Yesterday, for example, I had to go to the hospital for surgery. Some back story: I have had, um, lady problems, for what seems like a few years now. After going from doctor to doctor and being told "oh, no, all of your excessive bleeding is perfectly normal for a young, childless woman," I finally went to a doctor who said "well, let's just check and see, just in case." Several specialty visits and mild-to-moderately-invasive procedures later, it was determined the cause of all my suffering was due to uterine polyps. Delightful!
At any rate, my GYN scheduled a trip to the OR to scrape the little jerks out of me. It just so happens that the procedure for removing polyps is the same procedure for removing, uh, other unwanted tissue out of one's womb. (At one point during pre-op, the Ginger leaned over and commented, "Do you think everyone thinks you're here for an abortion?" to which I punched him in the arm, and then thought about it for a second. They probably did, and were probably disturbed by how much we were laughing.)
Now, I just so happen to fucking hate fucking hospitals. I've had enough traumatic trips to them for about several lifetimes. But there I am, dressed in a sexy little johnny, wearing those sexy little brown slippers, lying in the bed while they pump fluids into me and drain other fluids out. I now know what a lab rat must feel like - in the weeks leading up to and including my procedure I had been poked and prodded just about everywhere, had given what seems like pints of blood, and had peed in about 15 different sterile cups (seriously, what is it with GYNs and pregnancy testing?). But I just lay there and smiled as nurses smacked at my veins, laughed at their awkward jokes, tried not to shit my pants.
Luckily for me, I was accompanied by my two favorite people - my Mom, and the Ginger, as I mentioned earlier. So, in addition to all of the above stresses, I also had to restrain myself from knocking both of their heads together as they felt the need to join forces and poke fun at me like a super-strength Sarcasm Monster. Sweet fucking support network, but I guess you reap what you sow. So which came first, the jackass seed or the wiseass plant?
Finally, after what seemed like a week - mind you, when you are scheduled for anesthesia, you are not allowed to eat or drink anything until after the procedure, and holy goddamn if the smells drifting up from the hospital cafeteria didn't smell like a delectable feast of the Gods to me - my GYN showed, and it was time to rock and roll.
The anesthesiologist came over to my bed and said "Okay, now I'm going to give you something to help you relax," and injected something into the IV line. "It will start working almost immediately." "That sounds goo...oop," I replied, as he wasn't fucking kidding, that shit hit me like a ton of fuzzy, warm, kitten-bricks. So there I was, floating on a magic glitter-cloud, surrounded by shimmering unicorns, when they wheeled me into the incredibly bright, incredibly cold OR. As the sweet nurses piled blankets on me, other people stuck sensors onto my skin, hooked me up to machines, lay my arms out on little platforms, tugged me this way and that. I felt like ET when he was in that creepy plastic tunnel place.
Then, the Giver of Drugs appeared, and stuck a white, plastic mask over my face and instructed me to take a few deep breaths. But in all honesty, I was too fascinated by all the shit I was being hooked up to. Were they going to transform me into a cyborg? What does THAT machine do? Coooool.
"Okay Amy, I'm going to need you to take some deep breaths now."
Ugh. Okay, fine. In, out. Iiiiin, out. In...
And when I opened my eyes again, I was lying in a completely different part of the hospital, feeling like someone had taken a frying pan to my skull and a serrated-edge ice cream scoop to my abdomen. As I struggled to open my eyes, my struggling alerted the attention of yet another sweet nurse, who delivered more Wonderful Drugs ("But it still huuurrrtts," I insisted after the first injection) and some wonderful ginger ale, and unhooked me from all of the machines and returned my clothes and let me keep the hospital slippers (my Nana used to be a nurse, so she would give new pairs to me all the time as a kid, and those fuckers are comfy).
Once I managed to get out of the bed, ever-so-grudgingly, and managed to get my clothes on, and managed to plop down in a wheelchair, a kind orderly wheeled me down to the hospital lobby, where my Fan Club waited, and both looked so damn happy to see me. (I'm lucky, I know.) Then the Ginger drove me home, where naps and snacks and TV awaited.
So here I am, still loopy from the anesthesia 24 hours later, or is that all the caffeine I mainlined today in order to make up for my deprivation yesterday? At any rate, that's the story of Amy's first Real Surgery.
And here is a shitty MS-Paint version of what used to live inside of me:
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