Post-Op

First, I just want to say thank you to all the well wishes that I received!! It was great to see that people were thinking of me oceans away.

The surgery went well yesterday. I got in at about 8:30 a.m. and got ready for surgery. Once in the operating room, I was pleasantly surprised at how new all the equipment was. Soon, I realized that they were only going to do a local anesthetic on my arm, and they asked me if I wanted to watch. One of the big surgical lamps had a camera in it that was connected to a TV, so I couldn't actually see them doing the surgery. At first I thought, no way do I want to watch myself get cut up. After about ten minutes of sitting there doing nothing, I decided I might as well. It wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined.

The strangest part might have been that my brain thought my arm was somewhere else and felt it there and my real arm felt like a twenty pound appendage that didn't belong to me!

But there are some elements of hospitals that are just typical - the food was not so great, the nurses always come at the most inopportune times to do tests, and you just want to leave. But, friends did stop by with sweets and there is wireless internet here, so it hasn't been too bad.

I also have a pretty unique souvenir from Chile - a titanium plate embedded in my hand.