Surgeries

[No longer active]

What surgeries have you had and why?

 

When I was 6, I had a double inguinal hernia repaired. I actually do remember parts of the experience. The most memorable part being that I didn't understand, at the age of 6, why I'd walked into a hospital feeling fine and woke up feeling shitty. 

 

Early this year, I went to the hospital with all the symptoms of appendicitis. I knew that was what I had. So, I was neither surprised or particularly concerned when they said they needed to do the surgery. They did it, I woke up in pain as expected, and started the slow process of recovering.

 

Fast-forward about two weeks later. I'm not recovering as quickly as predicted and I start getting these sudden painful attacks of pain in my upper abdomen. One night I woke up at 2ish in agony. I did the fairly unusual thing of dragging my husband out of bed to comfort me. Eventually we decided we better go back to the hospital.

 

They did some tests and discovered that I had stones and slush in my gallbladder. They were concerned, based on chemical levels, that a stone might be lodged in the tiny tube that connected my gall bladder with my pancreas. I was a bit like "seriously, what are the odds of this happening so soon after my appendectomy?" They said they needed to admit me and that in the morning they'd probably do an endoscopy in the morning to look for and remove that stone.

 

Woke up the morning feeling fine. Eventually a doctor comes in and introduces himself. I immediately notice his badge says "surgeon" on it and was like WTF/FML. He starts explaining the surgery he was about to perform, including drawing me a diagram, as if I already knew that it would be happening. Needless to say, I was not as calm as I had been about the appendectomy. Knowing this was not life threatening like appendicitis is, I actually asked what would happen if I didn't have the surgery. He told me I'd be back again soon. So, I had the surgery. I now have no gallbladder.

 

The second recovery was a bit hard mostly cause I felt like I was on some sort of damn loop. In many ways, they are similar surgeries and so I was experiencing the exact same recovery. Again. A couple of weeks later. So, as my husband helped me walk (they want you to walk as much as possible after an abdominal surgery) I was like "I just did this shit!" 

 

I recovered again and all, but I'm still flabbergasted at the odds of it all. Also, I'm running out of optional organs 😜

[everywhere and nowhere]

Only one, strabismus surgery at the age of 12. Unsuccesful - I still have very visible divergent strabismus (my left eye "runs off" to the side, when my right iris is in the middle of my eye, the left is in the outer corner), but I'm very unwilling to undergo any reoperation.

[Captain_Tass]

@Nowhere Girl I had strabismus surgery as well, at the age of three. All I remember was that they had to inject me multiple times with an anaesthetic and it hurt so bad and I was crying. That and the taxi ride from my home to the hospital. My eye still runs off a tiny bit, but it is barely noticeable. Also my depth perception is a bit screwed but I live with it and it doesn't even affect my life all that much. I actually wasn't aware that there was anything wrong with my depth perception until last year and I keep forgetting about it to be honest.

 

And yeah, that was the only surgery I had as well.

[Guest]

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[everywhere and nowhere]

2 hours ago, Life Of Tass said:

My eye still runs off a tiny bit, but it is barely noticeable. Also my depth perception is a bit screwed but I live with it and it doesn't even affect my life all that much. I actually wasn't aware that there was anything wrong with my depth perception until last year and I keep forgetting about it to be honest.

In my case it is definitely noticeable. I see double when I look at things from a strange angle and my strabismus, combined with lower visual acuity in the left eye, has resulted in "lazy eye syndrome" - basically, my brain has learned to shut off a part of visual input to prevent me from seeing double all the time. So my field of vision is full right eye field and peripheral left eye field. With, of course, no true depth perception - I don't have trouble because it's easy to see what is close and what is far from object size and the way they are superimposed (for example, if I can see my computer monitor covering a part of lace curtains, it's obvious that the screen must be closer). But probably it's not three-dimensional vision.

I never see any hidden images in "Magic Eye"-type books and I can't view artwork from Tool album 10,000 Days properly - I can't align my eyes like this.

And it's definitely very visible for other people, to the point that some have thought that I must be blind in the left eye if it always looks to the side.

[Gloomy]

I got my wisdom teeth removed a few years ago. My two front teeth were growing straight out, so I had surgery to fix that too, but I was only 2 so I don't remember that one.

[anzu2snow]

I’m lucky in that I haven’t had that many surgeries. Does getting my eyelid stitched up count? I cut my eyelid open when I was 2, and sat awake through them sewing it together. 

 

Had all my wisdom teeth taken out when I was 18. Right after graduation.  Most were deeply embedded and coming in at different directions. Also, meant they had to do a lot of digging. I had to be put under for it. When I woke up, the nurse in the room seemed frantic. I had apparently slept longer than what’s normal. She had been trying to wake me up for a while. I was put on a heavy narcotic (morphine or vicodin?), and was really out of it for a week. Fun when you have a graduation/birthday party to go to for a friend about a day or 2 after getting them extracted. It was at a park, and I tried to play basketball with him, but couldn’t even dribble. Tried to eat a hamburger and cake by cutting them up into many tiny pieces. It just fell out of my mouth every time I stuck a piece in. I apparently said some weird stuff. At least he had a good laugh. The gauze on them were a pain to eat and talk with. 

 

Had a nasty looking skin tag extracted from my arm. It had been there most of my life, was growing in size, getting fuzzy looking, and had white specks on top. They were worried that it was cancerous. Turned out it wasn’t, but it still didn’t seem right. The stitched up area healed oddly and left a scar. I’ve also lost a lot of weight since, so it looks even weirder now. 

 

I’ve had tissue samples taken from my colon during a colonoscopy. Not sure if that counts? They did have to cut tiny pieces out. I’ve had 2 colonoscopies within a year and a half of each other. The first one was to make sure that I had IBD. We knew from other tests, but they wanted to make sure and see how bad the damage was. I definitely showed signs of colitis from the pics, and possibly Crohn’s specifically. (They also did a top endoscopy which showed some things like my stomach were affected.) I had a lot of damage. The ‘pieces’ they took indicated this, too. The 2nd one indicated remission, but my entire colon was scarred. Some of the tissue taken out was scar tissue, too. If it gets really bad in the future, I might face getting my colon taken out. That’s a fun thing to know...

 

I had a horrible case of pneumonia back in 2007. It was so bad, I couldn’t breathe and imaging indicated that my lungs were almost completely full of fluid. So, 2 doctors held me down and poked holes in my lungs through my back. They had to have me awake for this surgery. It was one of the most painful moments of my life. Once they filled up a little plastic cup, they realized they needed something bigger, so they closed the hole up for a few minutes with their fingers. A nurse ran in and had a sterilized/empty liter-sized soda bottle. They used that, and the fluid almost filled it to the top. They were surprised I could carry so much fluid and still be alive. At least I gave them plenty of fluid to test. 

[Lady Constellation]

It wasn't technically surgery, I guess, but when I was two, my thumb got slammed in a car door and I had to go to the hospital to get stitches. 

[Aria Ravenclaw]

Mole biopsy, teeth removed, really minor surgeries.  Mole thankfully wasn't cancerous ^^.

[Guest]

Nothing too crazy.

 

A couple years ago, had to have a wisdom tooth drilled out as it was causing me major issues. My teeth were too strong to pull, so the surgeon afterwards joked about how much milk I must drink as he had a very difficult time drilling it out. 

 

When I was a child, I fell on a comb I had in my mouth (afro comb with metal spikes). Drove it down my throat. Had to have surgery, but no permanent damage. 

[Nea Rose Symphony]

A few oral frenulum surgeries, wisdom tooth removal, removing some red growth on one of my breasts. And that's it

[Here and queer🌈]

I had surgery on my nose when I was 8 because it was shattered 

 

I'm all set for a breast reduction/top surgery in the next year or two

 

I had to get face surgery when I was barely 2 years old because I got in an accident and my face was torn apart

 

~miles

[Lemon Ice Tea]

I had bone spurs removed when I was 25. I also had my wisdom teeth removed when I was 15 if that counts.

[Hecate]

Thankfully nothing more than teeth extraction. I had a couple of ops as a kid to remove a total of 13 teeth as my adult teeth were coming in crooked and my milk teeth refused to fall out! 😆 wasn't helpful as they came in wonky and my orthodontist insisted I didn't have wisdom teeth. I found I did and they had actually impacted. I risk nerve damage if I get one removed which could damage the sensation in my mouth and lower jaw and they are still covered in bone so surgery would be unpleasant. I'm leaving them unless they become problematic. I couldn't live on liquid food for even a day. 

[Cheshire-Cat]

Cholecystectomy (gall bladder) is all I've had. When I came round I frightened them by having a laryngospasm (where you throat goes into spasm and you can breathe properly) but even though my body was panicking my mind wasn't as I hadn't woken up properly. Wierdest thing. Then I couldn't sleep for hours even though it was night, and I couldn't rest so spent the night walking up and down the ward talking to the nurses. Also turned out I was allergic to the hypoallergenic tape.

[Guest]

Appendectomy at age 12.

 

Removal of two toenails, and plastic reconstruction of the toes, at age 26. (You know, the kind of surgery you need when you wait ten years to have an ingrown toenail addressed by a medic... you don't want to know how they looked pre-op.)

[Spotastic]

Violence warning:

3 years ago my wife and I were attacked in our home. I took a 7 inch knife into my abdomen. I barely survived, lost a kidney and 6 inches of small intestine. I was in a medically-induced coma for about a week. I have a 5 inch scar where the knife went in and a scar from just below my breast bone to the middle of my groin from when they opened me up for surgery. I needed 52 staples that came out a month later. It was my first and only surgery, as well as the only time I've needed to be admitted into a hospital for anything.

[J. van Deijck]

knee surgery at the age of 19. basically this experience helped me understand how paralyzed people feel - I didn't have a general anaesthesia, only intrathecal block that lasted for 12 hours and during this whole time I didn't feel my legs at all.

btw I also have strabismus, but I've never had any surgery for it.

[Rosendust]

Let's see:  Leg surgeries, wisdom teeth removal, fillings. I think that's it?

[everywhere and nowhere]

Btw, I'm back to show a photo. Often when I go to cultural and sport events, demonstrations etc., later I look at photos on the Web to see if I can see myself there and if I do, I save some to a folder called "Where has the camera caught me". So here's a photo where my strabismus is extremely visible, also because I'm not looking in a straight angle.

It's from the quite recent Drag Queen Festival in Warsaw. I'm the person on the right, in a blue shirt and yellow (paisley ) necktie, just to the left of the performer's hand.

[Albine]

just saw this topic I had cosmetic surgery, male breast augmentation performed 

[ColeHW34]

I guess i need multiple surgeries on my upper and middle left ribs so they don't crack apart (more).

[Sally]

Tonsillectomy when I was 3, a surgical removal of a stony cyst from between my nose and my tear duct, an operation to determine if I had cervical cancer, and then 4 years ago an operation to remove a large cancerous tumor from my colon.  

[scarletlatitude]

On 9/25/2018 at 1:40 PM, Spotastic said:

Violence warning:

Wow, glad you are okay now. 

 

Just wisdom teeth for me. They were impacted and growing out sideways so it was intense. 

[Emily Dialga Watson]

I've been unlucky (or lucky depending on how you look at it) enough to have two heart transplants. The first was because I ended up getting Dialated cardiomyopathy (where the heart becomes enlarged) at the age of 6, and the second was because the first donor heart wasn't a great match and the heart got damaged from several bouts of rejection that results in coronary artery disease. Aside from that I've had to have a cyst removed from my neck and surgery to remove broken sternum wires left behind from the transplant.

 

Thankfully everything seems to be ok now and next month on the 14th will mark exactly 10 years since my second transplant. They seem to have flown by.

[Larkaloke]

Not very many, happily. I had three different ones to fix a badly broken leg and ankle (one for an external fixator while the swelling went down, the second to catch more bits of bone with that, and the third to put in a rod and some screws in the knee and the ankle). Somewhere in there was also tendon repair - I think on the third one. It wasn't a separate appointment, at least, but maybe a separate surgery? Anyhow, that was three at least for one injury. Maybe four.

 

Other than that, I had my top wisdom teeth out close to three years ago. They were completely horizontal and crowding other teeth, and one of them had some difficulty coming out, so that was not a lot of fun. I'm holding out hope that I won't have to have the lower ones out, although apparently they're also horizontal...

[krystal_muzik]

1. Tonsils and adenoids removed

2. Ovarian cysts removed

3. Ovarian cysts came back and they needed to be removed again.

4. Wisdom teeth removal

5. Abdominoplasty and thigh lift

[EngineeRaven]

I had my adenoids removed when I was 5, and my tonsils removed when I was 17. Also had my chin and mouth stitched up after two random accidents around the age of 4 and 5, but that doesn't really count as surgery, I think.

[Grumpy Alien]

Tonsils and adenoids removed when I was 4. Tubes in my ears were done in the same surgery. They were tiny metal tubes to help drain fluid and pressurize normally when the ears repeatedly fail to do so with medication. They stay in for about a year and fall out on their own. I had one tube that wouldn’t fall out after a year and a half and had to be removed with an instrument in the office. That hurt like a bitch but it wasn’t nearly as bad as when I had a needle in my ear. I can’t remember what the needle was for though, I was probably about 6.

 

Another set of tubes when I was 7.

 

Another set of tubes when I was 9. (Three sets in total. I had to wear specially made earplugs when swimming and had to be careful showering for as long as I had tubes in my ears.)

 

Wisdom teeth (all 4) removed when I was 16 or 17. Whatever year Blockbusters closed down. I loved getting my wisdom teeth out. Woke up completely lucid with no pain. Went to Blockbusters and bought a bunch of going out of sale DVDs. Went home and drank milkshakes and watched movies for days. It was amazing.

 

Hymenectomy when I was 19? I think? I had a lot of lady problems that lead to that surgery. I had to be intubated because of my then undiagnosed and therefore untreated acid reflux - I knew I had it but because I didn’t have a medication, it was really bad. I had to stay overnight due to a minor complication that meant I needed a foley catheter overnight and observation.

 

Upper endoscopy when I was 20. A colonoscopy a couple months later. I had been struggling with not only acid reflux and irritable bowel syndrome most of my life, but also a debilitating chronic illness called cyclic vomiting syndrome. No one believed me when I complained of my symptoms (since I was a very small child - my mom said, looking back, I had the symptoms from the time I was a toddler) and said it was a combination of normal stomach bugs and attention seeking. I loved the feeling of waking up after those procedures to see the doctor’s face saying my esophagus and colon were a lot worse than he expected. I had to beg for those tests. He didn’t see the point in it but I insisted. It turned out I wasn’t attention seeking and my esophagus and colon had been nearly constantly inflamed for over 15 years. They had to biopsy a few bits to make sure I hadn’t developed something more serious. (Thankfully, I hadn’t and I now have medication and knowledge of what helps and what triggers my symptoms so my insides should look a lot better now.)