is THIS what an acid trip feels like??

So I'm still alive, which is always good news. No fatal allergic reaction to general anaesthetics. It's been an interesting weekend, or at least the parts I can remember have been.

The surgery itself was 'unremarkable,' as noted in my operation notes. But honestly, of the twenty four hours I spent in the hospital, I think my total doctor-contact time was like five minutes. What I did learn from this entire experience is that nurses are AMAZING. They're such brilliant, awesome people and they all have this unique quality about them. I totally have a new found respect and awe for what they do.

So I got to the hospital in the morning on Friday and basically waited around till the surgeon was ready. I got to know my 'roommates' who were all pretty cool -- and when I say pretty cool I don't just mean their personalities but their reasons for being in hospital were medically cool. I was in the ENT/Maxillo-Facial/Neuro Surgical ward and my surgery was the least interesting of the four.

I started to get increasingly nervous as the day wore on, not to mention increasingly hungry, but with the premeds for general (including a benzodiazepine to make me all warm and fuzzy inside) I think I was pretty much numbed out. Then around one they wheeled me to the surgical waiting area (being pushed around in my bed was the coolest thing ever!), and then to the actual room of the surgery where I saw some familiar faces, including my (young!) surgeon and (old, which is comforting) anaesthesiologist, as well as a bunch of other people whom I'm assuming were nurses. It was pretty hectic, with a thousand things going on, but as soon as they put in an IV line (yuck!) they told me to take deep breathes of the 'oxygen' (which totally wasn't just oxygen!) and the next thing I know I'm in the surgical recovery area.

The only way to describe how it felt coming out of general is as if I had been dead and buried and someone dug me back up and resuscitated me. It is seriously one of the yuckiest things I have ever experienced. Your mind and your body feel totally disconnected, the former utterly confused and the latter aching all over.

I was in and out of it all Friday afternoon and so can't remember much, but Kirsty was there to keep me company. My parents showed up later on, more for their sake than mine I think. Kirsty had gotten me a 'care package' with balloons and books and magazines (Time AND Newsweek! Hahaha...), but I wasn't quite up to reading (and still aren't).

Besides feeling groggy and out of it, I was pretty okay. The nurses kept asking me if I felt nauseous or if I felt any pain, to which I answered no and no. They kept me under pretty close observation, taking my blood pressure and temperature every half hour; and the drugs just kept on coming (which is probably why I didn't feel any pain). The nauseous thing confused me though cos they kept asking me like as if I should be nauseous; but I felt fine. Hungry even.

The next morning I was up by seven and had breakfast. And I was all ready to go home but then... that whole nauseous thing they kept asking about? Well, it finally kicked in. I started to feel really really dizzy and gross, like someone was spinning me around and around and all the food in my stomach was just barely managing to stay down. When I told the nurses they were kinda surprised cos up until then I had been reassuring them I was totally okay. But the nausea was relentless. And my senses were uber sensitive. Any noise, any bright light all made the nausea a thousand times worse. So there I was, discharge papers signed and bags packed, but feeling like I wanted to DIE. Kirsty came to take me home around nine but I couldn't move. For another hour or so I just lay there... waiting... and then FINALLY, it came: the king of all barfs; the ultimate vomit; half a bucket of upchuck. It was - and there is absolutely no other way to describe it - EPIC. And it felt goooooood.


Now I'm back home, nose all bandaged up, still pretty drugged up overall. The bleeding has almost stopped, but it's still pretty swollen and blocked up. The pain is definitely there if I don't take the drugs (that's probably why I didn't feel anything back in the hospital - the nurses were on to it), but with the medication comes all these horrible side-effects. It's funny cos I remember studying NSAIDs, analgesics, antibiotics, etc., and the side-effects are just a list of the same old, same old: nausea, GI upset, etc., etc... but I really get why compliance with some drugs can be such an issue.

I thought this week off would be a glorified holiday, but man was I wrong. I haven't been getting sleep; I can't seem to keep food down; the headaches are truly monstrous creatures with a life of their own; and when I don't' have a thumping headache, my mind is so out of it I have had, on more than one occasion, EXTREMELY vivid and life-like dreams which could be mistaken for hallucinations. I kid you not.