Post-surgery: Day 1

This morning, I was determined to type this up, feeling like I have won in my battle against the post-surgery "pains". Well, if I typed this up this morning, it would have been a whole different story.

Foreshadowing: I just took a pill of Oxycodone. (Which means if there are any incoherencies in the narration below, I will remedy them upon your pointing them out to me or when I am back to sanity. For the meantime, I am playing Remember the Time by MJ in the background. Psychadelic indeed.)

Surgery was smooth, I was given sedatives and spinal anaesthesia, which is actually less scary than I thought it would be (or it sounds). I woke up I think 15-20 mins into the hour-long procedure and never fell back to sleep, but I was numb from the waist down so that was ok. Some snippets of what I overheard from my half-awake, groggy state:

(1) "See, there's the bone" - doc

(2) Blood pressure being taken periodically, me turning my head to check my own BP. I thought that was awesome.

(3) Some kind of respirator on me

(4) When the thing was over, I talked to my doc with whatever coherency was left in me: Now I may have dreamed this, but I thought he dangled a small clear cup containing the piece of bone that was removed submerged in water. I cannot verify this, but I thought that was also cool that I got to remember this.

(5) I think they were also taking pictures of the surgery, which they will show me at my post-op appointment on Sept. 1. (Sorry for the squeamish, if you made it to this point you are a true friend.)

So, recovery room after an hour of ankle arthroscopy, bone removal, debridement, (the bone graft was not done because the cyst was apparently too hidden)

They made sure my bladder was working, and i was out by 9:45pm. Amazing, just like LASIK: Operating room at 4pm (I'm sure because I was watching "Closing Bell" with Maria Bartiromo when the anaesthesiologist came in), out on the streets with a reconfigured ankle hours later.

So I went to sleep last night, not too bad.

Woke up, not too bad. Kept my ankle elevated and all that - iced my ankle 3 times, all that RICE stuff.

And then the afternoon came, and the dude throbbed like Popeye's forearms.

So all that being said, not bad for a first day. World, you keep count for me: 1 Oxycodone at 7pm. Don't want to overdose on this thing.

Another sign that I am groggy now: Pandora just played Lionel Richie's "All Night Long" and I didn't even flinch. Next song is Prince's "Kiss". Not too bad, I like this selection.

I'm gonne leave today with the one thing that's been running through my mind the past few days:

Please, don't mistake narrow-mindedness for simplicity. The world needs more simple people, and it has too many narrow-minded people; just ask the ozone layer.

Today's result

Bert: 1, Ankle: 1 (Draw)