Surgery: Part I

OK... here goes my attempt to bring everyone up to speed...

I agreed to stay at my parent's house Tuesday night since I knew it would be easier for us to get to the surgery center by 7 AM on Wednesday.

I also took this "no driving for a few days" as an opportunity to put my truck in the shop for it's 90k mile service.

Joel met me at the dealership around 5:30 Tuesday - his surgery was rescheduled because he had a cut on his hand. So, that was one less headache for my mom.

On the way back to the house, Joel told me he was going to be taking me to/from the surgery center tomorrow and that I would be going back to their house. (The hair on the back of my neck started to rise)

Even though I told him I thought the plan the entire time was for me to go after the surgery, he made it clear that I was going to their house. I knew it was a lost cause to argue with him, so I told my mom when I arrived - "I'm going home tomorrow."

The rest of the evening involved a dinner, 2 nephews playing their games, and me watching TV after the parents went to bed. The nephews and I went to bed around 10.

I was up by 5:45 and Joel and I arrived at the center by 7 AM. After signing in (and paying my deductible... grr), they called me back. I then got changed into the "gown" and got into a bed where the nurse started more pre-op work.

This included taking the temp and blood pressure (128/78), hooking up my IV (fluids), and shaving my knee. Ahh... memories.

Joel came back and sat with me for the next 30 or so minutes. The anesthesiologist arrived and said I could keep my contacts in. He then gave me something in my IV to make me drowsy, and Dr. Ramsey then came in.

He told Joel and I that he was looking at my X-Rays Tuesday night and he thinks there is a "problem" on the left side of my knee. In previous blogs, you read that I've been having 3 areas of pain: Overall top, inner knee, and lately the outer knee. The outer part was knew to me and I thought it was because I was overcompensating because of the inner pain.

Well, remember I'm drowsy at this point... so "problem" is defined as "some name he gave it that he needs to do more cutting inside (not outer) to fix it."

He also said my recovery is going to be longer and that the surgery will be a bit longer. Well, I obviously didn't care at this point... he could have said, "And then we amputate" and I would have been find and dandy.

So they wheeled me out (Joel left to go to the gym) and I went into a room with about 5 other people (nurses/doctors) waiting for me. Probably within a minute of looking around, it was "lights out." I think this was about 8:15-8:30.