Momma's Monkeys: May 2010

Funny things I remember about my surgery: First of all, they make you strip down to nothing and then put on a hospital gown and socks. Me, being the rebel without a cause-type that I am, asked "Why?". Specifically, "Why can't I keep my panties on?" I mean really, they are taking out my gallbladder, not my uterus. So the nurse then explains to me, totally nonchalantly that my panties might catch on fire. "ON FIRE! Are you freaking kidding me?!?" I am roaring laughing at this point. She gets all confused looking and further explains, that it is also to keep my panties clean from the betadine solution and to keep me from peeing my pants while I'm asleep. I try to assure her that I have been waking up dry for a good part of three decades now so I feel pretty confident about that one, but I trust her on the fact that her betadine technicians can't color in the lines, so I surrender my flammable panties! I later asked my Mom, "So do you think the socks they gave me are sprayed with special flame-retardant?" "Just put your panties in the bag" she said as she rolled her eyes at me and smirked.

Later in my pre-op procedures I realize that I am going to need to pump. I had every intention of feeding Olivia before I left for surgery that morning, but the little princess had gone to sleep. And if there is one thing I have learned as a mother, it is not to wake sleeping princesses, lest they become fire-breathing dragons, but I digress. So I flag down my nurse and ask her to call lactation services to see if I can borrow a pump. After several visits, it becomes obvious that this is not going to happen. So my Mom and I begin to secretly hope that this surgery is being recorded. For those of you who have never lactated, I will let you in on the secret. When milk is made and then stored, it is intended to come out ... whether you want it to or not, whenever it wants. And usually pressure is a trigger. So I figure about the time that the betadine technicians go to coloring on me, the fountain will start to spray!! Oh, if only they would have recorded my surgery. I would love to see them scrambling to figure out why they were wet without every breaking the skin, or which idiot snuck a squirt gun into the operating room. I did warn the anesthesiologist (don't want to piss off the wrong people) and one other nurse, but swore them to secrecy. So that was my little operating room, practical joke. But I bet I get a pump next time I ask for one ;)

Finally, the anesthesiologist came in to give me round one of my knock-out cocktail. He told me that this first drug was just to calm me down, but had the added benefit of making me forget. "You won't even remember how you got to the operating room", he said and he was right. As a matter of fact I don't even remember falling asleep or even saying good-bye to my Mom. But I do remember waking up in the operating room. He was telling me that the mask he was putting on my face only contained oxygen "so just breathe normally", he said. Ok, I'm with you so far, not too hard to breathe, I can handle that. Then he says, "okay, now I am going to give you Propofol." "Wait a minute", I said in a moment of clarity, "isn't that the stuff that killed Michael Jackson?" "Good memory, yes it is", he said as he proceeded to send me into oblivion with my last thoughts being that I am now being given the same thing that killed Michael Jackson! I bet he was hoping I'd forget that part ;)