a cyborg is born

Had my surgery this morning:  it went well with no unexpected issues or problems.  I'm at home now with a thing like a hubcap over my right ear and the surgical site. 

The staff at the surgery center was great:  when I arrived and got checked in (and had to say at least four times that I was there for cochlear implant surgery on my RIGHT ear) I was given a gown, and it was MY gown!  I was on the product development team for a surgical patient gown that maintains normothermia.  For the first eight years or so I managed the contract manufacture of the product as well.  It's currently not manufactured through my site anymore, but it's still my gown and I loved having one.

 The nurse had trouble getting my IV in - my veins are hard to find sometimes and (she said) the one in the back of my hand was jumping around when she tried to get the needle in.  I think I have a really smart circulatory system, I mean, if someone comes at you with a needle wouldn't you jump?  She tried the back of my hand and another vein on the inside of my wrist and apologized with every poke, but finally asked the anesthesiologist for help and he got it in, in a different vein in the wrist.  

 Then we rolled into the OR (and quite a techie OR too, I have to say, with all sorts of devices and monitors hanging from the ceiling).  I was hooked up to the IV and started getting various drugs, and they put a blood pressure cuff on for a machine that measures blood pressure throughout the procedure.  

 Next thing I knew they were waking me up, and then the pain hit.

 I'd forgotten how miserable waking up from surgery is:  the focused, intense pain that feels as though someone's driving an auger into the surgical site.  But we have got the pain under control -  I have some pretty good pain meds, and according to the nurse the pain should abate for the most part in the next 24 hours.
I'm groggy from those pain meds and actually surprised that I'm stringing sentences together successfully (don't tell me if they're not) and I'll probably spend most of the weekend resting.  I slept for three hours after getting home from the surgery, and I never sleep during the day.

This looks like a reasonable exception.  

And underneath it all, there's this undercurrent of excitement:  real!  I'm going to have a cochlear implant!  I have 3-4 weeks of healing to do and then activation.  I'm incredibly excited.

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