The Aftermath....

It's done. My little soldiers will be stuck at homebase with no way out.

I'm sitting here at the computer with an ice pack on my crotch.

According to all the pamphlets I read before today, this was supposed to be a simple procedure done with only some local anesthesia. To my dismay, that was no that case. I wasn't given general anesthesia via the gas mask, but rather with some medicine into the i.v. Once the anesthesiologist injected the drugs, it must have been only 5 to 10 seconds for it to take effect. Amazing stuff. A couple observances:

The i.v. drip makes your hand go cold. In hindsight, I should have expected that. The i.v. bags are room temperature (about 70 degrees - more on that later) and my body temp is 98.6 +/-.

The hospital loves to keep the place cool. I doubt it was as high as 70, more like 66 to 68 in that place. In all of my previous visits there, I was always a visitor and never had to get naked and wear only a hospital gown. Thank goodness for the blankets....

The hospital keeps their stock of blankets in a reverse refrigerator. A big heating machine so that the blankets are nice and toasty when they put them on you.

The hospital experience was very good, however the doctor who performed the surgery needs some improvement. When the surgery was scheduled, I did all the pre-registration over the phone with the hospital. They told me the doctor scheduled a 9:30am surgery and asked that I come in at 8:30am to get everything set up and ready. We got there at 8:30 and everything went very smoothly and quickly. There wasn't the wait we had the last couple of times we went. I was escorted into the operating room by 9:20am. While laying there on the table, the nurse discovered that in the doctor's folder for the surger, it was scheduled for 10:45am. What the fuck?!?! The anesthesiologist and nurse were very nice and kept apologizing for having to wait for the doctor to arrive. The doctor finally arrived (although I have no idea what time it was - my contacts were out and I couldn't see the clock). As far as I know the surgery went well. The only thing the doctor ever said to me was "Hi. How's it going?" when he walked into the OR. He spoke to my wife in the waiting room while I was still knocked out and told her everything went fine and that I should take it easy for the next 24 hours.

I woke up fine with no side effects from being knocked out. Had some juice and they wheeled me back into my waiting cubicle. Had a bit to eat there and some more juice. Pissed in the toilet and had to let the nurse see the piss just to make sure I wasn't dehydrated (hospital policy) then they let me get dressed and signed out. We went to the pharmacy to pick up the anitbiotics and headed home.

All in all, a successful day.