Just waiting for supper to be served, here at the recovery residence at the Brassard clinic. Moving to the hospital tonight. Surgery tomorrow. Yay!!

I know you must be so excited!

I wish you the best for your surgery and a speedy and pain-free recovery.

((hug))

WOO HOO  enjoy yourself and be safe and rest and let your depth heal..

hugs D

Best of luck! Hope the other inmates are nice.

Good luck, I wish you all the best!!

Good luck and wishing you a speedy recovery. 

Thanks!  Also, I'm apparently first! 

early balloons and flowers

Aww, THANKS, hon, how sweet!  I actually got one of those chocolate "It's a Girl" cigars at the bulk store. Hope it survives until I can show it to my brother when he visits on Saturday!

All the best for successful surgery, healing and Happy completion to true womanhood. After following Meghan Andrews story it sure sounds like Dr. Brassard is the best. Looks like you are in good hands.

Jamie(p)

Congratulations Colleen.  Sending healing thoughts and spells your way.

I'll keep you in my thoughts. May your recovery be "easy" and your results fabulous! 

Congratulations!

Congrats! Hoping everything is GREAT!

Congratulations!!

Good luck, and congratulations!

Colleen you lucky girl.
I wish you the best in the up coming surgery.
Will be praying for you.
Keep in touch sis.

Thsnks, everyone. It went very well, I've been up and walking twice today, had breakfast and lunch. They treat you very well here.

Sorry about that SHORT post - my iPod was about to die.  Here's a much BETTER one...

I was first in line yesterday.  They wheeled me upstairs, into the prep/recovery room, which is a big room with gurneys around the outside.  Curiously, I had dreamt of just such a room a few nights before.  Anyway, they asked me which doctor I was there to see, and what the operation was.  This is to make sure you can't later claim you "didn't know" I bet.

The surgery held a couple of surprises.  The anaesthetic used is an epidural, with twilight sedation, which means you're actually AWAKE, but don't remember much, or anything.  I do have some memories of the actual surgery itself, even saying "I'm awake" at one point.

Big surprise afterward, you can't feel or move your legs for an extended time, like 2 hours or so.  I was freaking out a little, I'll admit.  Finally they started coming back, though, and all is good now.  I've even been out of bed a couple of times.

There is surprisingly little pain, just a general discomfort, especially when sitting.  Well, DUH, given the size of the stent in there.  The stitches hurt a little, but manageable.  I haven't seen any bruising yet.

So... I was in surgery around 7:30 am, in recovery by 10, back in my room around 1.  Everything since then has been aces.  Couldn't ask for better service, and the food is awesome!   

I'm a little surprised they didn't tell you about the anesthetic style beforehand. It's to avoid general anesthetic, which can cause all kinds of problems / makes recovery a lot slower. I slept through my entire surgery, thankfully.

Also, just a warning that you may find the pain level starts to increase. Please accept the offer of pain meds before it gets really bad, as it can become unmanageable if you try to "stick it out," since you can only take the pain meds every 4 hours (and the oxy pills are the best option, imho). Though some folks seem to just never get that much pain - I guess it depends on nerve damage / recovery. My roommate and I ended up in a crazy lot of pain the second night, unfortunately. (Do you have a roommate to talk to? I always feel bad for the people in solo rooms at the hospital.)

One of the best things I found, and that made recovery there so much easier, is just that EVERYONE is so nice. All the nurses and orderlies seem to have been selected based on their capacity to be charming and endlessly sympathetic and smile continuously for hours on end.

You'll be moving back to the residence tomorrow, right? Have you already met Simon? He's basically the nicest person on the planet. (Mark André runs a close second.)