so it flushes the dried blood out. NOT VERY TASTY. And continual.
Didn't feel like doing much because I felt too bad. Late at night the numbness wore off and the pain was pretty severe. When I had to remove the gauze to drink some chicken soup, the pain became very severe. Putting fresh gauze back in, it became even worse combined with blood trickling down my throat. I started to get a thumping migraine as a side effect, and Chaos and I decided that was too much, so I took one of the uber painkillers. It worked well after an hour or so, but left me wired and chatty and SO AWAKE. Poor Chaos had to talk to me half the bleeding night before I dropped off.
Irritating addition - I removed my conch piercing for the operation last weekend and the skin has grown back over it. That's a particularly painful piercing to get, so bugger me if I won't have to go and get it redone ASAP. It's my mutant healing factor, or something.
Second addition - my hands and feet have swelled and I can't put my rings back on. Feel kind of naked without them. Why did they swell? No idea.
The bit that is scaring me is that even now...the numbness has not worn off the left side of my lower lip. Oh, the TEETH are not numb (I wish), but I can feel nothing there on my lip at all. Nothing. I could pierce it just fine, put boiling water on it, and never feel it. Everywhere else, it's worn off, but not there. The nerve is clearly bruised, but that side of my mouth is slack and it's freaking me out a bit. I keep hoping it's just bruised and that it'll gradually come back, or else they've damaged the nerve taking out the really deep, impacted tooth and that's it. And I hate the feel of the half-dead-feeling skin and flesh around it. I'd been praying I'd wake up with it okay, but now I'm not happy. Hopefully it's just bruised :( I have a checkup in two weeks.