Quote:
Originally Posted by
MarcUK 
ive never been in hospital before...im going under general anaesthetic, I hear thats a nice euphoric experience. And reading the literature they sent me today..."You will wake up in the recovery ward area and a nurse will accompany you back to your bed area"...Bring it on, this sounds like fun!
I've had my tonsils out and two sinus operation under general anesthesia. Neither of those were fun -- a monster sore throat from the first, something feeling like a terrible cold with a nasty sinus headache for a week after each of the sinus procedures -- but still, nothing quite had me prepared for how miserable I'd feel for the first 3-4 days after getting a 4-inch wide abdominal incision.
It's not so much that I was in terrible pain or anything, it's just that what pain there was was very incapacitating -- it was very hard to walk, change from reclining or sitting to standing and vice versa, or even just to reach for a book on my nightstand. The pain sends you this very clear (and probably accurate) message, "Do the wrong thing and you'll experience searing pain as your gut splits open". Plus my whole digestive tract backed up for a full week -- a result of anesthesia, pain medication (which I quit taking after three days), and general stress.
What was really annoying was that my abdomen was so swollen that I could barely button my jeans, and doing so put uncomfortable pressure on my incision. I mostly stayed home for about ten days, lounging around in sweatpants.
It's been sixteen days now, and today is my first day back at work. I got the staples taken out yesterday. I'm still a little sore, and still under doctor's orders not to lift anything heavy or otherwise exert myself very hard for a few more weeks, but I'm feeling great now, and pretty much felt I was out of the woods after seven days.
As for the anesthesia... it's a pleasant experience, at least to the extent that it's an experience at all. For me, it's like the time I'm under just disappears. This last time, I was being wheeled into the OR, and the next thing I was aware of was feeling spacey while being wheeled out. I vaguely remember that I might have tried to speak a few words of Spanish to my Venezuelan doctor, but I'm not sure if I just imagined that in a half-dreaming state.
I sincerely doubt that you'll be entertaining many lascivious thoughts about nurses after you wake up. You'll simply go from being way too floaty and sleepy to even consider such things to being too miserable to consider such things in fairly short order.
