Post Surgery Part I

I left the last post just after waking from surgery, but I will start this one off from the few minutes before - from what I remember.

Waiting outside the theatre, the last thing I remember is being injected with what the surgical staff referred to as "Happy medicine."  At the time I didn't think much of it, and then they asked me to start taking breathes from a mask.  I remember thinking after the first two inhalations "This isn't really doing anything..." and then on the third breath "Is this meant to be..."

Next thing I know I am waking up in the recovery area with an oxygen mask on my face, very very confused - wasn't I awake just a second ago?  The next thought was "What is that weird pumping noise...what is up with my legs?"  Looking down at my legs they seemed to be much bulkier than normal and inflating and deflating.  The following thoughts; "Did something go wrong?  What's up with my legs?  What the hell...wait, I have a pump!"...I'm thirsty..."

It turned out that my legs hadn't been replaced by bionic ones, but that post-surgical socks had been put on with a pump type device, that I assume massaged them to keep the blood flowing to prevent blood clots (I had these on for the next 36 hours, and damn were they annoying).

After returning to my ward and becoming more coherent after a few hours, I realised I needed the loo.  Really really badly.  In fact, for the next 12 hours I needed to pee practically every 20 minutes - I can only assume this must have been a side effect of the anaesthetic as I have no other explanation for it.  However, after surgery I was very very sore, and the complete opposite of mobile.  The surgeon had used staples to close the incision (Which I found out later was because they are meant to heal better and scar less) - these proved to be very very inflexible, and pulled at the slightest