Surgery

[Pant Leg Eater from the Bad World]

I'm going in for photorefractive keratectomy this morning. It is an eye surgery similar to LASEK to make me see again without glasses.

I feel surprisingly not nervous. I mean, they are gonna shoot lasers INTO my eyes. But, only for like ten minutes, so...

Have you had any surgeries before? How do you deal with them?

[Mirage]

My left foot pointed the wrong way when I was born, so they fixed it. I have a 4 inch scar from it.

[noxious.sunshine]

Uh.... I don't -think- I have.

Unless you count getting my face stitched up or my two front teeth getting pulled.

[Shoeberto]

I've had 3 surgeries, 2 of them were outpatient and the other required me to be admitted for 24 hours.

Getting tonsils out as an adult has a miserable recovery, but I'm much better for it.
Getting half of my thyroid out was an easy recovery, but hypothyroidism sucks a dick. Oh, you don't have my prescription filled yet? Well that's okay I guess I'll just feel like shit and do nothing until you're ready. (This hasn't actually happened yet, but it's a constant fear)
Getting my wisdom teeth out was just whatever. I felt like crap for a few days and life went on, just without constant migraines from the pressure.

Having heart disease and doing anything with anaethesia sucks though. You have to jump through so many hoops so they aren't worried that you'll die on the operating table. Anaesthesia is fucked up like that though.

[Bubba]

I had my appendix out a few years ago which had some complications. Probably my biggest surgery though was when I was hit by a car in my twenties. I broke my right femur in two places. In hospital for two weeks and off work for three months. The surgery involved inserting a metal rod into my leg (which is still there) to help the bone heal. It occasionally gets stiff (hehe) in the Winter but overall they did a pretty good job.

[Shorty]

When I was seventeen, I snapped part of the bone at my elbow clean off when I broke my arm slipping on some ice. I had to have surgery to repair it with pins and metal plates and was in the hospital for two days, I think. It's still never fully healed, the cartilage around the area is always tender and it's weaker than my right arm. People don't believe me when I say that it still hurts almost nine years later.

[fire_of_avalon]

Nope. I had a mole snipped off once but she didnt even use a topical anasthetic. She came at me with a time pair of scissora.

[Shiny]

Just getting wisdom teeth out at three separate times. Also an endoscopy if that counts. I was under anesthesia for that and had to have my oxygen levels monitored. When I was younger I had a small surgery on my ear because there was a q-tip stuck in it and it was impairing my hearing. When I woke up from that surgery my head was throbbing, but they gave me ice cream so it was okay.

[Freya]

4 nasal surgeries and I need to have oral surgery soon for all my wisdom teeth. Not looking forward to that one. Almost all my surgeries I was excited about. I trusted my doctors to do it so really I just was excited to not have to deal with whatever issue I was dealing with at the time. I wanted the relief. Few days recovery and tada! Except that one time I did too much and popped an arterial vein.... that was the one I wasn't excited about.

[MissH]

I had quite a few surgeries on an umbelical hernia when I was a baby. Then at 14 I had another surgery on my belly button to reduce the size again so it's more of an 'innie'. I had to keep this waterproof bandage on it but I was so desperate to see what it looked like I picked it off then tried to convince the district nurse that it fell off... Oops!


Then at 20 I had rhinoplasty (nose job) to fix my broken nose. It didn't actually hurt but I had to sleep sitting up which was hell and keep a cast on for a week- it was so itchy! I was dosed up on so many drugs that I was as high as a kite. I drove my then boyfriend mad because I was totally insane!

Other than that I've had a couple of local anaesthetics but nothing major.

[Pant Leg Eater from the Bad World]

Wow, some of you guys have had a lot of surgeries or have had some pretty serious breaks. Also, I believe you Shorty. I broke my foot ten years ago, it wasn't a horrible break, and I can still feel it sometimes.

Surgery went really well guys. I can see so much better already. It is going to take a while to take full effect (possibly up to 1-3 months). But I can sit on my couch and watch tv without glasses, so that is a win in my book.
My eyes don't hurt yet, but I'm told it is gonna be painful tomorrow morning.

[Ergroilnin]

Well I didn't really have any serious surgeries yet -thankfully- I only had my tonsils taken out when I was small and that's the only thing I had done to me that could be called a surgery.

But when I was little like 9 or so, I fell of my bike and broke my right arm. That wouldn't be anything extra by itself but after x-ray it showed up that if I wasn't fat at the time (yep I was fucking fattie!) the bone would most likely broke out of my arm for some serious damage. Still it wasn't very pleasant when two nurses were pulling on the hand each on one direction with their full strength to put the bone back in straight line without any anaesthesia.