Feeling Under The Knife

This morning I let someone cut me open.  Again.  CAUTION:  YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO READ THIS IF YOU ARE SUPER SQUEAMISH.


I had surgery on my hand to remove an annoying cyst.  I'm doing fine now and am so thankful to my friends and family for their prayers.


It was interesting, though.  


Normally, when I've had surgery I have been put under (except for one other time).  So it is always interesting to have surgery done while you are awake and aware.  Of course they put up a drape so I couldn't watch if I had wanted to but the point is that you are still AWARE of what they are doing.


This was the same surgeon who has done 3 other surgeries on me in the past.  (Yeah, there was that cancer thing 6 years ago).  He is a fine surgeon but I have to say that he is not my favorite person. He's nice enough, I guess.  I just think that doctors don't always believe you when you tell them things.


For instance, today.  My doc warned me that when he numbed my hand to prep for surgery that it would hurt.  Now, I've had, as I said, several surgeries and given birth without epidurals to FOUR children.  I don't like IVs but I can usually tolerate them being put in and being pricked with a needle for small procedures at the dermatologist.  So in my mind I was thinking, "he doesn't know how tough I am."


So when he said, "Okay, this is where it will hurt",  I was NOT prepared for what came next.  


It hurt.  A  lot.  And then before it even started to work he started to cut my hand.  I said, "Um, that hurts" (because he told me to if it did) and he said, "No, you shouldn't feel it hurting it should just be a tugging feeling."  And I said, "Well, I feel the sharpness of the blade and it hurts."  


So I got another fun shot!  


Within a minute or two he started to put in the stitches.  And I knew that because I COULD FEEL THE HOOK SHAPED NEEDLE IN MY HAND!


I shot a look at the wonderful nurse on my side of the drape and said, "I can FEEL that stitching needle."  She relayed my message to the doc.


He said, "No, you shouldn't be able to feel that."  But I did.  And I kept feeling it as he finished but it went pretty quick so I kept my mouth shut.  


No pain meds were given and I was actually out of the hospital much earlier than expected since the earlier surgeries were done in record time and mine was done early.


So, now I'm sitting here during another wicked thunderstorm writing about this and, yeah, it hurts a bit, but I'm pretty tough!