The evening after

Today's surgery went by pretty quickly. I reported at about 7.30am and I think I was prepped and ready for surgery in the operating theatre by 8.30am.

It's always a unsettling experience to lie on the bed and wait for the surgery to start. To the doctors' and nurses' credit, I think they tried hard to chat with me to get my mind off the surgery. I must confess that the best part of the surgery is going to sleep. They put the oxygen mask on you and ask you to take deep breaths. Then with a quick warning that they will be injecting the medicine, you will drift off to the land of nods in no time. The surgery went by pretty fast. By the time they woke me in the post-op ward, it was only about 9.30am.

The worst part of the surgery is the waking up and the recovery. Waking up is horrible especially if you still have the breathing tubes in you. I hate the feeling of having something down my throat while trying to catch my own breath. Today, they put me on a Vancomycin drip, the antibiotic used for my earlier MRSA infection, just as a precaution. But I think the dosage they gave me was pretty high. Within minutes of waking up, I was feeling all flushed and rashed started appearing from my shoulders upwards. It was really itchy. Thankfully, the doctor took me off the Vanco and injected some medicine to counteract the itch. After resting in the post-op ward for about 2-3 hours, I was wheeled into the day surgery ward to wait for my discharge.

After having a stone blasted/removed, the next really painful part is.... peeing. Yep. peeing. It's always difficult to pee the first time after the op. You just have no idea what is coming out. Usually, it'll be blood-stained urine and maybe some stone fragments/sand. Painful. Very painful. This time, for some reason, my operating doctor decided to give me a souvenir! I actually got a pic of the stone before it was blasted!

Finally left the hospital around 2pm. Came home, had porridge for lunch and went straight to bed to sleep off the rest of the anaesthetic. When I woke up, found my next and shoulders to be extremely stiff, like after you have exercised a muscle after a long time. I think it must be due to some awkward angle they had to place my head for the breathing tube when I was asleep.

Recovery seems quite ok for now. Other than the minor pain, everything else seems quite ok.

One down. Two to go.