Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Surgery!



Yesterday I had surgery on my wrist to remove a "volar ganglion cyst". This was a rather unsightly bump on my wrist that had become increasingly bothersome. I thought it would be a simple procedure but it turned out to be a bit more than I bargained for. For one thing I had to go under general anesthesia for the first time. Me being me, that prompted me to worry about that 1% chance of "cardiac arrest or death". Jeff observed that I might have a "heightened sense of anxiety" surrounding surgery (ya think?). I knew, of course, that once I fell asleep, I wouldn't care if they cut my hand off, but it was the anticipation that was killing me (ok, and the fact that they wrote "NO" in permanent marker on my right arm, and "YES" on my left so as not to operate on the wrong appendage!). Clearly, everything turned out fine, as I am typing this one-handed and am alive and well. But I did not anticipate how hard it would be to do everything with my right hand (I'm left-handed!). Can't eat with my left hand because I can't bend my wrist. Can't write because while my fingers and thumb are free, the cast is too thick to grasp a pen. Can't wash the right side of my body well. I have to keep my arm elevated above my heart as much as possible (I slept surprisingly well with my arm up on three pillows!). And try putting gel in your hair with one hand!

We are hosting our end-of-season softball party at our house tonight, too! How crazy is that? To top it off, its raining so now I need to come up with some way to entertain 10 girls and their siblings indoors. In the meantime I have some Percocet to get me through!

1 comment:

Sydney said...

Now that you've survived you should watch the movie "Awake" about the small percentage of people who'd bodies become paralyzed, but still feel pain under general anesthesia! Scary!

Anyway, I am glad it went ok, though the cast looks and sounds awful to deal with! I do not envy you...

love you!