The Agent of Oblivion question of the day

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Have you ever had surgery? If so, what got cut open, and how was the experience?

[Maztinho 0]

Once, my appendix burst.

 

Funny story, well it's funny now. And it was funny to me at the time, but I'm like that.

 

I went to work, my stomach was just churning over and over, I felt hungry so I got some chicken and within seconds of eating it threw it up. I figured I'd gotten some food poisoning or something, and called in sick the next day, having the next two days off anyways I assumed it be better by the time I was scheduled again.

 

I wake up that morning still a little weak, but I'd only been drinking water and eating some chicken broth just to keep my self from dehydrating because I was pukey for three days. My manager called me and asked if I felt up to coming in, and I thought I'd be fine. So I go to work.

 

I walk in, the front end manager stops me.

 

"What happened to you?"

 

"Huh? I think I got food poisoning or something, I'm just coming off that."

 

"You look like shit."

 

"Eh, I look like that sometimes."

 

I go back and start to load up a cart in the produce cool and I start violently shaking, like uncontrollable shaking. One of the guys who I was replacing went and told the front end manager, and she told me to get my keys and she was driving me to the doctor that minute.

 

She takes me to the IHC clinic that deals with "smaller" stuff, like stitches and crap. I sit shivering in their waiting room for fifteen minutes and the front end manager had to go back so I'm alone. The nurse calls me back to an examining room, the doctor shows up ten minutes after that and goes, "You are much too sick for us to deal with, you have to go to the ER."

 

Since my ride left they call an ambulance to come get my ass.

 

The ER doctor checks me out, I explain my weekend of vomit, and my theory on food poisoning. Another doctor comes in checking on my stomach poking me and asking if I was feeling any pain. None.

 

They keep me in for observation for a couple days, the poking doc shows up every so often and jabs at my stomach asking if I feel any pain, still nothing. They give me solid food after two days for lunch. I wake up from a nap in AGONY. I page a nurse tell her my stomach feels like someone stabbed me, she smiles slightly.

 

"Bout time your body reacted."

 

The poke doctor shows up ten minutes later.

 

"You have appendecitus. We can fix you now!"

 

After the surgery the doctor told me realistically I should be dead since my appendix had already burst, it was completely black and gangrenous, the reason I was vomiting was because that was my bodies attempt to get the toxins out.

 

So basically if I hadn't gone into work, I likely would have died because I was so out of it I couldn't have gotten myself to a doctor.

 

I spent a couple days on some really cool pain killers. At one point I called my ex-wife, of which I recall none of the conversation. I was laid out at my grandparents place for awhile watching the Food Network.

 

Post surgery crap kept draining from the drain tube they had in me. I was told it should drain fairly consistently for about 5 days and then start slowing off. It never really slowed off, and the doctor finally just pulled the drain tube after about a month because he didn't want skin to start grafting to it. Getting that tube out made me fell so much better, my health improved drastically after that.

 

Also, getting the catheter pulled post-op is something I hope I never have to go through again in my life.

[Guest Vitamin X]

My most visible surgery is on my right middle finger, funny enough. When I was about 3 or 4, I attempted to escape past one of those fence things you use to keep toddlers in a room. The latch or something caught on my finger and sliced the top tip of my finger diagonally, fingernail and all, completely off. My parents came over to the house horrified; it was Christmas Eve in the late 80's and they were just kind of up and coming in their jobs and were terrified of medical expenses. But had to go to the hospital and they had to remove skin off my big toe (I forget which one, since there's no scars or anything on them) and place it on my finger, but they said I wouldn't have a fingernail again. I grew out a wide, short fingernail there (I call it sorta toe-like) but I still have a scar there over 20 years later. This leads me to joke that I have 9 fingers and 11 toes, although most people don't notice it until I point it out to them.

[DCH 0]

I once had a full knee reconstruction after I had an abscess in my knee that had to be removed. Looking and poking at a hole in your knee when you're 7 is pretty cool.

[Rob Anybody 0]

Only surgery I've ever had was corrective surgery for scoliosis, when I was... fifteen. Or sixteen? My memory's shoddy so I don't remember the specifics of what happened, but the general idea is that my back was cut open, rods and screws of some sort of metal were put in to make a frame/support to keep my spine straight, then a bit of bone was taken from a couple of my ribs to graft around the frame and set it in place.

 

I was out for a day or two afterwards, couldn't turn over of my own volition for a few days after that, and was pretty much on my back for a few weeks following. Left me with a big fuck-off scar down my back, with a deeper, elliptical part just below the base of my neck.

 

I also managed to get dependent on codeine, but that was sorted out after a little while.

[Richard 0]

Once I cut my forehead open when I was 4 or 5. I don't remember much about it.

 

When I was 17, I had my wisdom teeth removed. It was alright once the vicodin kicked in. Of course it was less effective each time, and it made me constipated.

 

Nothing too major so far.

 

 

[Twisted Intestine 0]

Nope.

[Obi Chris Kenobi 0]

No, I suddenly feel really boring and mundane. I once had an EEG but that's it.

[Guest Czech please!]

I stepped on a pencil in the summer of 1996. It was precariously placed on a Super Nintendo controller or something so that some convoluted Rube Goldbergian sequence transpired which culminated in getting stabbed in the foot. I had to have it surgically removed after home remedies failed, stayed overnight and everything. The whole thing struck me as a little overdone, really. This couldn't be an outpatient procedure? Only in the last couple of years has the scar on my foot completely vanished. I still have the scar on my hand from the archery mishap, though.

[Retard Girl 0]

wisdom teeth removal is a wimpy surgury. i don't even really consider it surgury.

 

i've had my tubes tied. they were trying to convince me against it right up until i was wheeled into the OR. can't let a good breeder go to waste! because "in ten years you'll meet another man and want to have his babies" and that angered me in a few ways. first it assumed i wouldn't be in my current relationship long (which she was right, but it's still a shitty thing to assume) and secondly, there's no way in fuck i was ever going through childbearing ever again. no man could ever convince me. thirdly i was "so young" (23) and how could i be sure?

 

now i'm almost 30 and i still say it's the best desicion i've ever made.

[Guest Czech please!]

Almost 30 and you can't spell "surgery" or "decision," so sterility was a good move.

[Burning Pirate Ship Sex 0]

Broke my arm when I was five and had surgery to reset it. That's it.

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

Had my kidney removed at 8 months old,no memory

[At Home 0]

Got a cancerous mole removed.

[At Home 0]

they were trying to convince me against it right up until i was wheeled into the OR. can't let a good breeder go to waste!

 

Yeah, that happened.

[King Kamala 0]

I had tubes put in my ear to improve my hearing back when I was 5 or 6. Only a few vague memories of it. I could only eat soft foods for a couple days. What I remember most oddly enough is my dad picking me up from the hospital and stopping at a gas station and a guy in a Ninja Turtle costume being there, banging on the window while my dad was paying for the gas or whatever, and me getting out to greet him. This was in the waning days of TMNT's popularity ('93-'94ish)...so I'm not sure if this actually happened or was some sort of drug induced hallucination. This was actually the first of several odd meetings between me and people dressed as childrens television stars.

[bob_barron 0]

I think he was trying to kidnap you.

 

No, by the way.

[Kinetic 0]

My lung collapsed when I was in the womb, so I have this little scar just under my right armpit from where they cut me open and reinflated it. My recollection of the event is foggy at best.

[Guest Smues]

Once, my appendix burst.

 

Funny story, well it's funny now. And it was funny to me at the time, but I'm like that.

 

I went to work, my stomach was just churning over and over, I felt hungry so I got some chicken and within seconds of eating it threw it up. I figured I'd gotten some food poisoning or something, and called in sick the next day, having the next two days off anyways I assumed it be better by the time I was scheduled again.

 

I wake up that morning still a little weak, but I'd only been drinking water and eating some chicken broth just to keep my self from dehydrating because I was pukey for three days. My manager called me and asked if I felt up to coming in, and I thought I'd be fine. So I go to work.

 

I walk in, the front end manager stops me.

 

"What happened to you?"

 

"Huh? I think I got food poisoning or something, I'm just coming off that."

 

"You look like shit."

 

"Eh, I look like that sometimes."

 

I go back and start to load up a cart in the produce cool and I start violently shaking, like uncontrollable shaking. One of the guys who I was replacing went and told the front end manager, and she told me to get my keys and she was driving me to the doctor that minute.

 

She takes me to the IHC clinic that deals with "smaller" stuff, like stitches and crap. I sit shivering in their waiting room for fifteen minutes and the front end manager had to go back so I'm alone. The nurse calls me back to an examining room, the doctor shows up ten minutes after that and goes, "You are much too sick for us to deal with, you have to go to the ER."

 

Since my ride left they call an ambulance to come get my ass.

 

The ER doctor checks me out, I explain my weekend of vomit, and my theory on food poisoning. Another doctor comes in checking on my stomach poking me and asking if I was feeling any pain. None.

 

They keep me in for observation for a couple days, the poking doc shows up every so often and jabs at my stomach asking if I feel any pain, still nothing. They give me solid food after two days for lunch. I wake up from a nap in AGONY. I page a nurse tell her my stomach feels like someone stabbed me, she smiles slightly.

 

"Bout time your body reacted."

 

The poke doctor shows up ten minutes later.

 

"You have appendecitus. We can fix you now!"

 

After the surgery the doctor told me realistically I should be dead since my appendix had already burst, it was completely black and gangrenous, the reason I was vomiting was because that was my bodies attempt to get the toxins out.

 

So basically if I hadn't gone into work, I likely would have died because I was so out of it I couldn't have gotten myself to a doctor.

 

I spent a couple days on some really cool pain killers. At one point I called my ex-wife, of which I recall none of the conversation. I was laid out at my grandparents place for awhile watching the Food Network.

 

Post surgery crap kept draining from the drain tube they had in me. I was told it should drain fairly consistently for about 5 days and then start slowing off. It never really slowed off, and the doctor finally just pulled the drain tube after about a month because he didn't want skin to start grafting to it. Getting that tube out made me fell so much better, my health improved drastically after that.

 

Also, getting the catheter pulled post-op is something I hope I never have to go through again in my life.

 

Alright another member of the exploding appendix club! Do you have a nasty scar too? Mine's still pretty ugly 15 years later.

 

Mine blew up when I was 11, although when exactly it went boom I don't know. I was sick as hell and throwing up one Sunday morning, but despite witnesses to my vomiting ON THE FLOOR AT CHURCH my mother thought I was faking to get out of doing the stupid Church Christmas play. So she makes me go on stage, and after I'm done I throw up again, at which point my mother feels really bad. So instead of taking me to a doctor, I spend A WEEK at home from school throwing up and not being able to hold anything down besides toast and water. After a full week of this my parents take me to the hospital (on the first day of Christmas break, I'll never forget the dates) and next thing I know I'm being rushed down the hall to an operating room. I spent five lovely (see also: not lovely) days in the ICU, with lots of tubes in my body, and having to piss in a plastic jar. I think I hated the jar worse than the tubes, since for the first day or two I wasn't strong enough to walk to the bathroom, so I had to do it in the ICU, with lots of other people in there.

 

Then finally on that Friday I got moved to my own room, and things were better from there. I still spent another week in there, including Christmas day and checking out on New Year's day. I remember when they pulled one of the tubes out of my stomach it hurt like a motherfucker, so when it came time to remove the last one I cried like the kid I was until I convinced them to drug me up first. Whatever they put me on was some good shit, as I was awake for the tube removal, but I didn't feel a thing. I remember seeing some solid blood sticking out of the tube like a blood popsickle, and then I feel asleep. Drugs = good.

 

After I got out of the hospital (which happened to be right at the end of Christmas break, yeah I wasn't bitter or anything about spending my entire Christmas break in the hospital) I still got/had to miss two weeks of school for recovery, as I still couldn't walk very far and my parents had to change my gauze all the time. Not the most pleasant experience of my life. And longterm it resulted in me hating needles, as the doctors could never find my damn veins and would just keep trying half a dozen times until they found it or just gave up.

 

On the upside, my mother was suddenly the most leniant person in the world after this. Whereas before I think the only time I had ever gotten to stay home from school was when I had larangitis, afterwards I could stay home for any minor ailment. I had no idea why at the time, because it wasn't until I was much older that i learned how dangerous an exploding appendix is and how close I was to dying. So likely my mom felt really really really bad about not believing I was sick and not taking me to the hospital.

 

 

 

[Boner Kawanger 0]

I had my tonsils and adenoids removed in third grade. You don't get all the ice cream you can eat. If wisdom teeth count, I had all four removed over Christmas a few years ago. That was a lot more fun. The last thing I remember is asking the doctor if my chair was going up. He said no and I laughed, replying back "I didn't think so". Next thing I know, my dad's dragging me out of the office. Of course, one of my stupider friends called my mom and started getting specific about asking what kind of pain pills I had, so my mom wound up flushing them after a couple of days. I didn't need them anyways. I was hanging out with my friends the next night.

[MFer 0]

I had surgery in 3rd grade to correct an undescended testicle. Couldn't do any recreational stuff for awhile, but other than that, things were fine.

[Jingus 0]

Are we counting stuff like tubes in the ears and dental procedures as "surgery"? A root canal is a painful and sucky thing to go through, but it's not very invasive. I've had deep cuts stitched up, broken bones set, and a camera on the end of a giant tube shoved down my throat to have a look when they thought I might have an ulcer, but I wouldn't count any of those as official surgery. The only time I ever went under the knife was to repair a hernia when I was a baby, I was far too young to remember. Well, that and circumcision, but I doubt we're counting that either.

 

And longterm it resulted in me hating needles, as the doctors could never find my damn veins and would just keep trying half a dozen times until they found it or just gave up.

Same here, my brother, same here. I've had a few hospital stays for various weird illnesses, and have come to hate and fear the words "we're going to put you on an I.V." like no others. Sometimes it seemed like they were playing a rib on me by sending in nothing but the most incompetent interns to make me into a pincushion. Worst of all were those times when they'd finally get the needle in... only for the vein to collapse a few hours later, causing this big painful bubble of fluid to quickly build up under the injection point.

[The Niggardly King 0]

no broken bones, no surgeries, no cavities... im superman

[Twisted Intestine 0]

I wish that every time Jingus posts the following post would be Night Hawk telling him to shut the fuck up.

[JHawk 0]

Yes. Swollen lymph nodes in my upper leg, way too close to the groin. The doctor said it was most likely caused by a cat scratch, so I took the opportunity to tell everybody I had cat scratch fever.

 

Favorite part of the experience was the prescription for vicodin. Sweet sweet vicodin.

[FroGG_NeaL 0]

I'll be back to post a long ass post with pictures of awesome~! scars later.

[Mike wanna be 0]

I had a cyst removed from the base of my left ring finger. I don't remember jack about it, I went in, they gave me some anesthesia in my IV and the next thing I knew it was 4 hours later. Scared the shit out of me that 4 hours of my life were totally gone.

 

Beyond that, I had a few stitches put in my nose before my first birthday when I faceplanted the edge of a microwave cart and split my nose open. Not really surgery but I've still got a scar from it 21+ years later.

[The Niggardly King 0]

wait, i have a hole in my left tonsil that gets food caught in it that I have to clean daily, but they wont take that out

[FroGG_NeaL 0]

I had my tonsils removed when I was two.

Tubes in my ears 3 times as a kid.

Two eye surgeries, the second one, a follow up to remove a bump from the first surgery where they had to cut the front of my eye off and 'rewire' the muscles, I stayed awake for, they just put numbing dops in my eye. So I was awake with medical paper/tape over my right eye, and could see the scalpal coming in and out and all that.

isdom teeth removed.

Front teeth knocked out from a bar fight. Had those surgically implanted with metal rods.

Some teeth crowned, root canals for all those.

Severe laceration on my left forearm that required like 3 hours of surgery, 40 stitches and 15 staples.

Even more severe laceration on my right arm that required 8 hours of surgery and 100 stitches and 35 staples.

I bleed to death on both of those and came bck. The second one, I they used 17 units of blood, and the human body only holds like 12 or so. So I was bleedin hard on that one.

Severed tendons, muscles, arteries, main nerve, everything got sliced in two, all the way to the bone, and all the pressure from that caused my elbow to break, so I had to wear a robocop arm brace for 6 months.

 

That's all I can think of. I'll post pictures of the laceration scars later. They're pretty nasty.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I've given myself and a friend stitches because we were both way too fucked up to go to the ER without ending up in jail. Did a good job, too! No bad scarring or infections.