Here's what my leg looked like before surgery. It's hard to get the full effect on camera, so imagine that blue vein looking even more bulgy and gnarly and you have a better idea of what it REALLY looked like!
Two hours before the procedure I had to cover my leg in lidocaine cream and wrap it in Saran wrap. Yes, those were the actual instructions. "Wrap your leg is plastic wrap." Who knew?!
An hour before the surgery, I took a Xanex. I was told it would probably put me to sleep during the procedure. Unfortunately it did no such thing so I was quite awake during the whole thing. NOT HAPPY. Gary drove me to surgery (because the Xanex was SUPPOSED to make me sleepy, you know). Once there, I got all laid out on the table and prepped and everything...and then the work began. The doctor shot me up with a numbing agent and then ran a wire into my saphenous vein from my knee to my groin, then a catheter followed that and a laser burned the vein as the doctor withdrew it.. (There were lots more numbing injections as he went along.) Also, a very strange vibrating sort of sensation while the laser was on, too. Oh, and let's not forget the lovely aroma of burning vein, too. GROSS.
Then, the doctor went to work on the gnarly veins on my calf --he plucked them out like wayward eyebrow hairs. Funnily enough, I always called that vein my "pet guinea worm" because that's what it sort of looked like to me. So imagine my surprise when the doctor showed me the veins as he pulled them out and they really DID look like guinea worms! Obviously, under normal circumstances the veins would be thick and blue and full of blood --when he pulled them out they were empty, having been affected by the burning procedure he had just done, so they just looked like long, skinny, white, twisted worms, which is pretty much what empty veins AND guinea worms look like anyway.
...And that was it! They bandaged me up with some steri-strips, then gauze over that for my calf. The dreaded thigh high support hose were next and more pressure bandages on top of that for my calf. I had to wear the hose for 48 hours straight and when I got to take it off (at night only --I had to wear it during the day for the next 2 weeks), it looked like the first picture I posted. Not so bad, all things considered.
This skinny thing is the support hose I had to stuff my leg into every morning for two weeks. As you can see, it's not much bigger than my ARM. So squeezing my leg into it was quite a feat. Also, when we went up to Washington recently I had to wear BOTH stockings on the plane to reduce my risk of Deep Vein Thrombosis since the surgery had taken place just a few weeks prior. Let me tell you, those plane rides were the most miserable I've endured in a long time. Not only did the stockings make my pants too tight, but being thigh-high, they pretty much just squished everything "extra" out the top so I had a veeeerrrry interesting looking booty as I walked around the airport. Good thing I had a big winter coat and a sweater on 'cos let me tell you --I had some seriously strange junk goin' on in the trunk!
Oh, and by the way, the Xanex DID eventually hit. But it wasn't until nearly two hours AFTER it was supposed to that it finally stuck...and not until I was taking a walk after getting home from surgery and lunch. If you would have driven by, you would have seen me staggering down the sidewalk two blocks from home, fighting to keep my eyes open. There was a point when I seriously considered laying down on the sidewalk but I was afraid someone might stop to try and help me rather than let me sleep, so I bravey (if a little drunkenly) soldiered on. Interestingly, by the time I made it the rest of the way around the block I had another few minutes of loopiness...and then it was out of my system and I felt completely fine.
Which leads me to wonder why on earth people take stuff like that for fun. 'Cos that was not fun. Just sayin'.
Anyway, here’s a link to a picture of a REAL guinea worm, just because. Really, there's no comparison to my varicosity. A guinea worm infection is a horrible and painful thing and I hope they really do manage to eradicate it as they claim they are about to do, 'cos varicose veins are gnarly...but guinea worms? NASTY! http://www.healthmasters.com/sites/all/themes/hm/parasites/guinea3.jpg
One last thing: if you have varicose veins, I TOTALLY recommend this surgery. But be prepared to be pretty uncomfortable for a solid two weeks afterwards. Not miserable. Just uncomfortable and very sore.
That is all.
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3 comments:
Girl, you totally crack me up! That link for the worm was disgusting!! I am glad you are ok. I would love to do it again. What they didn't tell me was that if I got pregnant again they would come back. When I did it, it hurt REALLY bad. Plus I was put completely under. Wow how things have changed just a few years ago.
Yeah, the doctor told me that they used to deal with the "problem" vein and not the SOURCE of the problem vein like they do now...maybe that's why it came back. =( Crazy how much the procedure has changed in just a few years! WOW! Next thing you know they'll be doing bypass surgery as an out-patient procedure! lol
Oooh! Looks like very risky surgery. You must had so much pain at the surgery time. Good to know that you feel better now.
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