Big Day

Whats up T-people…

I’m having knee surgery tomorrow. A pretty big one at that.

Has anyone had the jitters before an operation before? I’m sitting here at work, trying not to think about it, but the whole scene is starting to take over and be the frontrunner in my head.

Anyone else had similar problems? Any input would be awesome.

Brad

Brad, it’s difficult not to think about impending surgery. I can empathize because I’m scheduled for a serious procedure in 8 days. I find that I have the most trouble when I hit the sack. I rest my head on the pillow, close my eyes, and, what do you know, I start thinking about my operation and recovery. It’s an immediate response. I’d say it’s been like this for at least two weeks. Days aren’t so bad. I try to occupy myself and run other thoughts through my mind. It seems to work. Hey, you’re going in tomorrow, so the worst is hopefully over. You no longer have to procrastinate and tie your stomach in knots. Good luck. I will be rooting for you.

Well, I’ve had 4 surgical procedures done, 3 of them were colonoscopies. In this case, you really don’t think about it until the prep – which is a really crappy (literally) day. By the time you’re through with that, you’re so drained that sleep comes easy.

The 4th was a knee surgery. I had implanted a sharp of steel into my knee on Saturday (actually a piece of a splitting wedge that had mushroomed over shot off and into my knee). At the time, I just thought I had cut it. Sunday, things were getting worse, so I went to the ER on Monday morning. By Monday afternoon, I was under a general anaesthetic getting the offending piece removed (it was about 1 mm from actually entering the joint capsule). So no time to lose sleep over that one.

I’ve had three knee surgeries. They are really such routine operations that you don’t have much to worry about. I did get a staph infection after the first one, which completely sucked ass. Make sure it is kept sterile. In the end I definitely came out stronger, though.

The vasectomy worried my MUCH more than any of the knee surgeries.

Oh, good luck.

First off, good luck with the procedure.
As a multiple knee surgery recipient I would offer the following advice. If you have confidence in your surgeon the jitter factor is much lower. Do some research on your injury and know what is going to be done. If you know that your lifestyle demands corrective surgery then it is more of a matter of preparing yourself for surgery as apposed to over-thinking it, do I REALLY need this versus I NEED to get this done. You did not mention the type of injury but a good bet is that you are doing quad sets pre-surgery to minimize the atrophy that WILL occur post. I have found that in the days leading up to a surgery beginning to plan my recovery and workouts helps to calm me down. Having a plan for recovery lessens the feeling of dread and helplessness and gives me some peace of mind. Be the master of your own destiny, so to speak. I think that TC and others have, um err, preached about this a time or two to The Nation. Lastly, and this might seem a bit callous, but imagine all the people who are injured to the point of no recovery, never had a chance ect. Some perspective on the situation never hurts.

Good luck and drop a line about how things are going.

Thanks for the support, you can always count on the T-people…

Colonoscopies… Dude, I feel for you.

As a young Navy Corpsman one of my first jobs was working post op in General Surgery. Colonoscopy day was always a challenge, imagine 4 or five people in the post op ward at a time farting their brains out.

…Definitely an early test on how to act professional.

Thanks again.

Brad