Surgery went well!

I went in at 1pm Monday for pre-op IV start and such.  Everyone was busy, friendly and competent.  My mom and Rob were there with me.  Dr Oh came and checked in with us before surgery and wrote his initials on my back where he would be doing the surgery.  He is very calm and friendly.  He told us that I had the largest herniation he'd seen all year.  My mother looked horrified and asked if that would make the surgery more complicated and difficult. Dr Oh replied that it was actually easier because when the herniation is large it is easier to just "pluck it out"  I liked that image of ease.

I was given lots of anti-nausea meds like zofran and a scopalamine patch before I was rolled back to surgery.  I was going to ask the doctor how I would be positioned for the surgery but then I didn't really want to know.  It seemed so vulnerable to be prone.  How would the equipment reach me to breathe?  Would I be floppy?  I didn't ask.

I woke up and was taken to my room and there was Rob and my Mom.  It was early evening.  Everything had gone well.  Dr Oh came by to reiterate what he had already told Rob and my mom.  The herniated portion of the disk came out easily.  The S1 nerve had been pinched between a ligament and the herniation and now it was free. He was confident my function would come back to my left leg and foot.  Hooray!
 Here is my bed-side table with some of my stuff and a view of my hospital socks.

Home! I was discharged the next morning after I proved I could pee. My mother stayed in the B&B across the street from the hospital, the same place she stayed when I was sick with sepsis last year.  This admission was much calmer and less life threatening than last time I was in the hospital. http://katsuzharris.blogspot.com/2011/03/well-then.html

I hoped it helped my family release some of the PTSD around the experience of my last illness.  I slept when I got home.  The pain meds knock me out.  My sister and her husband had come on my surgery day and stayed home with Georgia, who was sick with a fever and stomach ache that, thankfully, I did not get before surgery.  The next day Rob stayed home with me after he caught me trying to put away dirty dishes into the cabinet.  "You're too loopy to be left alone!"  He muttered.  I took a nap outside and enjoyed the last days of summer sunshine.

Georgia was still sick so I did not get the serene solitude I was envisioning, but she was very cuddly and sweet so we napped together and both healed.