Ms Fifikins

If you are reading this then I have obviously survived my operation!

Actually it is 4.30am and I have been awake for over half an hour. Well I did hit the wall at 8 last night and took a strong pain killer to knock me out. Suppose 8 hours sleep is pretty good, even if I did wake up 3 times in that time.

Now random recollections from the operation and hospital stay:

• People may have joked about the hospital gown that opened at the back, an yes I was expecting that, but I was not expecting to be made to wear hospital bloomers made of paper too! And no, I did not get a photo!
• It really is the eeriest feeling lying on a bed being wheeled down a corridor. Perhaps I have watched too many medical dramas, but still I kept wondering what soundtrack should have been playing.
• I never listen to commercial radio. When I was in the holding bay waiting to go into theater, they had one of the local radio stations on. Apart from the crap music they were playing, almost every ad break they had an ad for sexual enhancement therapies! Spam through your radio.
• When I was waiting in the holding bay, I lay there and practiced the deep breathing I was taught when I had those panic attacks a few years back. Seemed to help, surprisingly enough! Oh and I also tried to focus on an image of someone’s fingers- you know who you are!
• When I met the anaesthetist we traded some gags- had the nurse laughing. But I did make him promise to wake me up. He told me I was the first person in a very long time to ask that, but he would ensure I did.
• As soon as they woke me up in recovery I was as high as a kite. I would not stop rambling and apparently told every nurse who came near me that I loved talking and could talk underwater with a mouth full of marbles! I remember my random phrases from this high time “OMG! I survived, I really am alive!” “This doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.” “Wow, I can talk, did you know my daughter thought you were going to take my voice box out?” “Can you pass me my phone please, because I really want to tweet this!” Yes, even in recovery I was wanting to twitter!
• I crashed as soon as I hit the ward. It might have had something to do with more pethidine! I think I was trying to be stoic about the pain. At one stage I said that pain was a 7/10, but I suspect when the nurse made me sip some water and it made me cry, they realised I was not exactly telling the whole story. It did mean lots of pethidine though.
• The kept me on oxygen and a drip all night. Originally I was told I would be heading home around 9am, but when the doctor rang they told him I was still in lots of pain so they made me stay until after lunch. At around noon they unhooked me from the oxygen and told me they didn’t know why I was still on it!

I have been inundated with messages, texts and the like for the last few days and thank everyone for their care, concern and support. Now if only all the virtual flowers on facebook would translate to real arrangements next to my bed (and that is a joke peoples!)

I have about 10 minutes before I leave for the hospital.

Yes, I am rather nervous, but trying to tell myself that all will be well.

My iPod is choc full of music- from the sublime to the ridiculous! Should be able to therapise (is that a word) to some of it.

Apart from the anaesthetic part, I am scared of the pain. Will take the drugs they offer! Might make for some interesting twitters or smss or something tonight!

Hope to be home tomorrow…

For those of you not following my twitter feed, you may have missed the news that I have a hot date with a surgeon next week. I know I have a thing for professional men it would seem. Unfortunately this surgeon is probably old enough to be my father, but still, it is a date!

You see for the last 7 months I have had the most inflamed pus filled tonsils. The GP tried 3 different antibiotics before I was referred and as soon as the ENT saw them he got all animated and said they were rippers. I think that is good for him, but not necessarily for me. He even got out his little microscope thing and stuck that down my throat. He said they were full of gunk and no amount of antibiotics was going to clear them.

Yes, they have been sore, especially when I talk too much. Now don’t start on my talking! But come April Fool’s Day they will be gone. I will be in hospital overnight. Mother arrives Monday so I am spending the weekend cleaning and tidying. She then takes the kids back to Melbourne next Friday for the school holidays and I have a week to lie in front of the telly watching Dexter and other assorted shows and movies that friends have sent me!  do some serious work on my thesis. As I have this weekend off work, all in all I get 17 days off. Pretty cool, even though I will be in pain.

Now I don’t care much for anaesthesia.  My most vivid memory of the extraction of my 5 wisdom teeth, apart from one of the ladies in my ward having had a breast enhancement and her (ex?) husband was a celebrity from a well known 70s rock band who popped in for a visit, was vomiting through a clenched mouth after the anaesthetic. I had my pre-admission appointment this week and the nurse told me that I probably vomited from that because I swallowed lots of blood. I commented that I also vomited a lot after my laparoscopy, but that may have been the revolting cucumber sandwiches served at the Flinders Medical Centre! Oh and I did ask her how much blood I would be swallowing from the tonsils. Der!

But no, I hate the thought of an anaesthetic.  This is not helped by someone I knew once whose mother went in for a simple procedure and never woke up from the anaesthetic and was a vegetable for many many years. (Oh and if that does happen to me, which would not surprise me, can someone please publish some of my work?)

So most people at work know I am going to hospital. And most know why. We have a lad who is a bit of a Casanova in one of the departments. He has tried it on with most of the young things at work, and from the stories gotten to places he would never get with me! But that does not stop a 21yo who thinks he is a god trying it on from time to time with a 35yo mother of 2!

Yesterday he comes up to me: “Fi, we should go out on the town again one night, you know Gilligans’s Dancefloor, you and me…” (I should say that a couple of months ago he was at a colleagues farewell where I may well have been at Gilligans, but I was not at all under the influence and I had an early night home!)

“M,” I said, “Very tempting as that is, it will have to wait until after my operation.”

“Aw, Fi, are you sick? What are you having done?” he asked, pretending to be concerned.
“Well, they have finally agreed to remove my balls. It seems the hormones have worked pretty well and they have decided to go ahead with the surgery.”

The look on his face was priceless. I turned around and his manager was doubled up with laughter. I walked away trying not to laugh!

Of course that didn’t stop him asking today if he could have a feel so I did my best ‘When I trained you, don’t you remember my big talk on sexual harassment and discrimination?’  Poor lad. Hope I haven’t scarred him for life!

Oh and for those interested… Cairns Private Hosptial.  Overnight stay. They said something about no mobile phones in the ward, but I might have misunderstood If not the number to pester me on is 07 4052 5200!  I am booked in under my married name because I am not going to pay for a formal marriage certificate to prove a name change so I can change it back to my maiden name so will wait for the decree nisi and have it spelt out on that! And it is a corker name too, or so some say! So flowers and bottles of gin… No, I will not be living on ice-cream! Margaritas all the way, with the occasional Daiquiri and gin and tonic jelly!

And yes, behind the humour I really am sh*t scared, not only about the anaesthetic, but also the pain afterwards.  Positive toughts would be appreciated!