Surgery Day better late than never.

I am not as good at this blog as I would have originally thought I would be. I assumed I would be bored out of my mind, blogging away about everything I can think of. I did not take into consideration the drugs I would be taken. I had surgery 4 days ago, and I am finally able to put thoughts together. So now I have to play catch up and go back to everything I have done since Tuesday.

Here is my pre surgery knee situation. Good amount of swelling, but not so bad.

Surgery Day:
Well.... it wasn't any better or worse than I expected. It was just different. I arrived at 6:15am for an 8:00am surgery. They took me in pretty much right away. They had Kyle wait in the waiting room while I went to my bed, put a hospital gown on and got comfortable. By comfortable I mean uncomfortable. There is nothing comfortable about what happened from this point until now.

They asked me a lot of questions- when did I last eat, what leg am I having surgery on, have I taken any medication, etc. I do have one very important bit of advice that I received that everyone should know about. If you are receiving anesthesia.... tell every nurse, the anesthesiologist, the doctor... everyone... that you get carsick and you have motion sickness. They will put a patch behind your ear and it will eliminate all nausea for the first 2 days. It was amazing. I know this because when I took it off, I felt like I needed to yack every five minutes, and I know longer found food important. The tricky thing with that is that you need to eat food to take the percs. Anyways, get the patch.

From there, Kyle was allowed back in and we hung out for a little while. They put in my IV and started me on fluids. The anesthesiologist came in to ask some questions, and also took the time to tell me to chill out because I was way too serious. He brought in an assistant that sounded like her was from central Alabama. His accent was fun. They said they would come back once the doctor came in and signed my leg.

Dr. A came in a little while after- asked me some questions, and gave me a few last minute details- I would have pain down my shin for awhile, make sure I do my exercises, and I would lose feeling permanently on the left side of my shin, underneath my knee. He said the area will start larger, but the permanent loss size will be the size of a silver dollar. My brain will adjust, and I will eventually not even notice. I think this is a lie since I lost feeling at the top of one of my fingers a few years ago and I will realize that. My brain did not forget.

Anyways, he autographed above and below my knee, and told me he would see me in the OR.

Enter the anesthesiologist and his Alabamanian. They came in to do the nerve block. Basically, this is used for pain management. They stuck a long thin needs through my groin, and although I was exposed and awkward, they gave me drugs to make me not care, and I watched the ultra sound monitor as they maneuvered the needle around. Done. Takes about 20 minutes and they kept having me lift my leg to see how heavy it was. Eventually I thought I was lifting it when I wasn't.

I was wheeled into the ER and I only remember a few things from there.
- The nurse asked me if I was cold, I said yes, they gave me a warm blanket
- The nurse told me she was putting a circulation stocking on my non surgical leg.
- The anesthesiologist told me they were giving me oxygen
- The nurse helped me put the surgery cap on
- Dr. A said hello

From there, I remember nothing.