[Warning: This post is enormous, and contains mundane details of my life for the past two days. I have nothing to do but write about it, so the details may get rather boring. I don't suggest reading this unless you're as bored as I am.]

OK here's the long version:

I bought a bunch of snacky food and brought it all over to Z's place before my radio show. I wasn't allowed to eat after midnight, so I ate a whole package of poptarts just before the my show. The show was somewhat weird, I played all MP3s and talked a lot. Mel called up and told me she thought my music sucked and that I should listen to "normal" music. That was somewhat aggrivating. Z called up and I put him on the air and he bitched her out, but she had stopped listening.

After the show I hobbled home and had somehow become tired enough to overcome whatever surgery anxiety there may have been. I woke up on time and headed out on the subway by myself, heading towards uncertainty and pain. Somewhat unnerving.

So the day surgery waiting room is full of people waiting to pick patients up and patients waiting to be operated on. Some people are wearing hospital pajamas and everyone is reading magazines they aren't interested in. It only took about five minutes before someone came and took me in back, had me change into the PJs, and put me back out in the waiting room.

I'd heard that they make you sit there for a couple hours, and I was prepared for that. So I started in on the magazines. People. Improper Bostonian. Automobile. Another People. Time. Newsweek. I really got sick of reading magazines so I took a nap. They had taken my watch when they made me change, and there was no clock in the waiting room so I had no idea how long I had been sitting there. But it was so long that towards the end I was wishing they would come take me away and cut me up just to prevent me from having to read the "Better Homes & Gardens" magazine, the only one remaining.

It was a clever technique, I thought. Countering fear with boredom. And it was just when I was contemplating reading BH&G when a lady came around to see who was still waiting to make sure they hadn't missed anyone. I explained that my surgery was supposed to begin at 12:30, that I'd been there since 10:15. She expressed some surprise and left to go check on my room. She came back telling me that it was 3:00pm and that it would be another hour or two before they were ready for me. She said they had a temporary bed in the recovery room they could put me in where I could watch some TV if I wanted. I figured a bed would be much more comfortable than the bench in the waiting room, and TV would be better than BH&G. So they moved me.

TV ended up meaning soap operas (general hospital, humorously). I rapidly fell asleep again. And when I woke up they had rotated the TV back around so I couldn't see it. I was stuck looking at people recovering. Many of the same people that I had been sitting with in the waiting room, most of whom arrived after I did.

Finally a lady came to wheel me up to the operating room. It was a really long trip through hallways filled with indescribable technical gear and people in pastel scrubs. They parked me outside of an operating room in a sort of holding pen. Across the hall was the new MRI neurosurgery hall where I could see through the window that they had someone all opened up inside. But as soon as they noticed me looking at the surgery in progress, they pulled a curtain around me so I had nothing to look at again. It seems that enforcing boredom is part of their policy.

I sat outside the OR for awhile. The previous patient was still inside, they were just finishing up with him. I got a glimpse of him as they wheeled him out, there were tubes coming out from under his blanket all over the place, one of which had a lot of blood in it. yish. Then they drew the curtain shut again so I couldn't see what happens "as they change out the room for the next victim."

I got a breif chat with Dr. Moncure and his two residents, Dr. Cameron and the lady who had given my scrot an exam at my pre-op. I also talked to several orderlies and then I finally met the anethesiologist. He was a relatively young guy, pretty funny. He made jokes about getting out "the big needle" and played humor against my fears in a very effective way. Then he gave me the big choice: spinal or general. I voted general.

He gave me an IV, which didn't really hurt at all and then started injecting stuff into it like crazy. I asked if I was going to go out like a light or if I'd realize what was happening. He said that I probably wouldn't even remember this conversation because he had just given me an amnesic that would cause me to forget everything. In addition, he'd given me a pain reliever and something to put me to sleep. I don't remember anything after that. There wasn't an experience of getting knocked out, of impending unconsciousness, or anything like that. There is just a hole in my memory from that general time frame to when I woke up in recovery.

I remember waking up, there wasn't anyone standing over me but there were people in the room that I didn't recognize. They seemed to notice that I had woken up almost instantly. I don't remember much of the conversation; I must have been pretty high off my ass at that point. I remember them giving me some morphine which burned when they injected it into my IV, but didn't seem to nullify the dull pain in my crotch that was becoming more apparent as I slowly regained consciousness.

Dr. Cameron came by and asked me some stuff I don't remember and I remember noticing that the recovery room I was in wasn't the day surgery recovery room that I had been waiting in earlier. I didn't make anything of it at the time, I wasn't making a lot of analytical connections in my head at this point. Anyway Cameron must have cleared me to leave the recovery room because an orderly wheeled my stretcher out and through a maze of hallways again.

This time it was much less fun because every time the stretcher went over a bump I felt a stabbing pain in my abdomen. And it wasn't like a little piercing pain like bad gas or something, it was like someone had a big rusty dagger stuffed into my gut and was twisting it around. Yow. By the time they wheeled me into my little room, I was really in a lot of pain. They gave me more morphine which stung some more but still didn't make a noticeable dent in the pain. They said they couldn't give me any more because it would make me stop breathing.

The good news is that they gave me a fresh saltwater IV which rapidly satiated my overwhelming thirst. I was still pretty woozy at this point. I remember Jessica being there, but I'm not sure when she arrived or left. I just remember her wanting to see my scar and giving me a hand massage.

The night nurse was really cool. His name was Rich and he was my companion for the night. The kitchen had already closed so they couldn't bring me food. It turns out I wasn't out of the recovery room until 9pm, so I hadn't eaten in a really long time and I needed food. Rich managed to come up with a package of saltines, a glass of apple juice, and a big spoonful of frozen yogurt that he had purchased for himself. It was a pretty pathetic meal ,but it turns out that one sip of water and a nibble of saltine was all i needed to make me want to hurk my guts out.

Over the course of the night, between the hourly temperature and blood pressure readings and my obnoxious nocturnal roommate, I managed to get in a few half-hour naps. I also managed to put down about three packages of saltines and several glasses of water.

When the morphine had "worn off" they started giving me percocet, which made my head hurt a little and made me more nauseous. It had a noticeable effect on the pain, but not the effect I was hoping for which was total removal. It did, however, make it so that I could move slightly and sit up enough to drink without pouring it all over my face.

I finally managed to pee at about 6am, at which point i had taken in a lot of water as well as the IV which was constantly adding water to my system. It was a heroic urination.

The criteria they had given me for discharge from the hospital were that I was able to pee and able to eat, both of which I had done. But there was no way in hell I was getting out of that stretcher. Even with the percocet I could not move significantly.

At 7am, my surgeon, Dr. Ashby Moncure, stopped by to see how I was doing. "You had quite a lot of repair work last night! How you holding up?" I said I was feeling adequate, except for the big knife wound in my crotch... The percocets were making me a bit forgetful so I neglected to ask him what the deal was with my surgery, why I had gotten out so late and why they had kept me overnight.

Rich had told me that I had just gotten out of surgery so late that they had to keep me overnight, but I had a hard time accepting this since they told me I was only going to be under for 30 minutes to an hour. I was out from ~5pm to 8:30pm.

The residents came in a bit later to check on me and I remembered to ask them. They said that the surgery had been a lot more complex than they had anticipated from the original diagnosis. They did not elaborate. I was still too wonky to ask meaningful questions about what this meant.

Breakfast was abominable. Two tiny rubber pancakes, a jello, some frozen orange juice, and a coffee. I ate about half a pancake before getting sick.

By now I was really really bored again. I had managed to find a position I could lay in that would not cause too much pain, and then all that was left to do was listen to the incessant complaining and bad TV coming from the other side of the curtain. At 10:30 I called Mel and woke her up. She provided a much-needed diversion from the tedium and pain, and it helped a lot to talk to someone.

At noon they said they'd give me lunch and that the lunches were much better than the breakfasts. They also made noises about sending me home same day. When the lunch came it looked much better and I was ever so hungry. I ate half my chicken-salad sandwhich before getting sick again. I was desperate to eat so I asked the day nurse if she had anything that could make my nausea go away. She said "of course" and went out. She came back in with this huge needle and told me to roll over so she could give me a shot in the ass. I told her I'd rather be hungry and nauseous, thank you very much. Then she mentions that she could give me the pill form instead, to which I was thinking "duh, who chooses the needle??"

The pill, unfortunately, took some time to take effect. During this time I dozed off and when I woke up 15 minutes later, they had taken my lunch away! Foiled! And when I asked if I could get it back, they started asking me if I could come have my ride get me ASAP. I guess they were sick of my crap. I still didn't believe that I'd ever make it out of the bed.

I called Jess and woke her up, she didn't have Alex's car anymore. She was only available to come get me at the time I said I would be leaving; last night. So I called Z and woke him up. He suggested that I call Rob. Rob wasn't home. I tried him several times until 2pm, when the day nurse seemed to be hinting that I should really be leaving now. So I called Z back and he convinced Donna to drive them over and come get me.

I was left with the arduous task of changing back into my regular clothes, which were in a bag on the floor which I was incapable of reaching or lifting. The nurse layed everything out for me and then left me there to fend for myself. Try this one at home: change outfits while laying down, without flexing your abs at all. It's physically impossible, and getting my pants on killed. Wow I thought for sure that I had torn the incision open again and that it would be spraying blood all over the room.

Getting my shoes on was out of the question, so the nurse had to do it for me. When this ordeal was over with, I was exhausted and passed out on the bed until Z and Donna showed up. They had a wheelchair set up for me and I was supposed to get into it somehow. This took a long time and was very embarrassing and painful. They stuffed a presciption for percocet in my coat pocket and whisked us out the door, Z wheeling me down to the hospital entrance. Every little bump in the floor was like a knife in my side.

Getting out of the chair and into the car was another ordeal. I think I blacked out for some of the car ride home because I don't remember anything until getting out of the car in front of Senior House and having to walk up to Z's room. My maximum speed was about 0.5mph, and I walked with a bigtime hunch. Z made sure to point out to everyone in the lobby that the gimp had entered the building.

Jess and Donna put some sheets and pillows on a matress on Z's floor and I layed down on it. Immeditely I had to get up to go to the bathroom again, which required them picking me up. Z's strobe and blacklight peeing experience took something away from the pain and that's good.

I don't remember a lot about the rest of the night. Only that I was in a terrible amount of pain and there was no comfortable sitting position. I still couldn't eat anything. I slept a little but not any appreciable amount. Getting up and going to the bathroom was a half-hour experience and by the time I made it back to the bed I was sweating and out of breath. It was really really hard work to move around.

Then the weirdest thing happened. I hadn't picked up my prescription (oops) so I had no pain killers. Jessica brought down a few advils and some tylenol for me at about 3am. I had two advils and took a nap. In an hour, the vast majority of the constant pain was gone! After narcotics like morphine and percocet had failed to relieve my pain, advil seemed to do a great job!

Finally, I was able to rest comfortably and I could do simple movements without feeling like I was causing irrepairable damage. This led very quickly to my sleeping for a long time (read: four hours). But it made me very happy. I was able to go get a bowl of cereal by myself and go to the bathroom without aid or great pain. It was still very uncomfortable to stand, but I was not complaining. I could rest at last.

NASA TV was covering the First Robotics Competition finals live, so I watched those all morning. I also had to listen to Z and Donna... doing stuff through the wall. Highly amusing.

The rest of today was spent in bed except for when Donna cooked at 2pm breakfast of pancakes (good ones this time) and bacon. Mel came by and brought me the coolest get-well gift! She bought me a little mini-acquarium and two goldfish! They are the cutest things ever. I guess they are super low-maintenance, they don't need a heater or pump or anything. We just put them in the little 1/4 gallon tank and let them sit there.

I decided to name them Ashby and Moncure, in honor of my surgeon who was a direct cause of these fish becoming mine. Z donated a little plastic lobster toy to spice up their somewhat boring tank. I put the fishfood can and a jar of peanuts next to the tank to give them something to look at. Mel thinks I'm feeding them too much. But it's really fun to watch 'em eat!

I slept again after Mel left until Donna cooked dinner. Tom came over and we all talked about bonsai kitten. Dinner was steak and corn. Very good. I was getting more and more able to eat normal portions. And I'm able to walk around a little more now as well. The only bad thing to happen since I had those advils was when Z and Tom decided that it would be funny to get me laughing, which causes me enormous pain, and then just keep me laughing.

I tried to control myself but Z can be really goddamned funny when he tries to be and I just broke out. They kept me laughing, the bastards, until I was in tears from pain and I felt significantly worse. It's been a few hours now since that and I'm starting to feel better again. I think I'll take a nap.