another day in the life of a chronic pain person. more on the "surgery"

   Hi I hope that everyone put in a half decent day. I have to tell you that the pain in the morning that I have is truly a hurdle as far as wanting to get up. I understand when other people tell me that they don't feel like getting up today. It is really hard to find incentive. I will admit that writing this blog helps to get up and feel part of something. I just really hope it is reaching the people it needs to reach. Today I will write a bit more about my surgery.

  Well I was in my room at the Calgary foothills hospital. I was getting nervous! The surgeons were ready to call up stairs and have the nurses bring me to the operating theater. Finally the call came and I was wheeled down the hall to the elevator. Down we went to the floor in which the surgeries are done. I just looked up at the ceiling. Hoping,  praying that after they are done with this surgery I would be myself again. We entered the room that I was having surgery in and it was cold so uninviting. They had to transfer me from my hospital bed to the table that I was going to have surgery on. It was a ice cold and very hard surface. They story is true that the lights are bright and you start to feel like a science project. It is a very strange feeling........

  The anaesthetist started to talk to me about my health history while he was hooking things up. I was meeting the nurses all behind a mask. The only thing you could see were their eyes. It is so hard to read what a persons eyes are saying without the rest of the face. I wasn't sure what was about to happen but if they didn't have masks on I would have known better. It was just as well I didn't have warning. The anaesthetist  told me to stretch out my arm and put my left hand down on a table. I figured he was looking for a vein for intravenous. He said that he had to find an artery to put in an artery line that was hooked to a machine. It kept track of blood pressure and I don't know what else. The bottom of my wrist was facing up and the top of my wrist was down against the table. The anaesthetist took a needle and stuck it in my arm just below the wrist. He said it was freezing for the line he was going to put in.  I thought what line ? I looked over and he had a line in his hand with a needle at the bottom of the line. This is what he was going to feed into my artery? I didn't realize how deep into your wrist your artery was until that day. Lucky for me but really unlucky for her,  a nurse had come over and grabbed my hand. I squeezed it so hard while the anaesthetist dug  around and then fed the line into my artery. I looked at the nurses eyes and I could see tears produced by me squeezing so hard. She wouldn't let go?

  The mask was lowered onto my face. I only could pray now that I wouldn't be able to feel pain like that again during this surgery. I was told to think happy thoughts breathe deeply and I was out. During the period of my surgery I remembered later that I had felt the surgeon scraping and pulling at  a spot in my back. It didn't hurt but felt as though someone had finally found the spot where the pain was. I remember feeling happy.

  I was yelling, almost for help. I was bewildered at where I was and why I was there. It felt like a bad hang over and someone had beaten me up badly. Then I saw a hazy figure move my way with a needle. It was almost like they were holding me captive. The figure put a needle into my IV line and I drifted off again.

  I was awakening from what was suppose to be a four hour surgery to one that was eight and a half hours long. It didn't feel nice. I was propted up on my bed. My face was totally swollen. It was caused by fluid they added to my blood to keep my blood pressure up. My surgeon had cut a major artery that runs up the spinal column. I guess I lost lots of blood and the bleeding was hard to stop. The surgery was incomplete. Meaning it was not finished to plan. I remembered how much I hurt. I also had a line running into my body cavity behind my right lung. This was sucking air and blood out of the body cavity. To do the surgery in the thoracic area a surgeon has to approach the spine through the body cavity in the front.  It means that collapsing a lung makes it easier to access the area. My lung was re inflated and I had to blow on a air pump to bring my lung strength back up. It also prevented lung related illness. It was uncomfortable to do with a pipe running behind the lung. 

 okay I am sore and typing is becoming a chore. I will sign off now.  Remember one good thing that happened to you today. My good thing is that the furnace people came out today and are going to help us to have a more comfortable house. The house is cold all the time and burns allot of fuel.  The problem seems to lie in the duct work. That is cheap and good news !