Surgery
I got to experience the joy of Surgery this past week. Being a generally healthy person I rarely have a need to go to a Hospital. But I had seen an ENT about a year ago about an ear ache, and we deducted that between that, and my snoring and the fact that my tonsils were huge, it was likely a good idea to get them out. I debated on the idea for a while then earlier this year I had another ear ache. That made me return to him and request the surgery.
I am lucky to have one of the better ENTs in the area. He is a dedicated worker, and is often up until 1am seeing patients at his clinic. In this case, it is worth the wait. I have waited 8 hours in his waiting room before. I am not usually a very patient person, but in this case I made an exception. I also had to wait a bit for the surgery as it started later then anticipated. But it gave me time to people watch the activity of the pre-op ward.
I spent a lot of time thinking how awesome a realistic Hospital Simulator game would be. To have the ability to place waiting rooms, wards, cleaning rooms, surgical rooms, and even prep rooms and rooms to keep the robots which roam the hallways. Plus the vast number of various departments within the hospital. I mean a whole outpatient surgical center could consist of a whole floor. Not to mention the emergency surgical floor or wing and the surgery rooms for in-patients.
Add onto that the various types of other departments, like radiology, and radioisotope, maturnity, and the various research departments and speciality departments... Building a successful hospital would cost lots of money and take lots of planning, but it would be fun to try to design one that was efficient and successful.
Anyhow, the surgery itself went great. I remember being wheeled intot he OR. The area was not as clean and fancy as I imagined, like the waiting area or Pre-Op was. Infact the 12 OR's were in a back hallway which was littered with old equipment along the halls, many of the pieces of equipment obviously no longer functioning with the cases no longer intact. I found this interesting. A single door separated the hallway from the OR. It was a wide brows door from wht I can recall, and beside a small sign there was no other indication that this was an OR. The doors was barly in need of a paint job too. Inside the OR the area seemed crampped. Machines of various sorts littered the dark corners, some had dust covers draped over them, while others which were apparently more used had cases which were worn and battered. My doctor and another doctor were both on opposite ends of the room entering data into computers. Regardless of the condition of the room itself, I did not worry. I knew my doctor was good and the equipment, while looking well used, did look very high tech. I imagine that this was mainly because the surgery rooms were rarely out of service as they were in high demand so they just made due. I suppose if it functions, then why worry about looks, right?
I remember having to change from my bed to the OR table, and it was very narrow. Due to my girth they had to find some pads of some sort that attached to the side so I can lay my arms on them. They also strapped me in. That is about the last thing I remember before they put a mask on my face and I was out. I did not dream at all, and it seemed like no time passed when I had woken up in the Post-Op ward. The moment I woke up, the circulating nurse came over and put some oxygen tubes in my nose. I was groggy but mostly coheriant. I wasn't in any real pain that I could detect other then a slight throbbing in my throat.
I was given a small cup with crushed ice and a spoon. I slowly sucked and chewed on the crushed ice which felt good. I soon stabilized and my wife was brought in. I got dressed and then the nurse wheeled me down to the main entrance where my wife had my car waiting. All together not a bad experience. I was told that my tonsils and aedoids were in very bad shape. They cauterized the wound, instead of stitching, which is better for me I think. Less to worry about perhaps.
I am still recovering, and my throat is still sore. But I do have some fairly decent pain meds to take as needed every 6 hours. So far I really haven't felt much pain, but I could tell I have a sore throat as the mucus buildup is similar to when I have a very bad chest/head cold. I have been resting a lot, but I had to try to fix my laptop because the power jack broke when I had it in bed with me. Luckily, one of my best friends came over to take it apart for me and try to fix it so I didn't have to stress myself with that. He said it was the jack itself which was broken, and I ordered a new jack express shipped. That kinda sucks, but atleast I do have my desktop.
When it came to sleeping however, things were not so great. While I could notice that my breathing had improved a lot since having the tonsils removed, and my airways were a lot less restricted - that didn't seem to help when it came to sleeping. I noticed I didn't snore much, but the mucus kept on getting caught up in my throat and blocking my airway a little. While I could easily inhale and exhale past the mucus without the tonsils in the way, I had programmed my brain not to allow me to sleep in such a circumstance, because with my bad tonsils I could of easily suffocated with such a blockage in the past. To counter this in the past I would usually gargle a shot of whiskey or something and take some meds to reduce the mucus. But I didn't think that mixing alcohol or any other meds along with the strong meds I am already on was a good idea, so for a long while I just didn't sleep. That is however until I found out that it was partly the fear of suffocating that was preventing me from sleeping. While I knew I wouldn't anymore, the fear was still there. And anytime I laid down to sleep I would worry about the mucus and it would cause more mucus and acid reflux. I got up, went down to watch a movie and take some more pain meds which make me drowsey. Half way thru the movie I found myself nodding off and sleeping. My mind was not worrying about the mucus anymore, it was watching the movie and thinking about other things. So the distraction helpped me get to sleep. I woke up a short time later, but knowing I had slept, it made me less uneasy about sleeping again. I shortly returned to bed and was able to sleep for about 6 hours.
The next week should be itneresting. I hope I would be allowed back to work by Tuesday night perhaps. I imagine I will have to be on a duty not overly stressful or which doesn't involve talking, but there are tasks I can do which I can do given those circumstances.
Anyhow, thats about it for now. I do plan on wiriting a review on yet another game I got interested in shortly. Kerbal Space Program! It is a fun space simulator I recently found on Steam. Also I should write about GeoGuesser.com which is also a fun website based 'game' where you guess where you are in the world based on where the website plops you down in google streetview. Look forward to those posts here soon!