Surgery

What a weird day. I am officially minus several veins on my left leg!

Last night I was feeling quite sick, fever and body aches. I worried that it would interfere with the operation today but it seemed to have settled down by time the vein removal started.

I arrived at Lenval Hospital at 10 am and went through the pre-op prep. I got shown to my room (shared with another woman having the same surgery--I saw a peek of her being wheeled to the OR as I was arriving). The nurses were very friendly and quite intrigued about my job as the president/researcher for BWB. One of them then launched into her birth story (vaginal birth of twins with an epidural, baby B breech). Her doctor told her, "The breech birth will be so easy! The baby will slide out right onto the table with its feet right there."

I had to gown up in those crinkly paper gown and underwear. So fun. Then it was my turn. I got wheeled on a gurney down a hall, into an elevator, and into the OR suite. Another wait, listening to a tiny baby crying in a nearby room, watching the staff bustle around. Then the anesthesiologist placed an IV.

The operation itself was suuuuper weird due to the sedation. When I got my varicose veins taken out the first time in the US, after Ivy was born, it was with local anesthesia only. No sedation. This time I had some inhaled sedation and hoo boy was it weird.

It only felt like a few minutes, but it was probably at least 2 hours of surgery. I heard people speaking but just sounded like incomprehensible noises. Most of the time I was under, but occasionally I surfaced enough to say, "Ça fait mal!" For some reason I was also tapping my first fingers rhymically whenever I "woke" up. I was lying on my stomach so I remember opening my eyes and seeing pulse ox on my left finger. There was one area behind my knee that needed extra local anesthetic, the doctor exlpained to me afterwards. At one point I remember saying, "Je vais vomir" and they brought me a puke bowl. I think they called it a bean ("haricot"). So bizarre the things I remember. At least I managed to speak in French!

Next I was brought to the "salle de réveil" or post-op room to wake up. I would open my eyes and the whole room would spin and I would pass back out again, over and over. Once they decided I was revived enough to go back to my room, I had to squeeze my eyes shut during the transport. It was making me feel nauseated!

Once I was settled into bed, I was so dizzy that I could hardly raise my head. The nurses stuck a blood pressure cuff on me, and the machine made some unhappy beeps and the nurses clucked at it. They tried the other arm. Same thing. I normally have low blood pressure and apparently it was off-the-charts low! They elevated my legs, put in an IV for some fluids, and left me to rest.

Eventually I was feeling well enough to try eating and drinking something. But I had to stay a few more hours than anticipated until my dizziness had passed completely. They made me walk around the hallway for a half hour to prove all was OK.

Eric and Dio met me at the tram outside the hospital at 4:20 pm. Fortunately it was raining all day so I didn't miss much back home.

We had an evening at home eating dinner (Budda bowls, thumbs up from everyone) and doing homework and watching one episode of Wheel of Time.

With my first varicose vein removal in the US, they sent me home with compression hose and instructions to wear them for 7-10 days and to walk a lot. Here, they sent me home with all of that PLUS like 8 prescriptions PLUS a prescription for 10 days of in-home nursing care to change the bandanges and give me blood thinner injections. I didn't fill the tylenol, but I did come home with all sorts of fancy bandages and sterile gauze and anti-scar cream and anti-bruising cream.

So anyway, that's my adventure in the French medical system!