I finally brought up the new server, migrated all the projects to it, and fixed (hopefully, for good) the blog. On top of that, while I'm on sick leave, I actually have time. So I hope to indulge in graphomania and annoy the few people who still remember my existence on the web.
To start off, about the surgery. I was posting info about my condition on Twitter as the process went on, but for those who weren't following, I'll write about it here too, maybe even in more detail.
My surgery was done on Thursday, March 11th, by surgeon Dmitry Guzenko at www.jlmc.lv. He specializes in knee injuries. My surgery is an anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. What follows will include physiological details. If you're not into that — don't read it. I warned you.
I arrived at the hospital on Wednesday a bit before 3 PM. In principle, there was no real need for this, I could have just come the next morning and saved 25 lats — that's how much a hospital bed costs per day. It was a four-bed ward, and I had one neighbor — an apparently untalkative, relatively young Latvian guy. The next day, though, he bounced back from his surgery and we chatted cheerfully, especially when a third guy was moved in with us. The Latvian guy got discharged quickly, however, and the new neighbor was a cheerful older dude, a factory worker.
Now, onto the surgery itself.
In the middle of the day on Wednesday, the doctor showed me how the surgery goes using slides. Long story short: they pull a tendon out of another muscle (in my case — the knee flexor), fold it 3-6 times, drill a hole in the knee joint and insert it in there, fixing it in place with an endo-button (a titanium plate with a plastic cord).
Endo-button
Then I was forbidden to eat and given a laxative in the form of suppositories. First time in my adult life using suppositories, and a laxative too. It's needed, in case you didn't know, so that the person doesn't empty their bowels right on the operating table after the anesthesia kicks in.
After the laxative, they also gave me what seemed to be a sleeping pill or a sedative, who the hell knows, I didn't ask.
An anesthesiologist also came by and explained that the anesthesia would be epidural. This means they deliver the painkiller into your back with a shot so that it gets into the spinal cord. In cases where it can be applied, it's better than general anesthesia — less traumatic for the body, and it's easier to calculate the dose so as not to do any harm.
Late in the evening a nurse came and told me to march with her. I actually thought they were going to give me an enema, but it turned out fine — they handed me a razor and told me to shave my knee. She heavily emphasized being careful so that it would be convenient for the doctor to cut me later, without razor cuts getting in the way. I shaved my knee, and ambled back to the ward.
I woke up early in the morning, around 6 o'clock, because I went to bed early too. Plus the nurses and orderlies are walking around, jabbing all sorts of blood-thinning meds into your stomach to prevent blood clots.
They wheeled me into surgery around 8:30. The anesthesiologist's assistant was a very cheerful lady named Tamara; she joked around for a long time and promised to hug me. And that's exactly what happened. They injected the anesthesia with some difficulties — they said the muscles in my back were too strong. As a result, Auntie Tamara bent me over so hard to get my spine to open up that I couldn't even breathe for a while. After the shot they quickly tossed my legs onto the table, and almost immediately I couldn't move them myself — it completely knocks them out.
Next they strapped a breathing mask to my face with laughing gas (oxygen, probably, or maybe they added a sedative in there). They blocked me off from the surgeons with a screen (or maybe blocked them off from me), Auntie Tamara popped a special music player into my ears and asked what kind of music I desired. I, as usual, couldn't explain my musical preferences, as a result of which I spent an hour enjoying the works of Andrea Bocelli. Because of the sedative I was in a daze, so it made absolutely no difference to me what was flowing in the background.
I would have, by the way, gladly watched them cut me open, but I didn't think to ask beforehand, and the hospital staff assume by default that patients don't like medical stuff and are afraid of blood. So if you want to see something like that (which is unlikely) ask in advance, and ask everyone you possibly can.
The surgery lasted about 1.5 hours, judging by what I overheard at the end. When it was over, I only managed to ask the surgeon what was up with the meniscus (I had a tear in it). He informed me that they removed 1/4 of it and ran off. A total of 6 people were involved in the surgery. Add to this taxes, equipment, medication, and the price suddenly stops seeming so high.
Right after the surgery I felt pretty lucid, posted on Twitter and called my friends. But then an hour or two later the anesthesia started to wear off, and that's when I learned what true misery feels like. And the sensations weren't like pain, but just like there was a lot of pressure on the leg and it was lying in a very uncomfortable way. No matter how you toss and turn — it's still uncomfortable. It doesn't sound very agonizing, but I was climbing the walls, swearing quietly in English, I couldn't stand it.
I didn't suffer for that long — I asked for a painkiller. It helped well, though not completely. It got truly unpleasant when I discovered that I couldn't pee. By the time I called the nurse (a special nurse came, I think it was the head nurse) the situation had already become extremely acute. The nurse inserted a catheter where it belongs, and told me that if I had held out just a little longer, they would have had to call the surgeon. Terrifying. Kids, do not hold it in if you can't go to the bathroom and your bladder muscles won't obey you — it can end badly! Especially since Tamara, the anesthesiologist's assistant, had warned me.
Fortunately, everything worked out. In the evening a fake punk and anarchist came to visit. I didn't invite anyone else, because my condition was still not super — it's unlikely that you would have enjoyed interacting with me in it. The punk is patient, he listened to my moans and mumbles stoically.
Also, I was categorically told not to walk and not to take a vertical position at all on the first day. If you don't follow this, you can get a wild headache in the following days because of the epidural anesthesia. Actually, I couldn't really walk anyway, so there was no problem there. Well, except that I tossed and turned and sometimes lay half-sitting, but I just couldn't stand being in the same position. Luckily, my head didn't hurt later.
I'll write the continuation about the surgery tomorrow.
P.S.
There's a lot of useful information regarding an ACL injury in this post here:
https://altsara.livejournal.com/118756.html
Say what you will, but LiveJournal, even despite constantly degrading towards trashy clickbait, still remains a bastion of the intellectual approach. You won't find such a thoughtful post anywhere else on the internet.