They wheeled me in to the OR. I was pretty scared, I have to admit, and couldn't keep from crying. There was a flurry of activity, with the anesthesiologist, nurses, etc. I looked up from the gurney and remember that the ceiling of the room was painted black. I saw all the lights and people wearing masks standing over me -- it was just like a scene from a movie. Holy crap, I think they were readying themselves to lift me onto the operating table! What if I am awake through all of this?! What if I wake up during it?!
.... And that's all I remember.
I woke myself up moaning. I came to in a huge room filled with beds and other moaners. A bored looking young woman -- was she a teenager? -- was sitting in a chair watching me. I pass back out. I remember being very determined to come back to, because one of the admission staff or nurses or someone had told me that recovery often took several hours, and that if it takes too long, for some reason you don't get a room immediately and have to wait several hours in the recovery room . Or something. I can't really remember. But I know I wanted to wake the hell up and get into a room as fast as possible.

The nurse told me to not worry about how many times I pushed the button. It was set up so that I couldn't take too much. So push away. And I did. Whenever I started to feel pain, I'd push the button. But I think in my confused state I really didn't know what I was doing too much (although I thought I did -- would love to hear a recording of some those early phone calls I made to my family!) and had plenty of morphine. Too much for me, anyway.

Now it was daybreak. Now the sickness was setting in. Apparently, I do not respond well to morphine. It felt like I had the worst flu imaginable -- headache, hot, chills, dizzy, nausea. It was horrible. I was so sick. I was supposed to go home that day, but ended up staying another night and another full day -- three days total. Lord. They gave me codeine in morphine's place. Guess what? They made me start throwing up. It was so awful. By the second night they let me have some chicken broth but I was too sick to eat it.
Around this time, the second night, is where there was a small-to-mediumish earthquake, a 4.5. This was particularly freaky because I had been half-joking saying that it sure would suck for there to be an earthquake while my surgeon was doing his thing. Yikes!
I awoke feeling much better. They let me have jello! Eventually I was able to leave the hospital. The drive home was brutal. Every bump the car went over sent a jolt of pain up my spine. It was very upsetting, but I made it home.

I took some of the Darvocet they gave me, and either it or the steroid pack made me break out in hives on my face. I came home from the hospital Friday night. By Sunday I had quit taking all painkillers -- "F this!" were my exact words. It just wasn't worth the sickness. I pulled out my drug of choice, advil, and just took a shitload. It worked. I haven't taken any painkillers since.
Gosh, I've come a long way!
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