Where Does It Hurt? There? How 'bout there? Is that the spot?!?

Laying face down on the operating table with nothing on besides my smile, I tried to answer. My Doctor was moving his finger around and pressing down. He needed more information to best understand how to proceed and really challenging. Each touch seemed the same. Well, almost. It was kind of stressful.

No doubt every answer was changing his concept of where to place the needle. Dr K was working with him to work out the positioning. Getting this right was critical -- to them & me!

Maybe if there was no percoset already working to block out the pain it would have been easier. That was allowed -- the Doctor told me to go ahead and take pain medication in the morning. Too bad. I wanted to be more accurate, but didn't feel like I was able to perceive the differences between the different spots he was touching as he asked, "Is it stronger here? How about here?"

He got the information he needed before Nurse A slipped an IV into the vein on the back of my hand, taped it down and Dr Pete popped in some light anesthesia then we were off to the races.

Dr L must have deadened the area of skin above the crack in my butt (Hey! That is where the epidural injection goes in; Okay?) with some lidocaine. Then he used the fluoroscope - live action x-ray machine - to work out the placement of the epidural needle. In a couple minutes, he settled on the first location. When he sent in the first dose, it felt like a tiny hot balloon was being inflated under my skin. The heat only lasted a short time, I think. Time was become a bit uncertain because Dr Pete kept playing around with the anesthesia going into my hand through the IV line. Not enough to make me sleepy, but it was like a layer of cotton was wrapped all around me for a while there.

He worked out a couple more spots to inject and then we were done. Just like that. No fuss, no muss and we were done.

The folks in the Recovery area all wished me the best and Dr L and Dr Pete and Dr K had a serious conversation about the placement of the injection and their prognosis for my treatment so that Femi could hear it directly from them. Then back up to my room in the Day Stay unit.

One of the regular uses of an epidural is to anesthetize the lower part of the body for surgery or childbirth. No baby was going to come popping out of me, but they did a serious job of making my legs go to sleep. But I didn't really appreciate that until I was fully dressed and ready to go home.

Everything felt normal, but the floor just seemed to be much further away than before. So standing was no problem, but taking steps was hard. When the foot reached the floor, it felt like jello or something.

That was when we asked for a wheel chair to get me to the car.