Dental Surgery

[Note: Last week was amazingly hectic so I will be backdating a few posts so that it is posted on the actual date that whatever in the post occured]

Well as you know, I was quite nervous about going into this (minor) surgery because of what happened when I had the endoscope back in January.  Because I am 'latex sensetive', I get booked into the special OR and get done first thing in the morning.  One thing to point out is that I am NOT allergic to latex, but because of how I react to different adhesives and a few other issues that show a sensetivity to latex I have been told that I need to put down that I need to avoid latex because, especially with EDS, you never know when a sensetivity is going to turn into a full blown allergy - and with latex you need to be more aware than a lot of other allergens because of how and why you normally come into contact with latex (medical reasons mainly).  Anyways, I had to be at the hospital at 6am as I was going to have surgery at 8am.  I stayed awake up on the computer for a while, then went down to have a very quick shower and pack up my stuff for the day.  I think it was around 1:30am that I acutally got to sleep and woke up around 5, so not too much sleep!

We get to the hospital and of course the staff at the check-in area does not come on until 6 so we had to sit and wait for a little bit.  It really helps that there is a full Tim  Hortons right next to the check-in area that were getting set up around this time so the scent of coffee was even more magnified to those of us who could not eat or drink.  Got checked in at the first 'station' and then was sent up to the third floor to check into the surgical department.  Then we sat and waited some more.  Finally I was called back to get 'dressed', the lovely mesh underwear, hospital bottoms that don't do up and double gowned so your not flashing anyone lol.  I then got mom and we went into the second pre-op area to wait for the nurse to go over everything.  The nurse calls me back so mom and I head back and there are two nurses - one is a student nurse!  All that was going through my mind was there was no way a student nurse was going to try for an IV!  The student nurse goes over all my information in very fine detail and then the nurse said that she would get my IV started.  I kinda got worried and said that they usually start my IV in the OR because I am a hard stick.  She said that she bet she could get it and I was apprehensive about it but still said it was hard but okay.  I quickly went to the bathroom first (when I get an IV in I do my best to not move at all!).  During the time I was in the bathroom, mom went over with the nurses just how hard of stick I was.  I get back and the student nurse kept going over my info and asked me when the last time I urinated was lol.  We all just kinda looked at her like 'are you serious?' then I said 'uh, I just went'.  Then they told me to get up on the bed.

The nurse looked at my veins in my arms (which I told her never work and that they have to use my hands), she then looked at my hands and went and got a warm blanket to put on my hands.  She then was sure that she had a vein in my left hand so went for it.  Of course, she didn't get it but even though I knew the instant that she put the vein in that it wasn't going to work, she didn't and spent a good amount of time digging around which was so painfull I was in tears when she was done.  She finally pulled it out and goes 'You are a hard stick, guess I should have listened to you'.  At that point my emotions and fear kicked in and I wouldn't even look at her or talk to her.  Mom answered all the questions after that.  Just as we were about to leave the nurse asks am I not allergic to latex and mom said that I am sensetive to it so she told me that I needed to take the little botties off and if I had my own socks I could put them on.  Apparently the booties do have a small amount of latex in them (which made sense as to why my feet were so itchy!).  At this point the nurse takes me on my bed and says mom can come as well and we head up to the last pre-op area.  This is the first time that someone has been allowed to go this far with me.  Usually there are no non-medical or non-surgical people allowed in this room, but this time most of the people waiting for surgery had someone else there with them.

I don't think the nurses in the pre-op room are used to patients coming up having already had a failed IV start as they weren't really sure if they should start it or what they were supposed to be doing.  The anesthesiologist (we'll call her Dr. A as I can't remember her name and she was an anesthesiologist :) )came in and started asking me a lot of questions about my information and then mainly about why I was on a beta blocker.  She got quite involved about what my normal resting rate is, did I feel it when it raced etc.  She then started asking about the IV start - is it normally hard, was I stressed about it, was I anxious at the moment etc.  She was very very nice, she then checked my hands (didn't even look at my arms which showed she trusted my knowledge) and asked the nurses in the pre-op to get me a warm blanket for me to put my hands in and to keep them in the blanket until I got to the OR.  My dentist came in and talked to me, another nurse talked to me and after a short while (I heard one nurse say that I couldn't be nervous as I was just sitting there reading while all the doctors came and went lol) they told me it was time to go to the OR. 

I got into the OR and all the doctors and nurses introduced themselves to me and told me what their job was that day.  One nurse brought me a few blankets so I could put them under my knees (they don't do well straight out for any length of time, my back either) and as Dr. A was looking at my left hand (the same hand the prior nurse blew a vein in) I heard the head nurse read out all my information to the room.  When she got to Ehlers Danlos Syndrome Type 3, Dr A looked at her and said "Type 3?" then on confirmation nodded like that was a good thing.  I was shocked and asked her if she knew what EDS was.  She said yes that they were made to go through that when she was studying (she was quite young).  I told her that I had only ran into one or two doctors in my home town that knew what EDS was before meeting me.  She then rhymed off the main symptoms and then "Am I right?", and she was.  The only thing was she said that they were taught that most people were tall and lanky which I laughed and said obviously not.  Dr. A then tried to get the IV started in my left hand.  She went in and pretty much right back out and said that I did have very tricky veins, and she had never had a failed IV start.  She stood there for a moment and then said that we obviously had to go to the other hand (that was still bruised from the bloodwork the week prior) so they started to move all the equipment to the other side and she said she was going to give me some 'happy gas' as it worked to make the veins more open and easy to get (and obviously keep me calm).  After I was blissfully floating around she got the IV in the right hand and taped it down massively.  A few more adjustments and she started the anesthetic and I was out.

I woke up in the recovery room and asked if I was in pain (nope - they gave me pain killers when I was under the anesthetic) and if i was okay.  All I wanted was to get the IV out which they kept telling me would be soon.  I got moved to the final post-op area and that's when they let mom in.  I was feeling quite nauseaus and told the nurse that but my doctor had not put that I could get anything so they kept saying they had to ask him (he was in surgery all morning).  Once mom was in the room I got her to bug the nurses about getting the IV out.  Finally one came to do it and mentioned that I must really not like the IV's as normally people dont even notice that they have them until they are fully awake from the anesthetic.  I told her that it was very painfull and was causing me a whole lot more than my jaw from the surgery.  After drinking a glass of apple juice she finally came to take it out.  This is when she noticed that my right hand was already bruised from last week's blood draw and this IV and that my left hand was all taped up because of the two failed IV starts on it.  After that was out I was ready to go so they sent mom to get the van while I got dressed and then I was out of there.

Got home and was kinda dizzy but not too bad so went to have a nap.  Was very unimpressed with my mom as I had asked her to move my brother's visit to K until the next day but she didn't and figured it didn't matter because I would be sleeping all day (not sure where she got that idea from).  So I got to spend a good 1.5 hours sitting in my room doing nothing until he went home.  I was tired and still a little groggy but not bad.  My jaw was hurting but mainly it was my throat that was really sure from the tube they put down.

Worryingly we think I might have had an adverse reaction to the general anesthetic.  Starting tuesday morning all the way until sunday morning I had major stomach issues.  Anything I ate just went straight through me and I was starting to get dehydrated and very weak.  It seems like that has finally past but we do worry that this is from the general anesthetic.  If I start having issues with it, we are in trouble!!!