I decided to journal my experience so others can have a point of reference.
To read more about my exact condition, you can check out part 1 here.
After a long time of ruminating and consideration, I decided to go for a knee arthroscopy surgery. According to my doctor Lim Mui Hong, it’s a fairly minor surgery with low risk. He seemed quite confident so that was reassuring.
My surgery was scheduled at 9.30AM, which meant I was asked to check in to Mount Alvernia Hospital at 7.30AM. I had to fast for >8h before the surgery, which meant I skipped breakfast and didn’t drink anything in the morning (I read that you can actually drink, just not eat. All the Nurses who asked me a gazillion times also only asked ‘when was your last meal’ and didn’t ask when did I last drink water so.... maybe you can drink? Check with your doctor)
Checking in was pretty fast, and I was changed into my operating gown by 8+ and chilling in my ward. As it was my first surgery, I was pretty nervous and didn’t know what to expect. Thankfully the Wife was with me!
Just before 9, someone came to wheel me up to the operation theater. It is time!!
It was a surreal feeling being wheeled in the bed/gurney... slightly disconcerting.
When I reached upstairs, I had to wait again as it wasn’t time yet. It was an uncomfortable (and cold!) 20+ mins as I heard patients being wheeled around me and heart rate monitors beeping out of rhythm. Can be quite unnerving! Not sure why the air con was so cold too, won’t the surgeon shiver or something.
Luckily the surgery was very punctual - at 9.25 my anaestheologist came to me and briefly explained what was going to happen. ‘You will go to sleep, and it will be done!’ He said cheerfully.
THEN he wheeled me into the operating theatre and suddenly like ten different things were happening at once. Someone was preparing the operating table for me, another put a heart rate monitor on my chest, another took my pulse, the anaestheologist was inserting the tube into my hand which my GA would be fed in, and my surgeon was jokingly asking me ‘so which knee ah?’ It was very confusing, but impressively efficient too as each staff worked like cogs of a wheel and had me all hooked up and ready to go within a minute.
I wasn’t asked to count down from a 100, unlike all those stories you hear. I don’t really remember what the last thing said to me was, probably ‘is that bozo still awake?’., I don’t remember dozing off. Next thing I knew I woke up in my ward, about 1.5h later, and my whole body felt like it was still asleep due to the GA still in my system.. I groggily said some stuff to my wife to tell her I’m awake then went back to sleep as the drugs slowly wore off.
I was kept in bed for another few hours (including a lunch break of porridge) and my surgeon came by at 3+ to check on me. Everything went smoothly, and he told me to do some quad squeezing and leg extension/flexion, with the goal of regaining full range of motion.
Currently my knee feels very tight, and I can’t bend it nor extend it fully yet, especially with the thick bandages still wrapped around it. Quite hard to move around without crutches too since the joint is quite weak and stiff.
