I had belly button surgery last week. Its actually some sort of 'herniated' bellybutton thing where your small intestines stick through a hernia in your stomach at your belly button. Its what makes an 'innie' an 'outie' . . . so to speak. The doctor said I should get it fixed . . . so I did.
Now, I guess it pays to work at the hospital where you get your surgery at . . . but its also like the old addage 'Don't crap in the place you sleep' . . . sigh. I went in for surgery at about 11:15am as I was instructed. It all started very nice. The receptionist was pleasant, took my info, explained how things were going to go, and gave my mother (who drove me to the hospital) instruction on how to read the monitor to check on how my surgery was going. So far so good.
THEN my surgery got bumped . . . I guess Herniated bellybuttons are 'low man on the totem pole' in priority. Plus, as I found out later, my doctor was also the 'on-call' emergency doctor. Which, I guess is good, except my doctor had been at the hospital since 4am. Still, everyone said that my doctor was the BEST and I had nothing to worry about.
So I waited. . . . and waited. 2pm came around, and they called me up to tell me that my doctor had to do some more 'emergency' surgery. So it'd be a while. So I waited some more.
Did I mention that, for any kind of surgery, they tell you not to eat for 12 hours beforehand? My last meal had been at 8pm the night before. It was now about 3:30pm and I still hadn't eaten . . . my stomach started grumbling.
4:30pm came around, and the nurse came out again to tell me that there was an 'emergency' appendectomy that the doctor needed to do and it would be a little bit longer. Fortunately for me, they took me into a room and hooked me up to an IV so I could at least retain some fluids . . . mmmmmm, yummy fluids.
6:30pm came around . . . and left just as slowly . . . sigh. Good thing I brought a book.
8:30pm came around and the nurse came back and said that the doctor was out of surgery now (and I kept waiting for her to say something like " . . . and your flights been canceled because the pilot needs sleep" . . . but she didn't). She told me that I was up next, but they needed to prep the surgery room for the operation.
9:30pm . . . WOOOHOO, time for surgery! . . . The nurse rolled me into this tiny room where three people stook amongst a huge assortment of unexplainable electronic machines and gadgets that looked like they could really cook up one monster stew. It was very bright in there, and all I could think about was shows like 'House' where it was always very dark in the operating room except that large light pointing right on the patient . . . I wanted to tell them to turn the lights down, but on the second inhale . . . .
. . . . I woke up.
My belly hurt something awful, and my mouth was EXTREMELY dry. The nurse (a different one this time) said . . . do you want something for the pain? . . . I let the single tear floating softly down my face answer for me.
MORPHINE! woohoo . . . Now the nurse keeps asking: 'on a level from 1 to ten, how much does it hurt?' Every time I said any number, she squirted a little more morphine into the IV at my hand. So, to please her, I just kept saying numbers. I think she stopped when I answered 36 one time.
Then I was outta there . . .
Simple.
