Have you ever had to have major surgery?

Does a c-section count as major surgery? If yes then I have. Other then that I had my wisdom teeth pulled.

I had an ectopic pregnancy that ruptured. By the time I got to the emergency room, my blood pressure was 40. The doctor on call stuck a needle through my cervix to check for blood (the single most painful experience I’ve ever had) and I was in the surgery suite less than an hour after arriving inthe emergency room. It was terrifying and painful.

Yes, I had a hysterectomy. I lost half of my blood supply and had to have a transfusion. Then my blood pressure soared to 205/105, around stroke stage. But I pulled through and all was good.

What was it? I had what’s called a hemithyroidectomy on the right side of my throat at 29, and I had all 4 wisdom teeth pulled at once when I was 35.

Were you scared about it? I was quite scared, especially with the second one. I had to go under fully for that, someone was going to slit my throat(!!!) and I was in the hospital for three days. I do not like being in hospital. For the wisdom teeth, I was on a local anesthetic and it was quick, but I felt quite logy and one of my friends had to more or less babysit me for a day.

Was it neccesary? Yes. My wisdom teeth were cutting into my cheeks, they were all impacted and a small infection had cropped up on the left side. As for my thyroid, a biopsy showed that the right side had some nasty cells lurking around, and they had to go.

Were you glad you had it done? Oh, yes. My teeth are much better (and still straight) and there are no malignant cells in my remaining left half of my thyroid.

I’ve had (not in this order): Tonsillectomy, had 4 inches of colon removed, spinal fusion surgery, knee scope, my right femur bone has been surgically re-broken four times, had a compound fracture in my right ulna fixed while under (they had to add some metal reinforcements), and various stitches, patches, and casts.

no, i’m not a stuntman. i just have incredibly poor judgement

Reconstructive knee surgery in high school. I’m staring down the barrel of a 2nd knee surgery. Not fun.

Yes, I had a gallbladder surgery almost 2 years ago which ended up being a full open major surgery (since the laproscopic would not work on me due to my gallbladder being attached to my liver)

I was a little scared over it, but I assumed it would be done lapriscopically and thought I’d end up with 4 tiny scars and be back to work within a week, since thats what the doctors told me was most likely.

I ended up with a 10 inch scar and was out of work for 2 mos and spent two seperate weeks in the hospital, but most of that was due to the severe infection I had in my gallbladder and other complications. I had to have multiple blood transfusions and was certain i was going to die when my blood pressure dropped below 60/30.

But now I’m very glad I had it because i was in excrutiating pain every day before I got it and I feel much much better now.

I had an appendectomy—not serious as far as surgeries go, but I hated the helplessness I felt as they prepped me.

After the surgery, they gave me Dilaudid intravenously as a painkiller. It’s been three and a half years, and I still crave that stuff.

Knee surgery (to repair years of gymnastics & skiing damage)
Laporoscopic surgery (3, to remove scar tissue from Endometriosis)
C-Sections (2)
Parotidectomy (to remove malignant tumor in my head)

They were all necessary, but the only one that really scared me was the tumor in my head. It was wreaking havoc on my health, but I was very scared about the possible complications.
No worries, everything turned out beautifully.

I needed a C-Section with my first child. It wasn’t planned, my labor would not progress. I remember being scared and shaking, but my husband helped me through it.

I had a perforated appendix removed about fifteen years ago. That was fun.

@AstroChuck…So they just kinda tore it out like a stamp?

@Blondesjon LOVE the new av. :)

I had my tonsils taken out in 3rd grade, a day before my birthday. Not fun.

I had a C-section when my daughter was born, unplanned because she was breech. The C-section itself wasn’t scary, but since we knew there were complications with my daughter, we were at a big university hospital and they are “teaching” hospitals, so the anesthesiologist who came to do my epidural also had someone with him who was learning…he asked if it was ok if she try to do my epidural, I said ok, but I was freaked, you are sticking a needle in my back, very close to my spine, I hope you don’t injure me. It was fine, she did great…then they were waiting for the anesthetic to kick in and they kept asking me if I could feel something and that scared me a ton also because I didn’t want them to start cutting if I could feel it. They didn’t do that, I was plenty numb before it happened. It was just a weird, different experience. Worth all of it for our precious Mia!

I became the owner of a brand new Guidant pacemaker on April 7th of last year.

Being taken to the emergency room when my heart was down to 30 beats/minute was a whole lot scarier.

The doctors opened up a an artery in my groin, ran the leads up to the heart and gave me a temporary device, external rather than internal. The next afternoon, after they were satisfied that they had made a proper diagnosis, the new one was embedded in my shoulder. Took around 45 minutes and I was out for most of the time. No pain, very little soreness. Thing seems to be working, I am still here on Fluther.

I am having hand surgery next Thursday and the surgeon is telling me that this is going to hurt and they gave me a prescription for some potent painkillers, even though it is just a little incision but you use your hand all day long and it is filled with nerves and nerve endings in order to give us our sense of touch.

Won’t be able to use the keyboard for a week or three so I won’t be around here very much unfortunately.

SRM

@srmorgan We’ll miss you here at fluther. Hope you have a quick recovery. :)

Brain surgery! I had a (benign but still trouble-making) tumor removed transsphenoidally from my pituitary gland. I was so relaxed and not scared going into it that I fell asleep before the anesthesiologist even got the IV in to knock me out with drugs.

I have had all four wisdom teeth removed. That was quite unpleasant as all were impacted and infected. I was a teenager so the limitation on eating was extremely difficult. I was starving!.

I have also had four surgeries on my feet. Since the surgeries were fairly successful they will have a hard time running me down to do any more surgery on me. The meds for pain after the fact meant that nothing really hurt. It was just that it took so long to get back to functioning normally. Six weeks just to walk, and almost a year to be able to jog. However, I understand that I am now considered a pariah by the anesthesiologists here in town. Apparently, I react oddly to anesthesia and often become combative. I had to be intubated for surgery number one because I decided not to breathe, I came close with surgeries 2 and 3, and then during surgery 4 I apparently kept kicking the surgeon. They brought me out of the anesthesia so I could control it, but I had no say in the matter – my leg muscles were possessed or something. I could feel them moving but I couldn’t stop it. BTW, I don’t recommend surgery without anesthesia. It hurts.

My husband is the surgery king. He has had an appendectomy (his appendix had ruptured several days before but he didn’t go to sick call; he died on the table), and a polypectomy in one of his sinuses (so he has only one eyebrow). He has had a quintuple bypass (that deep-sixed all 10 of his chest hairs), surgery on his hand and on his elbow, several surgeries to correct the aftermath of having had his gall bladder turn gangrenous and rupture (he was in a coma for 3 weeks and wasn’t supposed to survive – fooled them!), several surgeries for diabetic foot ulcers, and had all of his teeth removed by a Navy dentist. He has had seven laser surgeries on his retinas and just finished having cataracts removed from both eyes. He also had several broken bones while he played football, but only found out years later when they were xraying him for other things.

He has a lot of scars and becomes a major object of interest when he swims, or arrives in the ER yet again.

I’ve had six teeth removed in one sitting, with just novacaine.
I’ve had a needle biopsy in my neck.
Open biopsy on my neck…that one was pretty scary, since there was a risk I’d lose the use of my left arm, or be able to move the left side of my face. I was more concerned about my arm.
Then 3 wisdom teeth removed. Woke up to insane pain, and they had to hold me down and give me more novacaine, because it had worn off by the time I woke up. It was pretty traumatic.
I’ve also had other surgery, but no one wants to hear about that. It was under general, and my son was only three months old. Apparently I woke up asking for my baby repeatedly. I think I thought they stole him.

I had my tonsils taken out when I was in kindergarten.

And it is just a MYTH that you get to eat a ton of ice cream!

I got to eat tons of ice cream and popsicles, but it hurt so bad to eat it, it wasn’t even FUN! Can you believe it??

@mangeons For some reason the made me be lactose intolerant for a while after. I got to eat a lot of popsicles and Jello, though. It was so long ago I can even remember if it hurt.

@toomuchcoffee911,...Oh you can eat all the ice cream you like. They just don’t tell you that you are going to wake up with lockjaw that lasts for about two weeks.

It was absolutely horrible.

No, I haven’t.

Come to think of it, I’ve never had any form of surgery whatsoever.