The 3 Worst Things About Day Surgery

Posted by matthew on Aug 9, 2005 in health, life |

You might think that going into hospital at 6.45am for a ‘day procedure’ requiring general anaesthetic and swallowing a camera so someone can snip some bits of your stomach and oesophagous out for tests would be bad enough. Indeed you might be right. However I’ve discovered that the three worst things about day surgery aren’t really directly to do with surgery at all.

1. Trying to sleep the night before. For someone who has never been under a general in his life I think I was pretty cool calm and collected about the whole thing. But it was just like going on a big trip — you just don’t want to miss that plane. So even though I got to sleep by about 10.30pm I kept waking up… 4am, 4.30am, 5.00am, 5.15am, 5.35am… etc. etc. The most annoying thing? We got to the hospital ahead of time and were directed by a security guy up to the doctor’s suite where we waited for 30 mins. When nobody arrived we finally found out we had been told the wrong thing and had to go to Admissions, one level down. Thanks, security guy.

2. Getting your car towed. Yes, I was sleepy and distracted, and it was dark when we arrived. However, it was still pretty stupid to misread the sign on Victoria Parade. I think I only read the part where it said we could park for 2 hours from 9.30am. Not the part that said TOW AWAY ZONE 7am-9.30am. Our brand new car is now sitting in a pound somewhere in the city.

3. Daytime TV sucks. Man, I always forget just how much. When Oprah Winfrey and Judge Judy are the highlights of the day’s viewing, “you got problems”. Talk to the hand because the face ain’t listening.

Anyway the doc says everything looks normal in my gullet, so that’s a positive.

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