How To Deal With Surgery (For Dummies…Like Me!! 😄)

I’ll go straight to the point here : today is the 9th of January 2023, and I will have to have surgery a week from now…

I had a bad accident while working and my right knee got the worse:

Diagnosis: “severely injured internal meniscus” — unfortunately, surgery is mandatory here.

To make things a little more adventurous, I also have a congenital blood defect (the enzyme G6PD –  Glucose -6-phosphate dehydrogenase – is totally missing) which forces a series of precautions regarding anesthesia.

How to deal with surgery then?

Why am I so afraid of surgery?

I never had surgery before…

Well, in reality I had one around 6 years of age, and it went really bad since the local anesthesia did not sort out the expected effect…I will pass on the details.

Perhaps is this is the reason why I feel so scared, but researching the web for some help I found that I am not at all alone. For different reasons people all over the world feel back to the wall when confronted with surgery.

How to Deal With Anxiety Before Surgery?

That is why I decided to write this post. I am by no means interested if it will rank high or low on Google…

I am aware that I cannot beat material from “Webmd” or ”Healthline” because of the way the algorithm works. But in all reality I don’t care that much about it : I just want to provide a brief but concrete journal of my coming experience from today until next week, when all will be gone and I will be possibly on my way to recover.

But anxway, during my research, I found that the subject is widely spread among people of every age, gender and culture.

What do they give you to calm down before surgery?

From the talk with the anesthetist (read below), I should receive a pill to take as I get my accommodation in the clinic. This pill should slow me down a lot, reduce my concerns and bring me into a state of half-unconsciousness all the way to the surgery room. We will see…

(Update : this pill must have come from a different technology from outer space, the same that made the genius of Jimi Hendrix manifest itself to normal people…This should be illegal!!! 😆😆)

How does anxiety affect surgery?

Here we deal with one of my favorite topics : the critical connections between the mind and the body.

You could rationalize that fear and anxiety exist only in your mind. But for the vast majority of people, this is simply not possible. 

If you are not properly trained and haven’t practiced specific techniques to manage these emotions, stay assured that the impact of a massive rush of panic will have severe effects on your physiology.

Like reported in the article “Evaluation of preoperative anxiety and fear of anesthesia using APAIS score” (Celik, F., Edipoglu, I.S. Evaluation of preoperative anxiety and fear of anesthesia using APAIS score. Eur J Med Res 23, 41 (2018)) : 

“Perioperative anxiety is found to be correlated with increased autonomic fluctuations and increased requirement of anesthetic, elevated incidence of nausea and vomiting, and augmented pain during the postoperative period. As a result of these complications, it was reported that the recovery period and the length of hospital stay were extended.”

There are also related problems:

A person under a massive fear of what is going to happen will experience various degrees of psychological effects. These include cognitive or behavioral changes, that is to say that you could find yourself incapable of following instructions or even becoming aggressive (the latter being my personal concern).

So, if you are experiencing this issue right now, there is nothing to be ashamed of, you are just one of the multitudes of normal people out there.

Speak your fears out with your qualified personnel and be sincere. They know how to help.

How can I not be scared of surgery?

There are probably only a bunch of people on earth who can confidently and fearlessly have any medical treatment, and like said I am not one of those superheroes…

What I can provide in all honesty here, is what I found to be true in this personal experience of mine.

And instead of my usual “conquer all” attitude, I found my main sources of release in trust and asking for help.

This is something you have probably to work on in advance, days or weeks before surgery.

Ask yourself if you trust the team of professionals who are going to take good care of your health. If not, then ask yourself why, and be extremely specific with your answer. (yeah, writing them down is a great idea).

Use your answers to research and clarify all your doubts, ask questions to your surgeon or anyone who can provide a qualified response, 

Trust only true and tested data, not your illusions.

Ask for help : if you still find yourself in a state of anguish and helplessness, then speak it out with people you trust, who will listen and not ridicule your emotions. Even better, listen to the positive experiences in your circle of peers, and ask them for every detail you need.

They will be happy to contribute and support you.

I wrote the following paragraphs with exactly this in mind :  if you have nobody to tell you his/her experience, I will try to be as accurate as possible.

Please understand : I don’t mind appearing ridiculous, childish or anything…I am here just to help,

The Diary

-9 Days to surgery : 

Today I had my blood collected and the preventive interview with the Anaesthetist. I insisted to go alone despite the insistence of my wife to come and assist me.

I do not like that much to show openly the “vulnerabilities” of which I am ashamed, and this one is one of them : I suffer Trypanophobia (fear of needles) since I was a child, but since my parents weren’t aware at all of the existence of something like that (nor they cared to inform themselves about it, just like every parent in those times), they handled it severely just as a child’s whim.

Though I arrived at the appointment 10 minutes early, I had to force myself through self-talk techniques to get me out of the car all the time.

Now, I know myself that this kind of fears is of little relevance for somebody who never experienced them, but I can assure you that it takes all the skills I learned in years of coaching people, while also helping myself out of different issues, to react properly to these situations, where the brain easily shuts up showing no reaction other than an overwhelming panic.

The Unexpected Gift

But unexpectedly, there was a gift waiting for me :  The technology allows today the use of a derivative of the old-school needle with which they once pierced your finger to take a sample of your blood…the new version is drawn in a plastic casing that “twists” that portion of skin and flesh where the needle then penetrates…

The result is that you perceive practically nothing more than a “push” on your finger, no pain at all !!! Amazing…

The Anesthetist was also very kind to me, explaining slowly what I should expect from the whole sequence of tasks involved in my surgery, answering patiently to all my questions, and even offering me a special numbing patch for the back of my hand where the butterfly needle will be placed.

Still incredulous when leaving the clinic, I am leaving you today with 2 thoughts coming from this experience : 

1. Check out with attention if you really know in detail what you are afraid of. And if you do, verify that your knowledge is accurate (now, this “new” method of taking blood was a complete surprise for me. Should I perhaps expect more beautiful surprises on the day of surgery, since I have insufficient knowledge and no personal experience with the modern techniques available?)
2. Speak your fears out when talking to professionals. Be polite but very clear and detailed. You could find the empathy of your interlocutor to be a very effective weapon to help with your difficulties and mitigate the panic you experience. And also, telling the truth could be extremely effective in pushing the professionals around you to support you in the best way possible. 

Do not be ashamed. There is nothing to be ashamed of here…

-2 Days to surgery :

I am NOT really in the mood of writing posts today…it feels like my whole life slowed down all at once and I feel less interested in doing stuff I normally enjoy.

I found that my wife is even more concerned about my mood than I am..I do not understand completely my mood indeed :  it is a mixture of spikes of Rambo-like braveness and sudden panic attacks on an average layer of mild melancholy…we humans are really awkward sometimes. 

We’re quick to get excited when something nice and unexpected happens to us, but even quicker to flush it all down the toilet as the fire slows down and the previous worries take over again.…well, enough for today, sorry guys for my bad mood. 

But wait , wait…unexpectedly, my daughter Mavi showed up right now with a “Cookie-Jar” she made expressly for me (to know more on the “Cookie-Jar” concept by David Goggins, look here)…

This was completely unexpected since I did not and I won’t talk about the surgery with any of my kids. I do not want to discuss here if it is right or wrong, but I want to protect them from bad thoughts and worries…youth is so short.

But it is like “somebody” is trying to communicate with me telling me that I am not alone.

Thank you, whatever you are.

(Btw, I randomly raffled off one of the tickets, check this out : 

“Cops pulled me over and said  “PAPERS!”..I yelled “SCISSORS!” and drove off!!”

Muuhahhahhhahhhahhahhahhhahh!!! 🤣🤣🤣)

-1 Day to surgery :

Tomorrow I will face the thing. My brain is currently playing a different thick to protect itself from pain : in addition to the dark mood of yesterday, I feel like living the life of someone else, and looking at the happenings of the day from an external point of view…

My intelligent Self (wow, this was adventurous…) is telling me softly that, as time goes incessantly and indifferent toward the reason of my fear, it will also go through and after those moments just the same way, and there is nothing I can do to stop the process.

He/She is also trying to help suggesting a simple presence exercise : “write down specifically the possible reasons for your fear, meditate a bit on them and then write down your conclusions. Read them aloud.”

Done. YES IT HELPS.

And though I am experiencing this mind-freezing anguish, my goal for today is to internalize that it will subside in a matter of hours, in one way or another, no matter what I do.

Surgery Day :

(I wrote this some days later since I was not capable to do it right away…)

This is crazy…though I still can’t show the tornado of emotions to my loved ones, just to protect them from bad thoughts, it was a wild roller coaster… 

But it was also the clear testimony that you should not trust your brain, especially if you are not absolutely sure of the data at your disposal. Read on.

The whole experience was a lot different than expected, and actually much easier…

But let me quickly cite the facts : I drove to the clinic with my wife after leaving my son at the rail station for a school trip at 7:30AM.

First issue : the patch I received from the anesthetist was probably old, and the adhesive had dried…after the first moment of panic, my wife suggested using it anyway, locking it on my left hand under a glove, so that I could also drive.

Once parked the car in the parking lot and shut off the engine, there were a couple of seconds of complete silence. My wife told me : “it will be alright, let’s go…”, and, probably due to shame, I did nothing but slowly walked to the main reception.

I Made it Into The Clinic…

In a matter of minutes, I was already in my room, where Bianca, the nurse, gave me a new patch and started explaining to me patiently what to do at the moment and what to expect next. As I told her my concerns, since being this my first surgery, she smiled mildly and said “nevermind, we are used to these situations”… (trust the professionals around you and let them do their job, they know what to do).

The surgery was planned for 11:00 AM. My wife told me later that as I took a blue pill (sorry Morpheus… 😆) they gave me, I went into a semi-conscious state after about 15 minutes…in fact from that moment on my rememberings are kind of foggy and unnatural (and still they are in this very moment as I am writing these lines). 

High on Drugs…

She says I started acting weird, seeming awake and quasi-present and falling asleep a second after and then waking up again.

Probably this was due to the strong reaction of my physiology to this altered chemicals conditions. i am indeed very sensible to medications.

(Actually I do not take medications at all other than Ibuprofen and a specific type of antibiotic in extreme cases).

But the memory of those moments is pleasing and not scary at all.

I remember myself being transferred toward the surgery room somehow like in fast-forward motion. And then everything stopped in a blowup of the anesthetist’s face wearing the surgical mask and cap…

He tells me “Hey maxx, how yer’ doin’?” while quickly taking away the patch from my hand and piercing it white the butterfly plastic tube!!!😲😲😲

NO!!… I felt absolutely nothing! Just like he was piercing somebody else´s hand!

…and now he is smiling at me like Joker in a Batman movie and saying “well, I am gonna give you an aperitif now!…”.

ENTER DARKNESS…

I woke up in another room staring at a big clock on a wall, it was 12:35. My first concern was to look at my knee and as I saw a tube coming out from the white bandage I realized that I made it…

Yes my friend, I MADE IT! That was it. Game over man! could you believe it?

Let me state it clearly for you and for me : 

For the rest of the day, I spent my time pondering what happened. I allowed myself to embrace any emotion that would show up. Being a very introspective person, those hours and the following days have been a wonderful payback for agreeing to have the surgery.

Personal Takeaways

What did I take away from this experience :

1. Love Yourself. Completely and intensely. Get to know yourself as deeply as you can. Allow everything you now see as a weakness to flow without judgment. It will serve you well for your growth as a human being and take aside the impositions of this “modern world” as well.
2. Understand other people’s uniqueness and help them silently if you can. Sometimes a smile is the perfect gift. Sometimes listening in silence is the way to go. The more you know yourself, the better you are going to interact. You learn to react smoothly to different situations. You learn to support people and receive back even deeper insights about yourself. From this position, the value of money, fame, strength, beauty and love is going to evolve, sometimes drastically, and in a blink of an eye… 
3. You cannot control everything. A time will come when you will have to let go and trust.

And not trust God, Buddha, or everything else : trust that YOU made all you possibly could do to make it alright.

YOU informed yourself diligently, YOU looked for the best professionals you could find/afford.

YOU told them the truth and asked for help.

Let yours be just another positive story somebody else will listen to in due time. Accept it, because this is the way it is.

Is it better to be the first surgery of the day?

According to this study from Duke University, it would be normally a good thing to be the first in line on the day of surgery. You can be pretty sure that the surgery will be done in time with everybody having their whole resources available.

But perhaps the second slot is the best. Because in addition to everyone being awake and ready, the first intervention has “warmed up the engines”. Now the whole team should now be 100% focused and “in the flow”.

However, keep in mind that you are putting yourself in the hands of trained and experienced professionals. They know well what to do at any time of the day. They DO THE JOB every day and also have all the necessary equipment to handle any situation.

Yes, risks are always present, but you put yourself in the best possible position to offset them.

There’s really nothing more you can do. Your job is to accept the situation, ask for help if necessary and then just go straight for it.

You will succeed. Trust a fool like me. 😉

Why do you have to shower 3 times before surgery?

Skin is not sterile. Period. Should I add something??

Showering yourself repeatedly with a specific, germ-killing detergent helps yourself in reducing the risk of surgical site infection.

From this article from The National Library of Medicine : 

“There is general agreement that a 2% or 4% CHG pre-admission whole-body bath or shower or cleaning can reduce bacterial colonization of the skin. But there are no definitive data to show that bathing or showering is effective in reducing surgical site infection.

Well, there is no general agreement, but showering should already be a habit of yours…

It also costs you nothing, right??😅

So, just do it and stack all the probabilities by your side 😊!!

What not to do before surgery?

Your anesthetist and surgeon will provide all the instructions to follow the days right before the surgery.

What to do and, more importantly, what NOT to do.

(You should actually receive a written document. And furthermore you will sign forms of qualified instructions and agreement to the procedure).

To recap a few standard and common sense “no-go”s before surgery : 

1. Do not eat or drink for ca. 8 hours before surgery (well you can actually have some water until about 3 hours before). Your full stomach or full bladder can interfere with the normal reactions of your body to anesthetics.
2. No alcohol or tobacco for 24 hours before surgery (well this should be logical isn’t it?)
3. Give the hospital a list of the medicaments you normally take
4. Be sure to inform the team about any form of allergy you may have. So that they can be prepared to react properly in every situation.
5. Do not shave the surgery area. Let the qualified personnel take care of it. (They will redo it anyway, but you could already have caused some infection…).

Conclusion

Well my friends, that’s more than enough with my stuff…

I hope I haven’t bored you too much, and have provided some helpful insights instead.

In this article, we dived deep into some of the most common concerns of a regular guy dealing with surgery for the first time.

Let me repeat it again, you are not the only one. This phobia is widely spread and there are tons of helpful material to read on and offline.

I really feel that you can help yourself a great deal if you try to understand exactly what your concerns are.

Clarity rules as always. And as you get clearer with your concerns, it will be way easier to find qualified help where necessary.

The brief diary I wrote of the days right before the surgery is a naked report of my real-life experience. I tried to be as detailed as possible while possibly avoiding mountains of out-of-topic details…

But if you need additional Infos please let me know it in the comments. I am more than happy to help if I can.

back Home…

I am writing these ending lines from my home desk, about 10 days after the surgery.

I still have a long way to go with physiotherapy sessions and further rehab treatments to recover completely. But this will come to an end anyway, like everything in our journey on this planet.

If you are going to have surgery in a little while and you are experiencing anguish and concerns…

I understand It can sound cheesy but…there is nothing you can do about it.

Indeed, you could cancel the surgery as a result…

But I urge you not to do it :  if you do, you are just deferring the problem.

And the more you do it, the more you are piling additional fear and anxiety on top of it all. In reality, you are wasting precious time to go ahead in your life and experience what you really want…

Ask for help instead, face the thing as a team rather than a lone ranger. You will thank yourself later and make an important step ahead in your personal growth as well.

Do It.

Thank you and have a great day! 😉