Guest Blog: Lateral Release Surgery by Gamer

Sorry for the delay in this posting.

I have been in and out of sleeping and running to the bathroom of late with all the water I have been drinking. Momoftwelve asked me to write the post for her blog and since I was still way too drugged up for a coherent answer, I have decided to oblige her.

On June 9th, I went in for a lateral release of the tendons and ligaments in my knee. This is a “simple” procedure where they cut the before mentioned items and get them to relax. This is being done so that my patella “kneecap” will sit back in the place it is supposed to be in. I went into the hospital with my lovely wife, Bossy, and yes, that name suits her well, and Queso in his carseat at 7:20 am. This was way too early for the other kids in the house, so they stayed behind. After hobbling over to the main door
entrance, we found the doors locked. We now had to walk into the ER and get to the check-in from there.

Now this is where the fun begins for the day.

Covid questionnaire person: Hi, can I ask our name?

Me: Gives name

Person: Proceeds to ask about contact with people about Covid or if I have had my shots.

Me: I work in a high school. Of course, I have been exposed. No, I have not caught it.

Person: Have you had a test recently?

Me: Yes

Now, I’m in a grumpy mood since I don’t like this hospital very much because of a history with them. Finally we are allowed to continue checking in and we wait for a person to take my information. So while Bossy is carrying Queso, I glance down at the paper they gave me. It has my correct last name on it, but the first name is nowhere close to what my name is. I tell it to Bossy and even she was dumbfounded by how bad they got my easy to spell first name so horribly wrong. I am sitting there in the lobby waiting. I handle all my prescreen/pre-op stuff and get my fancy little bracelet. 

We then move into the surgery waiting room area. We are led behind the pre-op doors and
immediately Queso is the star of the show. All the nurses are talking about how cute he is. How they want to take him home with them. His laugh is so cute. I mean I was getting jealous of my own kid since all the nurses were tripping over themselves just for him and I am there for a surgery. My pre-op nurse comes over and starts hooking up my IV and everything. She lets me know she is going to take some blood out in case something bad happens and I need a “blood booster shot (my own blood with other stuff mixed in).” So she takes 20CCs of my blood and has it ready in case I need it in surgery. I meet with my doctor again, the anesthesiologist, and my OR nurse. So, I am having a blast messing with these guys and girls in pre-op. My OR nurse comes in and says that my fancy little bracelet is not able to scan in and needs to be changed to a new one. So I get another little fancy bracelet.

Here is where it will get foggy for me: I am taken into the OR and helped onto a bed that I get strapped onto. At this point my dark humor decides to come out. I begin making dark jokes about how I am going to be crucified and I am going to be sacrificed… I won’t go on with the jokes. One of the nurses has some tattoos of birds on his forearm so I start talking to him about them. The other OR nurse puts a breathing mask over my face and says to start taking big deep breaths in and out. So I begin doing that. After a few breaths, she tells me “to start bringing up memories of my favorite vacation.” I tell her I don’t have any since I always work to support my family. She says that is really sad…. That’s all I remember from the morning.

I am brought out of what I can only describe as “black sleep” since I don’t dream very often. I am in Post-Op and have a lady talking to me. At first it is all incoherent, but then my brain comes out of the fog and I can understand her. She is telling me everything went fine. But there is a problem with my breathing patterns… in other words, I do not take enough breaths while I sleep. The doctor was worried about that. She asked if I was hungry or thirsty. I declined food at first but did want some water. After a few sips, I slipped back into unconsciousville. I woke up several times throughout the afternoon. When I was finally able to stay awake for longer than 5 minutes, I decided I was hungry and asked for some saltines to test my stomach out. Not even 2 minutes after eating, I was retching everything in my stomach into a little blue bag. I think I threw up about 9oz of liquid and it smelled foul. The nurses where nice and all, but I still was embarrassed. After puking though, I felt way better. Soon Bossy and Queso showed up to take me home.

(This kid loves Oreos.)