Ornamental Illness

Yesterday, I had the “procedure.” You know, the one you get when you turn 50. I’ll go light on any icky details.

One of the bad things about it is I couldn’t eat anything that I normally eat…fruit, raw veggies, nuts. This diet would be really difficult for a hardcore vegan. The diet was really hard to deal with even for me and I’m an omnivore. I didn’t eat anything after 10 am on Sunday, the day before. And Sunday night I was watching some show about the south and they were talking about fried chicken and southern cooking. I don’t usually, or ever, eat fried chicken, but I was getting soooo hungry during that show because I hadn’t eaten.

I was really fearing something horrible as far as pain during the “prep” (when you drink about a gallon of awful tasting solution). They warn you about gas and cramping and nausea. I was expecting all those things because I’m a pretty sensitive person. I had none of them. I was really fearing the solution itself would taste horrible. It wasn’t. Yes, toward the end the next morning when I had to get up at 2 am Monday Morning to finish drinking the next liter of it, it was difficult, mostly because it was Two freaking AM! Also, I’m not positive, but I’m thinking that maybe I used too much Crystal Light. You can add the Lemon Crytal Light to it to take away from the salty taste, but I’m thinking that maybe the stuff I used already came with a crystal-light-type flavor packet (even though it was disguised as just some generic stuff you had to add, no Crystal Light branding), and so I had Crystal Light Double Stuff which made it taste really flavored and maybe it was the overflavoring that was annoying to me rather than the stuff itself. That said, it was not that bad. Sort of like a weirdly flavored de-alcoholed Margarita with the salt blended into the drink rather than on the rim. Anyway, that’s what I told myself so I’d drink it.

When Stan did it he had the stuff where you had to drink a gallon of it. I had to pay extra for mine, but it was probably worth it as I only had to drink 2 liters.

IN THE FUTURE: Get the smaller volume one as before, but test it before you add the Crystal Light, as it may already be flavored. Too much flavoring makes it really annoying.

No cramping or anything from drinking it. The only thing sore was, well, in a certain spot from overuse.

IN THE FUTURE: Just stay in the room. Camp out. Take your iPad with. Don’t clean up after every time. Just stay seated. Let things happen. Because getting up every five minutes and cleaning up afterward probably contributes to the soreness, whereas if you just stay seated and then clean up after the majority of it has subsided, you’ll probably be less sore.

For me, it started within about 20 minutes after drinking the first solution. But I work quickly. It didn’t start for Stan for about an hour, I think. YMMV.

I stayed up until about 11 to make sure the coast was clear before going to bed. I probably could’ve gone to bed shortly after 10, but I wanted to make certain nothing happened. But it does continue for about 4 hours after first drinking the solution.

I got up at 2 to finish the second half of it, according to the directions. My appointment was at 8 am.

I was also fearing the procedure itself. I was afraid I’d wake up in the middle of it and be in severe pain, or that I wouldn’t be put under when they start it. Even though some things with me work quickly as described above, I don’t respond to sedation or pain killing like other people. It takes me forever to lose sensation, like with novocaine (having teeth pulled or worked on where you feel it all is one reason I am afraid of the dentist, among others) or like with the biopsy they did last year after I took the Valium but didn’t feel that nice comforting sensation until after the procedure was OVER. I told them this yesterday so they were aware. I remember them putting the knockout drugs in my IV, but then I really did go to sleep and don’t remember a thing after that until I woke up and they were still working on me! I told them OUCH! And they said something about putting air in me and it was the end and they were finishing up or something. Fortunately I woke up at the END of it rather than in the middle.

IN THE FUTURE: Tell them to use more knockout stuff! I don’t want to be awake until they wheel me back to the recovery room! They say the stuff they give you makes you forget, but I don’t think I forgot anything during the time I was awake. Stan on the other hand doesn’t remember anything from when he was awake that day! I think they gave him too much!

As soon as I started talking, I noticed my voice was very husky, like I had a cold. And the strangest thing…my left nostril and left eye started running and watering really badly. I have no idea why this happened. Stan says it was because they had me lying on my left side and maybe I was allergic to the detergent they use on the pillows. I don’t know about that. I’m not ready to dismiss that theory, but I’m thinking it might be some other phenomenon as well. I have a deviated septum, and the opening on that side of my nasal passage is more closed than on the right. They put tubes in your nostrils with oxygen. Maybe on the right side the oxygen went into my nasal passage, but maybe on the left side it stayed stuck in the nostril and for some reason that made my nose runny? I don’t know, that sounds weird, but I’m not necessarily buying the detergent theory either.

Hey! I just found this! I’m not alone in this experience. And it’s weird how all these people are having the same things happen to them, and there is no known explanation! Now I’m thinking it’s not because I have a deviated septum…this would happen regardless. It’s silly that some of the nurses are telling the patients “oh, you must have picked up a cold!” No, it’s not a cold.

Left side of my nose still feeling really plugged up today. Right side is normal.

I do remember them saying in the operating room that my blood pressure never went down all that much when I was under. I think I am hard to put under into deep sedation. I fear having an operation, not this kind of procedure, but a real operation with blood and cutting, where I wake up but am paralyzed and cannot move and cannot yell to tell them OUCH. This happens to people all the time and they are in tremendous pain. This is what I fear.