My Surgery

Last Wednesday I had surgery.
I arrived at the hospital at eight o' clock, anxious but not scared. I've had two surgeries before this one, so what happens in pre-op is familiar. It's just the pre-surgery butterflies that always get me.
After two hours of waiting and much paperwork later, I started the long check list of things to do before a surgery.
Pregnancy test, check. (Hospitals MUST have this, regardles of what you say.)
IV inserted, check.
Meeting with anesthesiologist, check.
Meeting with operation room nurses, check. Actually, my one nurse, Julie, remembered me from my surgery in seventh grade. Her kindness made everything better.
Pre-operation "cocktail" of pain medication taken, check.
Funny hair net placed on head, check.
(I've missed some things, I know it!)
After that I say goodbye to my mom and dad and they leave.
Something I really find heartening is that the anesthesiologist and anesthesilogist-nurse, and my O.R. nurse, and another nurse/doctor who is a back-up to my real doctor, all walk with me to the operating room while I'm being wheeled along on this traveling hospital bed. They are all chatting and trying to make me laugh to distract me from my nerves. I really love them all and I don't even know them.
So in the OR they lifted me from the wheely bed to the operating bed. Then they started anesthesia.
After that everything went black and I took a little nap while my doctor removed my knee cap and did some drilling and cartilage-adding.
Then I woke up an hour and a half later.
I don't react that well to anesthesia. I threw up six times. All of my lines and IV's and monitors were removed from me.
Then I was put in a wheel chair and wheeled to the family car, placed in the back seat, and taken home.