I Dream of TrekBBS or Surgery Sucks

[Chekov's Phaser]

So I had surgery on Friday to get my gallbladder removed. It was the first time I've ever had surgery, so I was a little apprehensive. The best part about it (if you can say that) was being anesthetized. What a strange feeling that was! One minute I'm talking to the Doc, the next moment I'm awake, and the surgery was over. My fiancee told me she didn't dream while she was under, but I did. I dreamt I was on this lunatics asylum.

Now I just have to put up with the soreness and the pain. They gave me some nice Hydrocodone for that. I call them my happy pills.

So I'm wondering what are others experiences with surgery. What have you had done, what was it like? Luckily mine has gone pretty well, and since I'm stuck at home for awhile, I thought I might strike up a conversation (and I think I might be high...)

 

[Mallory]

I've had surgery seven or eight times in my life, to the point where it hardly seems to bother me at all any more. You're completely right about the anesthesia. One second you're completely conscious and the next thing you know you're in the recovery room or back in your own room. Amazing stuff. And I seem to wake back up from it in pretty good shape, no real grogginess or nausea.

When I get home I usually just sleep for a couple of days, take my post-op medications and then try to take it slow for the next week or so.

I'm glad you got this behind you AJ and I hope you heal up quickly. Take it easy and don't push things too hard right away. I always seem to do that and end up with complications I could have avoided if I had just paid attention to the doctor's orders.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Glad to hear everything is okay, AJ. I hope you have a speedy recovery.

I've had sedation of the kind you describe several times; when I had an abscessed tooth removed in Junior High, when I had jaw surgery in High School and when I had my first kidney stone removed the old-fashioned painful way about seventeen years ago.

I've also had conscious sedation a few times, though, which was pretty interesting. When I had the wires removed from my jaw after surgery, I had laughing gas. It didn't kill the pain, it just made me not care. I was thinking things like, "Hey, that was agonizing. Do it again." And with my other three kidney stones, I had lithotripsy, which comes with conscious sedation. There was very little pain, but it wasn't a numbing effect either. It just made everything feel kind of far away.

 

[SPOCKED]

I have nothing but absolute terror about ever going under anesthesia again. I had my appendix removed in 1968. As horrible an ordeal as it was, perhaps the very worst part was when I awoke from surgery. Worse than any pain was the terrible thirst that they would not allow me to quench. I begged, I cried... it was a nightmare my brain simply couldn't cope with. The best they could do was put a moist towel in my mouth, but that only made things worse. It was a torture I hope I never know again in my lifetime.

I was told 10 or more years ago that I have a (very small) gall stone and that removing the gall bladder is how this is dealt with because, according to the doctor, stones only grow back once removed. I told him thanks for the information. Thanks... but no thanks

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

I only had surgery once on my foot when I was a kid. I have always been scared to have another one since I found out in some cases the anesthesia doesn't put you out. It paralyzes the muscles so you can't move or respond, but you are still conscious and you can feel everything. That's like something out of a Edgar Allen Poe nightmare.

 

[BigFoot]

I've had surgery three times so far, but I can only remember the last one. I was too young to remember the first one (it was soon after my birth) and for some reason I don't really remember much about the second one (I was about ten).

I had the last surgery about 5 months ago. I had a cyst on one of my vocal cords that had to be removed. And yeah, going under anaesthesia is pretty neat. The coolest thing about it was when they're putting you under, you just feel so light for a second before you're actually out.

 

[Captain Ice]

Let's see here.....

1971-72 Hiatal hernia
1975 Surgical implant in skull
1975 Surgical implant in skull and abdomen (first one didn't take)
1980 Tonsilectomy
1980 Complications from tonsilectomy (This one was performed at 1am too)
1985 Removal of infected cyst
1986 Repair of scar tissue that was not healing properly
2007 Surgical repair of injury to hand that did not heal properly

And I was under general anesthesia for everything except the ones in 1985 and 1986. All I recall is "Count backward from 100" and I got to 94 once. The other times that I remember I was awake one minute and the next thing I knew, I was in the recovery room.

It got to the point that, for a long time, I had to stop at a bar and have a drink before going into a hospital at all. Even had one hospital (the one I was in in 1980) where I could not walk into the hospital at all without someone guiding me by the hand. I still can't walk into the ER there, even though it's been moved.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Yikes. SPOCKED and Ice, that sounds very traumatic, especially since you were so young when these things happened....

 

[Geckothan]

I had a thumb removed when I was 1 years old (I had an extra one), which means I have a gigantic scar on the side of my hand. It's not a disfiguring/ugly scar, it looks more like an injury somebody would get in a fight, so sometimes I just lie about it to strangers for laughs. I obviously don't remember the procedure of the aftermath of it, being 1 years old and all.

When I was 10-11 I had an emergency procedure which involved untwisting one of my nuts and stitching both of them to the inside of my sack so it wouldn't happen again. If I left it a few hours more they would've had to remove it Anyway the operation wasn't bad at all. It wasn't very painful afterwards (very surprising considering what they'd just done, but I guess they probably pumped me full of opioids or something before I woke up), but the pain I was in before it was EXCRUCIATING. Imagine being kicked in the nuts, then having that peak level of pain produced by that SUSTAINED FOR HOURS.

This was the first time I'd experienced general anesthetic and it was really strange. They gave me a big fat injection of Propofol (thick white stuff that looks like cum) and asked me to count to 10, I got to 3 and then I remember being wheeled around in a bed back to my room (yes I had my own room, though there were 2 beds in there, but the other one was empty ), but it felt like I was dreaming. The first memory I have after that which felt real was having trying to breathe in and out as much as possible to get rid of the disgusting gas taste.

I also had an abcess and the teeth surrounding it removed under general anesthetic when I was younger. For some reason I freaked out when they tried to stick an IV in me (I'm not normally scared of needles, I always used to have bloodtests done without that stupid numbing cream they give to kids) so they just forced me to breathe in the gas to knock me out instead.

The next thing I remember clearly is waking up choking on blood. When I was in recovery I pulled out the horrible rubbery stuff they packed the wound with and it started bleeding, and I refused to let them put it back in. The worst part is they didn't even give me any serious painkillers once I'd woken up. They offered me Ibuprofen (OH THAT'S SMART OFFERING SOMEONE IBUPROFEN AFTER THEY'VE BEEN FASTING BEFORE AN ANESTHETIC), which just gave me a stomach ache and didn't actually help at all.

 

[Chekov's Phaser]

Yep thanks guys for the well wishes. Doing better today.

I can't imagine doing this when I was kid like some of you had to. It was scary enough as a nearly 30 year old man. Can't imagine what that must have been like.

Here's hoping no more surgery for us!

 

[TheBrew]

I have nothing but absolute terror about ever going under anesthesia again. I had my appendix removed in 1968. As horrible an ordeal as it was, perhaps the very worst part was when I awoke from surgery. Worse than any pain was the terrible thirst that they would not allow me to quench. I begged, I cried... it was a nightmare my brain simply couldn't cope with. The best they could do was put a moist towel in my mouth, but that only made things worse. It was a torture I hope I never know again in my lifetime.

I was told 10 or more years ago that I have a (very small) gall stone and that removing the gall bladder is how this is dealt with because, according to the doctor, stones only grow back once removed. I told him thanks for the information. Thanks... but no thanks

When I had my first brain surgery in 2004, they toyed with the idea of me being awake for it... I was so glad that they put me under. However, the nurses woke me up early that night instead of the next day. I remember waking up with the ventilator still down my throat and having a severe panic attack. My gag reflex was going crazy and I vomited. That was the most uncomfortable I have ever been. It took everything I had to not starting trashing in my bed.

I woke up the next morning still with the ventilator down my throat, but I was a little bit more together mentally and did mental calming exercises to avoid panicking. However, I did make very firm gestures to the nurses to get it out ASAP.

The weirdest part was being told I had a catherdor in. I was like "Hey, there is a tube coming out of my urethra!". When it got removed, that was a really weird feeling.

 

[T'Bonz]

Been in the shop a few times.

Wisdom teeth extraction.

D & C after an incomplete miscarriage.

Gallbladder removal (through the belly button.) I'm told I started to wake up during the surgery, but they must have put me back under pretty fast as I have no recollection of it.

Ovarian cyst removal

I think that's all of the surgeries. Obviously, I've been in the shop for childbirths (3) but I had no drugs for those and was fully awake (and hurt like hell! )

I don't like being put under. I wake up a bit nauseous and disoriented, so pretty much if I go in for something, I ask them to put something in to keep me from being sick when I wake up.

 

[Jan]

Sending Admiral Jarok healing vibes ~~~~.

I've had general anesthesia 5 times now (tonsils, broken leg needed pin; pin removal, tubes tied and D&C) and it took the first four to find out why I kept not having a normal experience. Each time was different but in one case I stopped breathing and in all four, I woke up much later than I should have with the respirator still in my throat which is really, *really* scarey. The fourth time the anesthesiologist did some tests when I didn't wake up on schedule and discovered that the enzyme in the blood that breaks down the anesthesia so that you wake up isn't present in my blood.

There are other anesthesias that they can use and they did so this last time and everything went well. Thank heavens! I don't ever want to wake up again with that strangling feeling of the respirator so I carry the slip of paper that that Dr. gave me in my wallet behind my driver's license.

Jan

 

[Geckothan]

Here's hoping no more surgery for us!

I wish that was the case. The chances are I'm going into surgery again in the near future. It doesn't worry me in the slightest though, after having general anesthetic twice, it doesn't really seem like a big deal. It wasn't even much of a big deal the first time I had it. I didn't feel ill when I woke up at all, one of my first memories after waking up from it is eating a bar of chocolate against the recommendations of the nurses.

Besides, now I'm older they'll probably be less hesitant to set me up with some opioids

 

[BigFoot]

Yeah I didn't have any problems with the anaesthesia either. My surgery was at like 2pm, so I was pretty damn hungry. So when I woke up, I got up, walked for a couple of minutes and then had something to eat.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Surgery thread...hope your doing better Admiral Jarok know what's it like sitting in that damn hospital bed waiting for the time to pass until they release you. Here are all the surgeries that I have had.

-Immediate foot surgery to straighten club foot after birth
-second club foot surgery at age 3
-Cleft Pellet surgical procedure to correct pellet
-Appendix removal
-complete foot reconstruction on right foot
-post surgical repair on said right foot

The last two took place in 2007 and last summer. This is the first summer in three years that I'm not using crutches or have a cast on my foot.

 

[C. Cole-Chakotay]

I've had several surgeries over the years, but can't say I dreamed during them. I just went to sleep and woke up in the recovery room.

I have an aunt that actually preached sermons while under. The doctor doing the surgery told her sisters about it.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

If Wisdom teeth count I've had that done. I had the local anesthetic for that and I really wish I had been put out. I actually thought it wasn't manly to go under the gas. My teeth were really deep in the gums though so it took about an hour. I couldn't feel anything, but I distinctly remember the crunching sound as he had to break down each tooth little by little

 

[Aurian]

I have had a few surgeries
Cesarian to get kiddo out- i was awake during it. Had very mild pains afterwards.

Had surgery a few years back, where something went wrong during the process and i "forgot how to breathe" on my own. Needed a mashine for a few days. But had a very speedy recovery.

Removed a wisdomtooth awake but drugged- felt nothing, did not care one lick. Did not use any painkillers after.

So.. I was pretty much born to have operations. My painthreshold is pretty freaking high and my scars look pretty.