My Surgery

I scheduled the surgery for April 19, 2011 at 2:15pm (which at the time of this writing was yesterday). I arrived an hour prior to surgery at 1:15pm terribly hungry and thirsty since I was told not to eat or drink after midnight. After a bit more paperwork, they called me back where I changed into my surgical duds and they put me in a bed to get my vitals and have me sign all the consents.

After a bit, the surgeon came by to discuss the procedure. He had decided that he only wanted to release the anterior and lateral compartments and I immediately began to have a panic attack. I tried to explain that we had discussed this in the office and agreed that he would do the superficial posterior as well. It seemed he was still not getting the fact that the method we used to bring on a CECS attack was not a realistic version of the type of attack I experience when skating or skiing. He was ready to scrap the surgery at this point and do another round of pressure tests. I knew that if I scrapped the surgery, it was likely I'd never be back. Finally I was able to get through to him and have him release the three compartments that we originally agreed to. Though at this point, my confidence in my surgeon was disappearing rapidly.

Eventually it was time to wheel me back to the OR. I woke up in the recovery room with a decent amount of pain. They had already given me Dilaudid in my IV, but they ultimately had to also give me morphine and then hydrocodone in pill form. My pain level was pretty low at this point and they were ready to send me home. My legs were simply wrapped in an ACE bandage over the two incisions. They wheeled me out to the car and helped get me into the passenger seat. I had brought crutches from home to assist in the transition. My husband drove me home and helped me do the crutch waddle into my bed. It was actually much easier to put some weight on my legs than I expected.