I’m typing on one hand here.
The surgery appears to be successful. I was in a cheery mood I suppose - I joked around to put the staff at ease. I’m sure they love an easy patient and I was sure to thank them all.
I woke up from surgery and it’s really hard because you want to sleep. I remember last time with the nurse bugging me so I tried hard. I was semi-conscious most of the time. I asked what I had to wake up for and immediately a name popped in my head. Whoops, oh well. I wanted to tell her about my nurse missing my vain twice, she would have gotten a kick out of that. Ha, the nurse even said I had good veins – they’re large and easy to see. Yet she was digging around in there with the needle. No big deal. I’ll get back to this later, my hand is tired.
Update: Where was I? The nurse brought out the lidocaine which I told her was unnecessary. She insisted and stuck me with it and proceeded with the 20 gauge in my hand. She poked around but couldn’t get the vain. I was teasing her making her more nervous. She mentioned something about her kids at home would be getting sick or something. I told her needles didn’t bother me like that and to take her time. So she tries again this time up on my arm. She finds the vain and I tell her “no” for sure on the lido. She sticks me and I can feel her tapping the vain but not sticking it. She tried for a few minutes frustrated and with me laughing. This reminded me of two incidents before – one was my own. I know it helped ease the tension since I wasn’t freaking out but she insisted she wasn’t doing it a third time. I told her practice makes perfect and to go ahead but she grabbed a male nurse. She teased me back saying they should use me for practice rounds for the trainees and I quipped right back that she might want to go first. We all laughed. The male nurse got it the first time though he took his time also commenting on my veins. I ought to use that as a future pickup line “check out my good veins.” Ha, whatever. He was cool too, I saw him in the recovery area and bade goodbye to him as I left.
Needles and blood don’t bug me. She looked at me weird when I didn’t want a nerve block and even moreso when I wanted to be awake for the procedure. The latter was a no-go but I did forego the block and am happy that I did.
That took forever to type one handed and I’m beat. Oy.
