One week ago i was waiting to go into surgery. They told me you will not remember any of this. Well they were wrong. I remember all the presurgery checkout. One of the funny things is you are in a large room with 4 other beds and a sheet for privacy. All you can see is peoples feet. And their shoes. My surgical nurse needs new shoes. They were pretty ratty. To me they were filthy and not something you should wear into surgery. I wanted clean fresh shoes. That tells me you have an eye for detail and are clean.

Getting wheeled into the operating room. They could not get the table to move up and down.  The anesthetist did not want to knock me out until they got the table fixed as it would be easier to move me if I was still wake. Eventually someone realized it was not plugged in. I yelled out reboot it. And they got a kick out of the patient telling the operating room staff how to fix their problem. 

On the way to the operating room i was freezing. I chatted with one of my anesthesiologists about biking. Mtn vs road and about Cyclocross racing. He had heard of cyclocross but never been to a race nor was he interested in trying it.

I don’t remember any of the surgery just everything leading up to it. I remember bits and pieces from the recovery room.

They also said put me in feet first as the room was very small and I had to scooch over on to the surgery.bed. My nurse screwed up and put me in head first and they gave him a bunch of crap about which side my feet were on. (they were the bits with the socks on)  The surgical bed s cold and uninviting. All stainless seel, narrow, had a little air pillow for my head. Straps to hold me in place just in case I try to roll out of bed i even remember what looked like a mesh drain.

I was also shivering uncontrollably. Not sure it it was nerves or just feeling cold.

To this day I am amazed how fully functional I am. All of the “stuff” we read and expected did not really come true. That makes me optimistic about future as everyone is so different and react differently than others. If I did this well with the first surgery how will I react to everything else?  I hope just as well.