Here's a little write up of my weekend of surgery.
Friday night left the office early to go and watch USA vs Argentina in the basketball semi finals. That kept my mind busy until about midnight when I caught a tube to go straight to the Danubius Hotel (about a 5 minute walk from St John's Wood). Stayed in the hotel with my GF, room was very nice, nothing special but had air con which proved useful!
That night I slept like a baby; if there was one thing I'd recommend doing before surgery it's keeping busy. The week leading up to the op gave me basically no room to dwell on things. Anyway, I was up at 7:30am, walked to the hospital and was sent to my room in a matter of minutes. After that, the nurse came in to check blood pressure, pulse and ask a few questions; also had time to fill out my lunch choices.
Dr. Karidis also came in very briefly to take some photos and mark me up - I also signed off the consent form which I had read beforehand but still would have been nice to go through this with the surgeon (he skipped me straight to the signing part).
There was a fairly long gap between then and actually going down for surgery. Fortunately the olympics made for pretty easy watching until 11:30 when I was taken down to the anaesthetist. Ended up chatting with Donna, the anaesthetist's assistant who was lovely - she explained what was going to happen etc. Then the anaesthetist came in, stuck a canula in my vein (no pain at all) and then switched on that milky stuff while Donna held an oxygen mask over my face. Initial hit of the anaesthetic was pretty awesome, felt drunk as hell and then everything just went heavy and I was out.
People say that GA happens really quick but for me it just felt like a normal sleep. Kind of like I was aware that time had passed rather than having some sensation of magically time travelling into the future. Anyway, I woke up feeling tired as hell, could barely open my eyes and I think I was just making some moaning noises for about 15 minutes while the recovery nurse checked my BP etc. Then I was wheeled into a lift and taken to my room with the canula and a saline drip still plugged in.
Over the next couple of hours I had my BP checked regularly and ate my food (mostly fresh fruit - was really good!). GF was with me for the whole time up to the op and then afterwards too.
Dr. Karidis came in to see me towards the end of the day which was a nice touch - told me everything had gone well and checked to see if his nurse had given me everything.
I ended up leaving the hospital about 5:30pm and went back to the Danubius for a second night. I slept so so bad that night, sleeping for what felt like a couple of hours but then waking up to see only 5 minutes had past (this must have happened 20 times or more) - think the vest was making me feel like I couldn't breath as there is so much padding and bandages under there initially.
Now I'm back home, two days later and have only looked at my chest once. It looks and feels very strange, wasn't really sure what I would feel like but overall there are no major issues and now it's just a matter of letting it run its course...
Overall I was really happy with the whole experience. Everyone was very nice and I've got contact details if I ever need anything. The nurse kitted me out with a ton of painkillers (tramadol is awesome), bandages and antibiotics. The only thing that went wrong was that my second compression vest was actually a pair of compression pants... not quite what I needed but luckily spotted this before I went home!!
Topic: Trip Report of a 24 Year Old: Karidis Surgery on 11th August (DONE) (Read 10348 times)
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