Waking Up Is Hard To Do

CRASH! CRASH! BOOM! PFFSSHHTT!

“SCOTT!”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Carful he’s pulled out his IV!”

“SCOTT! WAKE UP!”

“I’M ALIVE!!!”  That was the first thought that came to me as I awoke looking up into the bright lights of what I assume was  from the the operating room.  I only assume because I was barely coherent.

I had been dreaming while I was under sedation.  I can’t remember what it was about exactly, but I remember being in a sword fight.  Fitting, I guess.  Dreaming of swords while undergoing the knife.

There were some more words from the guy behind me.  He wasn’t speaking to me.  I remember some expletives that I’ll not share with you but I heard him say, “CENSORED CENSORED!! He’s pulled out his IV!  Right there!”

A female voice said something that I couldn’t understand.

“I don’t give a CENSORED!  Needs to worry about the patient instead of that CENSORED CENSORED stupid phone.”

“Scott!  You’re OK!  You pulled out your IV,  just calm down for us!”

I did.

“Right there it’s on his side,” he said to the female voice.

“Sorry.” I said.  Tried to say anyway.  It was pretty hard to talk.

“It’s ok Scott.  You didn’t know what you were doing.”

My throat felt as if an elephant was sitting  on it and he had glass shards on his rump.  They had said I would have a sore throat when I awoke.  Couldn’t have been a more gross understatement.  Obviously, this guy has never been intubated.  Ever tried to swallow with an elephant on your throat?  It hurts.

A quick check of my teeth to make sure that all of my caps were in place and no chipped teeth.  The anesthesiologist said that in some cases they do slightly chip patients teeth while intubating.  Everything seemed to be in place.  It was hard to tell since my tongue, mouth, and lips felt as if they were covered by 100 grit sandpaper.  Covered or replaced that is.

“Chapstick.” I screamed in a barely audible rough voice.

“What?”  the sore throat guy said.

“I need some chapstick. Lips dry.”  I said in that very same rough scraggly voice that sounded like someone who had just had a tube yanked from his throat.  That’s right.  The first thing I asked for that I can remember was, chapstick.  I can’t stand dry lips.  I think there will be tons and tons of chapstick in Heaven.

“We might have some grease for your lips.” the female voice said.  Don’t think I ever got my chapstick or my grease until later.

“Mouth’s dry,” was my next attempt at a statement.  Soon after I had a mouthful of ice.  Now that I think about it, I wonder if they shoved so much in there just so that I couldn’t talk?  Didn’t care.  It was the BEST ice ever and at least the sandpaper was going away.

“HURTS!”

“OK. Just give me one second and I’ll fix you up.” Jan said.  That was the nurse that got me ready for surgery and also was there to wake me up.

My vision was blurry.  I was back in my room now.  Still not sure exactly how I got back to my room.  A very nice room at that.  I’ll have more about that in my next post. 

I looked at the clock.  Almost 1:30PM.  Surgery had taken about an hour or so.  I then glanced at the motion to my left and saw Jan moving toward my IV tubes, hoping she was about to administer something for this excruciating pain that was coming on me from so many different places.

“OH! IT HURTS!”

“Here is some Fentanyl,” Jan said.

“Ahhhh.” came the last thought I had as the medicine hit the pain.

And I slept.

Because of HIM

SC