May 20th, 2008

It's about 5am on Tuesday.  I've slept about as much as I can lay down for.  I guess the jet lag is leaving me at being an early riser.  I have no idea what time I went to bed.  I woke up at 1:30am and had my first chance to talk to Lia, my roommate.  Unfortunately, I was still groggy and feeling pain, so  don't imagine I was able to make a great first impression.  At least now I'm not groggy.

I get grossed out by hearing about medical procedures and Dr. C. did not offer to go into great detail, and I was fine with that.  I trust he does good work and knows what he's doing, and if there is something I need to know, he and his staff tell me.  I have a schedule today for taking various things to help clear out my bowels today.  However, I really had no idea wha thtis lower eyelid surgery was about, and I'll probably look it up on his web site today.  But when he said he wanted to get the lower eye surgery out of the way Monday evening at his clinic and that it was a minor procedure, I actually had visions of going back to the hotel and seeing if I could find others who were going to dinner.  LOL, I was go out of it and in pain that it really felt like regular surgery to me.  I'm guessing I was coming out of sedation a little ahead of schedule.  It felt like he was sticking a needle in my skin just under my eyelid, and you can imagine that might hurt alot.  Well, since that's exactly what he was doing (stiches), it hurt!  The corners of my eyes still hurt, but that may be because the 'sand' from the sand man.  I did clean up where a little blood trickled away, but as he has some specific looking stiches, I don't want to mess with them, so I can't just spash water over my eyes to clear them out.  I'm sure that would really hurt too if I did.  Hey - oh crap.  I was about to say I have some extra strength tylenol, I'll go take some.  Of course,  that's a no-no before surgery as they tell you things like that can lead to deep vein thrombosis from surgery.  So I could try and sleep through it, but this bed isn't the softest, and there is only so much sleep you can actually get before you're just laying there wide awake.

So I'm choosing to write and gross you out with how I feel after surgery.  So if I'm complaining about a minor procedure, I can imagine what a problem I'll be with a new set of body parts.  I may not feel like writing after that though.  I'd actually scheduled myself for a conference call tonight for work, but might not participate.  It's not essential that I'm present, so I know it'd be Ok to miss.

At least when I'm in the hospital, the wifi is free, so I'll be able to stay online with chat & phone programs.  Of course, I doubt I'll feel like doing either for a few days.  We'll see.

I think I was a bit for philosophical over the weekend with my thoughts & emotions about this trip, however right now I'm already in recovery mode, where all I want to do is figure out how to deal with pain and stay comfortable.  My roommate is still at that stage too.  She sounds Ok, but when I ask her when the pain stopped, she kind of smiled and said he hasn't really.  But clearly it's not as bad and she'd doing better.  She wouldn't be expected to be up and around for another week yet anyway.  I met another girl at the clinic who I also knew from emails, and she's going home this Friday.  She seemed like she was almost 100%, so I asked her about how she felt, and unfortunately, she still had some discomfort to deal with.  But clearly, she is further along than Lia, and she'll be just fine.

All right, I'm a little tired of typing, and think I'll watch a couple of movie trilogies today, since I'll just be here in the room.  Maybe if I feel like writing some more, I can describe what it's like to have my bowels cleaned out.  Ok, ok, I'll spare you those details.