I had my minor operation last Thursday – a hysteroscopy (=camera up fanny) and biopsy. Fun – not. Apparently everything looked good, normal and healthy inside – so the biopsy result will take about two months to process because there was no need to prioritise it. I’m not complaining – I’m very glad that it wasn’t a case of “Oh my God, are you seeing what I’m seeing? That looks like a textbook malign heebeegeeby - quick, get this woman’s samples to the lab, stat!” But a two month wait for confirmation of the visual all-clear is a bit trying. And in the meantime I have to get over having had a general anaesthetic.
I’m one of those people who react badly to anaesthesia. I don’t mean seriously medically badly – I don’t get hypoxic or have blackouts or develop DVT, thank goodness. I just need to sleep for several days, and when I am awake I am dazed and monosyllabic, and am baffled by simple tasks (like multiplication). For the first couple of days, even trying to have a coherent conversation defeats me. When I came back to work yesterday I still felt as though my brain were full of feathers; thinking through problems and sorting out work priorities was ghastly. If I had not known how very under par I was, it would have been terrifying. I’m in a new job, and yesterday it looked as though I would never have a hope of getting my head around it. Today I am a bit better. I only feel like a convalescent, not a dementia victim, and consequently the job looks manageable again.
A few years ago I elected to have my wisdom teeth out under sedation rather than have an anaesthetic. It’s a pretty scary procedure – I had no idea how much crashing around, wrenching and thumping at the patient’s face would be involved (no wonder one is bruised to bejayzus afterwards) – but compared to the semi-comatose state I’m in now, anything is preferable.
Does anyone else have this problem? Websites like NHS Direct and BUPA barely give it a mention. Yet I can’t believe I’m that unusual. To sum up, at present I am:
Sleepy - all the time
Depressed and mope-ish
Muddle-headed and easily confused
Weepy
And my sense of balance is shot to pieces.
Does that catalogue of symptoms ring any bells with anyone?
I cannot wait to feel normal again. We just don’t think about what a blessing normality is, until suddenly it is taken away!
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