I made it!

"Ca vas?"
A guy is staring into my face.
It seems like my operation is over and done with! I am awake! I made it!
I have absolutely no clue what was done to me, how it went, how long it took and even exactly where i was. Somehow though, i had enough sense already to realize that i am in the recovery room.
Way too close for comfort, that male nurse's head is hanging over mine to see if i am doing alright. I mean, he is cleanly shaven and such, but still. He looked a bit like from a French B-class movie, the kind of sucker who will have a hard time during the whole movie, yuh know? He has a friendly look, the nice guy, slightly rounded cheeks, receding hairline at young age type?

Anyhow, i decided to ask two pieces of information which were missing in my head, how did the operation go and what time is it? He smiled and i thought, go on then, tell me? He said that all went well, no complications and it was now 1.30 PM. Wow, i thought, that was longer than expected, well, slightly longer at least. He did say though that all went well. He must have seen the enquiring face expression i had, so he continued explaining me that they used robots, remember? I said i did remember. He continued explaining that it can take up to two hours just to get the robots in the correct positions and an hour just to get the robots back out and close up the holes. The rest is the actual working time to carry out the surgery.
With my cloudy head i did some calculations and concluded that the total timing wasn't that bad after all (mind you, if my head weren't cloudy, i think my calculation results would probably have been the same, lol, not exactly my specialty to do simple calculations).

In the meantime he started to make notes at the foot end of my bed, i assume to make note that i look like a sucker from a b-class movie who thinks that i am A-Ok but in fact the worst is still to come, the stinging pains from the operation, the unwillingness to move any part of the body to avoid further pains.
But curiously, i was not feeling any pain at all, nothing. Decided to move limbs, even the waist a little bit and i didn't feel anything. This was great!

Ha! Ok,  2.15 PM suddenly, guess i dozed off? Still in recuperation room. Am i really awake or am i dreaming? My male nurse is nowhere to be found, instead i have another gentleman making notes at by bed. He really looks like George Costanza from the Seinfeld show, and not only in looks, but also in behavior.

Fun part about just lying there is just to watch everything that is going on. George is playing around with the female nurses. I believe George is probably a higher level nurse than his female counter parts, cause all the ladies seems to "adore" him,they laugh at his jokes, one of them even almost rubs up against him. My bet is that he decides the shifts, who works when! Has to be, because he lacks any other typical attraction to women.
He asks me if i am Ok, if nod yes, but i make him clear that i am feeling kind of thirsty.  Now, i fully realized that i would not get anything to drink, but i was hoping for something to wet my lips. He kindly offered me some pineapple ice cubes to suck on. I was rather hoping for a wet towel, or one of those mini sprays with just water to wet the lips.  I kindly reused the pineapple ice cubes as my brain said not to swallow anything in this operated stomach of mine. I didn't know if my prof would have appreciated me to melt those sweet things into my stomach at that point, anyhow, decided to wait until i am in the room then.
3PM, hey, had another snooze there it seems like. Hmmm, where's my brother? I recall telling him he could come and check me in the recovery room once i was out, but didn't see him. I was quite confident that if he could have, he would have, so they probably didn't let him in. I was just hoping he got the news about me being Ok.

I don't know how big the whole recovery area is, i estimated about 30 beds big. It had a central office, almost like a fish tank, but with high furniture in the middle, so i could not really see through the office to the other side, but i assumed the other side had as many beds as on this side, approximately. That central office looked like the nerve centre where all the technology, hooked up to patients, came together, a bit Star Trek like. Mind you, have a look at this little movie we found online, it is a graphical explanation of what the operation I went through looks like, what the prof has done to me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4vREUUv9Lw

Now, isn't that beginning to like Star trek as well? Only one step missing, it's the small handheld machine the docs in Star Trek use that makes a buzzing sound and which they repeatedly hover over the patient's body in order to diagnose and sometimes even heal the patient. I am convinced we are not more than a decade away from that now, lol.

Anyhow,the recovery room didn't look too busy today, i could only confirm 3, maybe 4 beds being occupied, one being mine of course. So the staff had some time to chat, a shift change was taking place. Plenty nurses coming to talk to George Costanza, the suspected shift manager, some with happy faces, some with more worried faces possibly trying to convince Costanza to switch their shifts. I thought, now, imagine being a nurse and wanted a shift change because your old aunt is sick at home...it would suck if your supervisor then tells you to just bring in the sickly aunt into hospital to get checked out, no? So that's one less excuse you can use as a nurse. And by the way, am sure that Costanza would not be the easiest to be convinced.

Ah, three new guys walking around, two of them looking like docs and one intern. How can you tell the difference? The walk, the dress code.... The intern guy had all the bells and whistles on, stethoscope around the neck, badges all over the place including name tag, looking at patient's records, including mine at the foot end. I thought i would still check and asked him if i could get something to wet my lips. He told me he would check with my nurse, which would be Costanza at that point. Check, intern !!! Kept following him with my eyes, he was just walking around, more lost at what to do, he never talked to anybody re my dry lips, oh well.

The two other new guys were more looking like doctors, one had a mouth protection on, like as what they have when they are in the operating room, so there is why i made the assumption. Both men were now in a discussion, about five meters from my bed. I thought they were discussion the last operation they did, with all the complications involved, but nothing was less true. One was coaching the other on how to prepare to run a marathon. Two nurses joined the discussion a while later. They were talking so much that another snooze was out for me, lol, but i didn't mind, i was just counting the minutes till i would be rolled back to my room.

3.45 PM , i'm outta here! I get clearance for take-off, i can be rolled back to my room upstairs. They disconnect all that was still connected to me, and that was way more than i realized, the driver was called and he started maneuvering my bed to head for the corridor, out i went! Rolling through the corridors we reached the familiar elevators, back to level 9, the penthouse suite...hahaha

Reached upstairs, back into MY corridor, rolling towards MY room. Felt like the closest thing to home, to comfort. And who is sticking his head around the corner from by the waiting area? My brother! So nice to see him, he is smiling too as the driver takes a perfect swing to turn my bed back into my room. And who else do i get to greet? Mr. Grumpy, my neighbor in the room. Coming to think of it, after seeing "Costanza"  from Seinfeld downstairs in the recovery room, Mr grumpy, my neighbor really fits in perfectly with the description of "the ugly naked guy" from the series Friends. Oh, i am terrible! I wonder what my neighbor baptized me as? Nothing probably, he doesn't seem like the most humorous guy, his loss!

Well, peeps, operation is done, am back in my room, recovery can start. I hope that it runs as smooth as the operation itself, i am sure it will. I suspect my prof has done a terrific job, we will wait and see. From readings before i had already learned that i would not get anything to eat nor drink for a whole probable 36 hours, only drips into my veins, painkillers, and hopefully the mouth spray to wet my lips.

I am thankful to be back in MY room, happy to have my brother there and longing to inform my wife who is still flying across the ocean that all went well, that i made it!