The Surgical Surgery Thread!

[Bestival]

Counting the ones I had to have my tonsils removed, I've had 6 surgeries. Though the tonsil ones I don't at all remember, since I was so young.

The shit I do remember was for my ear. I was born without a right ear, and when I was 15 we got into contact with a specialist who had the rather interesting skill to make ears out of people's ribs.
So I went under in the early afternoon of a monday, and can still remember the odd sensation of waking up a few hours later. It had felt like blinking, but suddenly the ceiling was all different.

There were 2 very painful moments in the week I was in the hospital to recover. The first was when the drain, a foot long plastic tube, was yanked out of my abdomen.
The other was that same day, a few hours later, when I was watching TV. There was this Disney cartoon on, featuring Pluto trying to get a sweater off, and me being high on morphine couldn't stop laughing at it.
But of course, having a giant cut in your side, and 2 ribs missing, laughing really isn't the best fuckin' medicine. I was laughing, and crying and couldn't move from the pain, so couldn't turn the fucking TV off either.
That's probably the last time I've really felt like I was in pain though, that shit put my pain threshold into overdrive. I got to go home later that same week, on friday, and was falling off my skateboard and having a gay old time that very afternoon.


Another fun surgery was for the screw for my BAHA (Bone Anchored Hearing Aid). I got to be awake for that one, just local anesthetic. Quite a weird sensation, being awake while some surgical student is very enthusiastically drilling into your skull.

 

[Coppernerves]

Nup, never needed surgery before, though a sister once had an appendix removed, though I'm getting a blood test next week.
I hate needles.
Bioshock was fun all the same.

Anyway, it sounds like you need a little help with the agony.
And that little help comes in a little glass vial in a gun pressed against your anatomy.
And when the gun goes off it sparks and you're ready for surgery.

 

[Autumnflame]

Hernia. no funny story

collapsed eardrum repair. due to an ear infection

wisdom teeth extracted.

 

[Agayek]

How many of you ladies, gentlemen, anthopomorphic personifications and, Golden PC Gaming Gods have had surgery? How long did it take to recover? Any interesting surgery stories in general? Preferably light anecdotes...this kind of thread, I realize, could go really sad quite quickly.

Look on the bright side of your surgery: You can still eat.

The only surgery I've ever had was a fairly major thing on my jaw, to correct my rather alarmingly large underbite. In essence, I went under, the doctors then went in, carved off a large section of my lower jaw on each side, then broke my upper jaw and bolted the pieces from the lower into the new gap up top. The surgeon was fantastic, and I had no real problems with the surgery itself, but the aftermath was all kinds of aggravating.

For one, I woke up in the hospital's ICU with my jaw wired shut and my face about twice its normal size, plus a tube up either nostril, one leading to my lungs to make sure I could breath, and the other to my stomach for some reason I can't really remember. It wasn't pleasant, especially when they pulled the tubes out of my nose about a day later and I almost threw up (with my jaw still wired shut mind). 'twas fun.

Then I spent the next few weeks recovering, in which time my jaw was always wired shut, meaning I could neither speak nor eat solid food the whole time. I subsisted on milkshakes with vitamin powder mixed in and talked to everyone by writing shit on a notepad I took to carrying around. It was very strange.

I recovered super-fast though, apparently. I got to have the wires off a full week and a half before the surgeon had expected me to be done healing. It was also kinda nice, in a weird way, cuz I lost like 30 lbs in those 5 weeks.

 

[Gaijinko]

My only surgury was pretty tame compared to the stories in here. I had some wisdom teeth that were basically sideways in my jaw, so they had to come out the hard way.

The only noteworthy part of the surgery was the fact that I have an apparently high constitution when it comes to drugs. There was a really awkward 3-5 minute staring match with the fellow controlling the drug-flow as he sloooowly ramped them up before I went out. This is compared to the two people also in the room for tooth-jobs who were out in seconds when they got stuck.

I asked the nurse afterwards if it was normal for it to seem like it takes forever for the drugs to take effect, and she said no - it actually just took a lot to put me under.

Had something similar happen to me, had to go to the dentist and be put under to have a tooth removed so i could have braces fitted, (long long time ago). it involved being put under for a while and having the root removed. two things happened, I came out of the sleepy drugs too early just as the dentist was twisting my tooth out and secondly it made everything I heard sound like I was in a echo chamber, needless to say the noise of the guy twisting and pulling a tooth out of my head is something I still remember a good 18 years later.

 

[Shymer]

Appendectomy when I was 15, then another op to fix the botched appendectomy (peritonitis had set in and the wound was infected and not closing). I lost half my body weight in a weekend and was given 50/50 chance of survival. Followed by weeks of chemical cauterization treatment. Very painful. Not recommended.

Hernia operation at 24. Went smoothly, but bothered me for a year afterwards. Don't notice it now.

Gall bladder removed last year using keyhole (4 little holes). I suffered with gall stones for a number of months. Very painful. Also not recommended. In and out on same day. Recovery was swift, but I visited friends just before I went back to work, caught a virus and was off sick for two weeks. Easy to get infected after an operation.

Just booked myself for a vasectomy. Not looking forward to that one.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

Had my appendix out a few years ago now.

I was in work and had been feeling a little off all day, at about lunch time I got this really bad shooting pain in my side that just kept getting worse. Decided to say screw it and go home.

So I'm walking to the car park and suddenly the world started to spin and I get this almighty wave of weakness. Staggered to the car climbed in and started to painfully make my way home. I got about a mile before it started to feel like someone had tuned the heating up to five million degrees and I was drenched in sweat. I had to drive with my head out the window Ace Ventura style to get home without passing out. I couldn't even park the car by then so I just pulled up outside our house, managed to get the door open and crawled in to the house. My mum comes home and she's going off on one about why the hell the car is in the middle of the road with the door open and I'm on the floor in the living room delirious and crying in agony (I feel a bit bad about that now because it must have scared the crap out of her). I say I think I may be a little ill so I should probably go see the doctor. The doctor takes a look at me and presses my stomach which nearly makes me black out form the pain so he refers me to the hospital.

At the hospital they take some blood and see that my white cell count was through the roof so they rush me into surgery. Apparently an hour or two more and it would have burst.

Afterwards I was talking to the doctor a few days later and he asked when I first noticed the pain so I told him it was when I was in work but I just thought I had a dodgy stomach but while I was driving home I realized it must be a bit more serious. I still remember the look of shock on his face when told him that. Apparently I have a very high pain threshold because he said with an inflamed appendix and a fever as sever as mine I shouldn't have been able to stand yet alone drive home. Thinking back it was single worst experience of my life but I got some funky little key hole scars and two weeks of being high as a kite on the pain killers...so it wasn't all bad XD

 

[McElroy]

Nice thread. Maximum schadenfreude.

Ahem... I got back-to-back infections in my great toes for a few years because of the toenails bending and cracking all wrong. One loose toenail, a fungal infection, and four instances of toe surgery. Needless to say my great toes have narrow nails now.

 

[Guffe]

Get Well soon!

I have had 2 surgeries, for the same thing, didn't heal up from the first surgery so they had to re-open the whole thing.

Don't remember the name of the thing (too tired to google )

Basically what it was is:
My family (the men) are pretty hairy, well the hair in my lower back / butt decided to start growing inwards which created tunnels, about 3-4 inches long, in my buttcheeks which made all sorts of other bacteria grow there.
They gave me some srange thing straight into my spine (with a needle) which basically paralyzed me from the waste downwards while they opened me up from lower back to about an inch from the asshole and cleaned all the tunnels and caves from all the hair and bacteria there, patched me up and made me lay on my tummy for a few weeks.

I'm good now though


EDIT:
I got disturbed for not remembering the name so I went and googled it.
Here's the link to the wikipedia page if someone is interested!!
WARNING, THERE'S A (VERY) DISTURBING PICTURE THERE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilonidal_cyst
So it's called either a "Pilonidal cyst" or "Sinus Pilonidalis"

 

[Vegosiux]

Three general anesthesia ones in my life. Tonsils, realigning a broken arm that healed wrong, and intestinal surgery. Waking up was rather unpleasant. And painful on the last account, seriously, those cramps were killing me.

 

[Zombie_Fish]

One for ingrowing toenails and another for a sebaceous cyst. I also had stitches from when I slipped and hit my head on a brick wall.

Both of my operations used local anesthetic and resulted in my fear of syringes. Other than that they weren't bad, only pain I got was from the anesthetic wore off after the toenail operation.

And yeah, get well soon.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Nup, never needed surgery before, though a sister once had an appendix removed, though I'm getting a blood test next week.
I hate needles.
Bioshock was fun all the same.

Anyway, it sounds like you need a little help with the agony.
And that little help comes in a little glass vial in a gun pressed against your anatomy.
And when the gun goes off it sparks and you're ready for surgery.

The thing about Bioshock though is that using a needle to give yourself awesome powers isn't terrible when compared to that one power that makes living bees emerge from your damned arm. I would rather a needle go in than a swarm of bees come out, no matter how friendly they are to me.

I haven't seen Repo in a long time now that you reference it...I should give it another watch!

 

[viscomica]

I never had to have surgery, I once thought I had appendicitis but it turned out I didn't. I'm a scaredy-cat so I'm glad I've never had to have surgery. Yay me I guess.

 

[Rylot]

Since being born with spinabifada I've had surgeries starting from day one to close a whole at the base of my spine. Had tendon transfers on both legs in elementary school and heel lengthanings on both ankles in high school. Burned my legs pretty badly in the fifth grade (having no sensation in certain parts of my legs kinda sucks) so I had to have skin grafts. It's been a few years since I've had surgery but I never got comfortable with the idea of people cutting me open and I still hate needles with a passion. My post-op advice is to trust that the doctors who went to school for at least eight years and are paid big bucks to make sure everything goes well. You'll be fine.