No more creepy power port!

Disclaimer: I wrote this post still hopped up on surgery meds, so readers beware!

I'm done with my last surgery of the year!  It was my 4th surgery of 2010, and I believe I have had a total of 9 procedures accomplished within those surgeries.  I'm telling you what, I'm ready - oh, so, ready, to be done with surgeries for a long while!

I got there, and despite being on anti-anxiety meds (hello, Ativan, glad we became friends) for the surgery, I was still shaking like a leaf.  Actually, I stood there in the room, and when my nurse, C, asked me to lay down on the table, I told her I was trying to decide if I was going to throw up.  She smiled, quickly grabbed a puke tray, and then said, "Ok, can you please lay down anyway?"  I like her a lot.

Also (warning, the ending is not gross, but this next description sort of is.  If you get queasy easily, just skip to the next paragraph, I just thought this was funny), I did have one moment of slight panic.  When I was brought back into the room, C was prepping stuff for my surgery, when I saw something that made me almost throw up.  It looked like a bunch of gauze pads dripping with partly-dried blood.  I though to myself, "I sure hope they don't leave my bloody gauze for the next patient to get light headed over."  But then, I thought, "really, that's just poor practice, and isn't that really un-sterile or something?" So, I tentatively asked C what that was, and she said, "Oh, don't worry about it." I think she was trying to get my mind off of what was coming, so I just came right out and said, "Um, is that someone else's partly-dried blood?"  The entire room stopped and stared to see if I was serious (which I, to my embarrassment, was.)  She started laughing - a lot, actually - and said no, no, no - we do not keep blood.  It's tons of iodine and stuff to disinfect where your incision would be!

Anyway, we got stuff going, and the needle and stuff injected to numb the area HURT.  Like crazy!  Lucky for me (who are we kidding, lucky for all of us), at my request, Dr. K made a little "pup tent" over one side of my face, so I couldn't see anything.  Unfortunately, I could sometimes see what was going on in the reflection of C's glasses!

 Fortunately, it didn't take too long.  We spent most of the time talking and making jokes, so even though I didn't like it, at least it didn't take too long. And unlike one of the other procedures where I've been cut open while awake, I couldn't tell when he made the cut!  It was pretty uncomfortable, and feeling him stich me up was really weird, but guess what:  it's DONE!!!

I also want to give Dr. K and nurse C a lot of credit - they were so understanding of my fears, and the fact that they didn't minimize them, or make me feel foolish for all the weird questions, really went a long way in helping me get through it.  Laughing at my jokes that probably weren't funny (I mean, c'mon, I was on a lot of meds!) was nice of them too. Also, everything I know about them points to them being really, really good at their jobs, and it's always nice to know I'm in good hands!

For those of you with a strong stomach and a good amount of curiosity, you can click here  to see the photo of my power port, along with some brief explanations of what's what in the photo (I thought I would give everyone the option, rather than posting it directly!).

Anyway, for right now, the whole area feels numb still, so I'm not in much pain.  Loopy from the drugs, but that's not too bad.  I'm hoping that will still be the case in a few hours from now!  If not, oh well.  It's DONE!