How's It Going? Why Is Your Face So White? Did He Hit My Jugular?

So August 28th rolled around. I made sure to get a lot of sleep before and hang out with my cat as much as I could. I threw balls left handed, juggled left handed, cooked with only my left hand... no, wait, I didn't do those things. I just thought I should try it while I had it. I was very prepared for this surgery in my mind.

We strolled into the hospital at the balmy hour of 2am (more like 6am, but there's not really a difference) and got checked in.  Sitting in bed waiting for the surgery to start, I was so excited. It's hard to explain how you can be excited for a surgery. Most people in that room are sitting there being scared out of their minds, but not me. I was about to have my shoulder stop being a bitch. It was finally time!

The holding room nurse starting giving me an IV. I hate IV's. Not because I find them painful, but because my veins tend to decide they won't get an IV before surgery. So this guy tried to give me one and succeeded! But shortly after, my vein blew. My arm started swelling up and hurting and I was like "um, sir?" He ripped it out of me and said the anesthetist would do it. Poor guy. I really am a dream killer.

They wheeled me into the holding area to go into surgery, and Mom and Dad were both beside me. We talked to the anesthetist and he decided that the best thing to do for pain relief during and after the surgery was a block. It would freeze my entire left arm for a few days and I wouldn't feel a thing.  In order to do it, they had to put a needle in my neck and there was a chance of them accidentally nicking my jugular and killing me.  As much as I'm making this sound not very appetizing, the block sounded perfect, so we said yes.  Then the surgeons walked in. I don't know if you've ever met surgeons, and maybe it's just my surgeons, but I've never met a group of more excited, happy people in my life. The two that were doing this one were hilarious. My usual shoulder surgeon is just great, a barrel of laughs really, and the other one really made an impression this day.  He came in, having driven from the city that his practice is in, and show us the instructions he would be using to do the graft surgery. The paper was all wet and crinkled, and he told us that was because he'd had the papers in his back seat with his dog, who was wet. But we needn't worry, because he could still read them quite well.  This cracked up all of us. There's a reason I let these people work on my joints, and part of it is because I just like them so much.  So they signed my left shoulder and told me it was time for the block.

They wheeled me behind a curtain, then told me to look to the right. I could only see Dad, who stood there for moral support, but I could hear Mom's voice behind me, as she was standing within the curtain. I also heard the voice of my anesthetist and two more doctors.  They had to ultrasound my neck as they did it to make sure they didn't kill me.  I could see my Dad's face and it was going whiter and whiter. I could also hear the doctors talking about how not to hit important parts of my body with the needle. After what seemed like twenty minutes but I'm pretty sure was only 5, I heard "we're done!" and I started not feeling my arm. Voila! I'd give a thumbs up at the point but my had was frozen so it was more of a thumb-play-dead. Surgery time.

My nurse rolled me down the hall and near the OR, and I jumped off the trolley. We walked into the room, making sure to bring my trusty sling, and I approached the "bed". I put it into quotations because the bed for my shoulder surgeries is actually more of a chair. Once you jump on onto it and they strap you down and put everything into you and onto you, they lay it back and it's more of a bed. It's just better to get you in position for the surgery. So I got positioned and got all ready to go.  Sometimes I find those surgeries a little uncomfortable in that chair because there's people putting things all over your body and you just kinda have to take it.  Gravity likes to give you a hard time with the gown too.  But eventually everything was in position, and they started giving me the drugs. I remember up to the forgetting drug again, but not to where I got to count. That guy is pretty good.

I feel a bit awkward about giving the gory details of this surgery on my blog. If I do succeed in making this a book, I will enhance it and put them in there, at least as much as I know. Just know that someone else's shoulder magically became mine! With the help of some very talented people.

When I woke up, I was shocked. I could immediately feel no bone disease pain. I knew it was a success.  It was a good thing we had done it. They ended up replacing 70% of my humeral head. All that bone was either gone or ruined from my bone disease. I woke up with the graft in, the sling on, and a massive, wet/dry bandage stuck to my arm. I couldn't even peek. All I could do was snuggle back down into my hospital bed and await the 6 weeks of pain and sling-ness that I had coming for me.