Ozzie

I'm sorry I didn't reply to your post in PTSD, I don't check that area often. About your sister...it's funny what we can remember when we are supposed to be sedated and unconscious in the ICU.

I remember far too much of my time in ICU after my back surgery in 1986. A lung collapsed and they took me to another hospital. I guess I was sedated, but I still remember bits and pieces of it...of trying to scream and not being able to, of having tubes stuck up my nose and taken out of my throat and being unable to stop them.

I am still filled with fear every time they take me into an operating room. The walls are always a certain shade of green and it's a kind of green that I have come to hate. It's almost always accompanied by the stench of ether.

I am grateful I did not know I would be going into Day Surgery for those tests. And I am grateful that I do not know the day that they will be putting the catheter in. The mental health nurse is right, I would be worrying myself sick at this point if I knew.

It really gave me the creeps when the doctor's assistant transfered me onto the table. They did the same thing just before they took my hip out. I handled that transfer myself, unaware that it would be for the last time.

I can still see that OR where they did that test last week.

I wonder how much memory of this procedure I will retain?

I vividly remember vomiting from the morphine the day they took the traction pins out. I had phoned my father in Brantford to ask him to bring down two Cokes to celebrate. He arrived just in time to watch his daughter throw up.

I live a life where I must face the possibility that surgery is always in my future, forever. It is not a pleasant thing to think about, so you don't think about it until the day comes. I have avoided doctors for years, in some instances, when I needed them. I have feared them so much that dealing with them has been out of the question until now, when I am on my knees before them and God, on account of severe pain.

I could have gotten this pain looked at years ago and didn't. I have lived with little aches and pains in the right "hip" for years, but done nothing because I feared the consequences. Now look at me.

This whole mess is my fault.

I got concerned that something had happened to Susan or Janet when I saw this.

I will definately be praying for you, Hamstergirl, when you go in for your procedure.

Susan, is Janet out of the hospital, and are you doing OK?

WOW! I did, too, Jill!

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Susan}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} How is Janet doing?