Adventures in Healthcare: Thyroidectomy, part 5: Surgery

Finally, we've made it to surgery.

Sunday night, they nurse comes to take blood and place an IV needle, but not the saline bag.  I honestly have no idea why she had to place the needle the night before.  And it's uncomfortable.  Just to be clear, having an IV isn't anything I ever thought looked comfortable, but having one in is really unpleasant. Because, first of all, it's a needle stuck in my arm and second, I can feel the needle every time I move.  Anyway, I try to get some sleep despite my discomfort.




The nurse comes around at 5am to attach my IV bag and give me an allergy skin test.  She scratches me with another needle and tells me she'll be back in 15 minutes to check it.  Now that the IV bag is attached, anytime I want to leave the bed, now I'll have to roll that poll thing around everywhere I go...even the bathroom...now even my trips to the bathroom are difficult.  Anyway, now that I'm not allergic to whatever the nurse scratched me with I can go back to sleep for a couple of hours.

I'm thinking my surgery should be around 9 or 10 that morning, but 9 rolls around and I'm still waiting.  10 o'clock comes and goes.  Now, its 11 and I'm still sitting there.  I'm getting irritated.  Not because I think my surgery should be priority...I don't and I definitely want everyone to have a quality procedure, but because I want to know what is going on and why I am having to wait so long.  Plus, I'm well past hungry since I couldn't eat past midnight.  Finally, the nurse comes around and tells me I'm next, so go to the bathroom and put on the hairnet.  I do...and then I wait another 45 minutes.  Sigh.  This doesn't feel like "next."

Finally, they come and get me.  I have to ride on the gurney, which is probably the most disorienting part of this.  I have to lie down so, just like in the movies all I can see is the ceiling lights flying by as they push me through the hospital.  I'm swaddled up in the blanket so I can't really move.  Also, because I am staring at the ceiling, I can't see where we're going and the sudden changes in speed and turns makes me feel a little nauseated.

I get parked in the pre-surgery area of the "operation theater"...oddly enough, that's the English sign I can see as I get pushed around.  The lady there asks me something I have no idea what.  Anyway, she disappears for a second and comes back with a pack of index cards...they have the pre-surgery checklist in English all ready and laminated for such an occasion. After a few more minutes they roll me around to the operating room, where they unwrap me from the gurney blankets and ask me to move over to the operating table.  It's heated...which is nice.

They start attaching stuff and the start to drop a mask over my face.  I must have flinched because they said "it's oxygen"...ok, objectively I know that's not really true..I know its anesthesia, but the put it on my face and tell me to breathe deep.  Three breaths in, and I'm out.

The next thing I know, there's a Korean-accented voice shouting "wake up, wake up!"  Ugh!  Ok, I'm pretty much a bear coming out of hibernation waking up in normal circumstances, but fighting through the drugs is what I can only imagine coming back from the dead is like.  I have two simultaneous thoughts, 1) "Oregon"...which I have no idea where that came from and 2) "I'm going to throw up", but in a display of gastrointestinal fortitude, I don't and choke down the urge.  My brain is insanely foggy, I feel nauseated, and my head and neck really hurt.  The recovery room nurse offers me a pain killer and I gladly accept.  I spend a little more time coming into focus, and now my biggest concern is "what time is it?"  I don't know why that was my priority, but it was.

I get rolled out into (I guess) a queue to go back to the ward.  I'm feeling better...less nauseated and the world is in better focus.  The orderly this time, doesn't walk quite as fast as the last one, but this guy also gives a little grunt with every start and stop.  Great...now I feel fat.

I get back to the ward and the nurse tells me I have to sit up for the next 6 hours.  I'm still a little foggy and would really like to go back to sleep but I have to sit up.  As the anesthesia wears off, the urge to nap decreased, and now I'm just bored sitting there and staring at the curtain walls.  My throat is sore on the inside, like having a cold or allergies, from my trachea tube to help me breathe during surgery, but the incision doesn't hurt at all.  I have a strong urge to cough and clear my throat, but I was warned that my incision isn't strong yet and coughing could break the seam, so I should repress the urge.  Have you ever tried to not cough?  It's really hard to repress.  There's also "whiplash" pain in my neck, but not really any worse than "sleeping the wrong way."  After about 4 hours, my butt is getting sore, and I'd like to walk around a little.  The nurse seems a little alarmed at my request to walk around the ward but lets me.

Not a great picture, but my face accurately reflects how I'm feeling at this point.

I also have a jp drain to reduce the fluids collecting around the surgery site.  Not to be gross, but I am fascinated by this.  I kept taking the collection bulb out of my pocket and checking how much I'm leaking.

They ask me if I'd like another pain killer, but honestly, my throat has felt worse during high allergy season, so I tell them I'm ok.  They seem really surprised by this.

My dinner tray comes during meal service.  So the problem is, meal service is between 6-6:30, but I am not supposed to eat until 8:10.  So I have to sit there with my meal tray for 2 more hours...I'm starving...and watching my food get cold.  The actually makes me unreasonably angry, because I felt like I should have been given a cold meal or that my meal should have come later just this one time.

Watching my food get cold.

Anyway, I am blessed with a distraction in the form of the fabulous Rez.  She came by to visit after work and came bearing gifts!  She's really amazing!  She even helped me take my try to the "pantry" to reheat my food.  It's really nice to see a friendly face and talk and hear English.

And super-cute side note, there was a middle-aged man visiting someone else on the ward and he saw us walking around with the tray...he told us "this way" (in English!) and showed us where to go.  Its one of those things that makes me love Korea..he's a total stranger, but he went out of his way to help and even made the effort to use English.  Really kind!

They detach my IV bag, but leave the needle in.  Really?  And they check my jp and measure how much I've leaked since surgery.  Final vitals check and they finally let me go back to sleep.