Not for the squeamish

Wow, the weekend is finally here, and again I don't know what to do with it... Usually we spend our time off outdoors, or at least out of the apartment, but I, at least, am in forced stay-home mode for a few weeks. The 'home theater' is one week old today, but we haven't watched more that 1 hour of TV in that time. I don't want to waste a sunny day sitting in front of the tube, so I'll post this from my pc by the window.

I stitched (pardon the pun) together my (self-taken) 'before and after' photos of my leg. I'm not generally squeamish, but I still fnd both of these images disturbing! Here goes:















Before the surgery it was supposed that the problem was mostly the vein and junction in my upper thigh, but during the procedure the GSV (greater saphenous vein) was examined and found to be 90% OK (although some unnecessary vein was tied off while they had that area open). So, the problem actually started at the knee, and the LSV (long saphenous vein) and junctions below there were removed in the three-hour procedure. I ended up with 7 wounds, one in the groin and the rest on my shin...

Instead of general anesthesia and a long stay, I had an epidural. The first try resulted in perfectly paralyzing my right leg, but only made my left one feel warm. I consented to another attempt under sodium pentathol, or some such relaxing shot in my shoulder, without the paperwork and signatures required for the first consent. The second shot in the spine worked immedately.

I remained awake for the procedure, which went a bit longer than expected and longer than the anesthesia, so the operation was completed with a few local anesthetic injections. Ouch.

At the end, as I was being readied for the trip back to my 'room', my surgeon excitedly brought me the veins he had removed, like a fistful of Twizzlers. I wish I'd had a camera for that...

Once in my tiny recovery cell, I realized that this wasn't going to be a hotel stay... I had exactly 3 feet by 6 feet of space (I'm 6'2), and although I had left my cellphone, digicam and MP3 player within inches of the bed, I couldn't reach anything in my still paralyzed and IV'd state. It was the longest night of my life, as the painkillers wore off and I became aware of the agonizing catheter and headache; I slept for about 15 minutes total, I think.

The nursing staff was composed of 4 complete angels, who soothed my whimpering while tending to a never-ending stream of real bedside emergencies from the long-staying patients.

In the morning I took a practice limp down the corridor, had a few more liters of saline, glucose and antibiotics pumped in, and then checked out. Hopefully I'll not need to return for anything like that again, but the experience was good and the results even better!