Would I feel just a little bit like The Six Million Dollar Woman? I wondered that when I woke up from my anesthesia after a new knee with kneecap was placed.
For the sweet viewing tube children born after 1975:The Woman of Six Million was an exciting television series that was broadcast in the seventies. As a result of an accident, the woman's legs, right arm and ear were replaced with bionic implants that turned her into a superheroine. The status of lead actress Lindsay Wagner (called Jaimie Sommers in the series) grew to mythical proportions in my childhood eyes. During an information meeting I was told that the prosthesis would probably make a metallic clicking sound. That did contribute to the bionic fantasy.
But no, I didn't feel like Jaimie Sommers at all when I woke up in the recovery. I was promised a nerve block by a kindest anesthetist so that I would feel minimal pain when I 'wake up'. Unfortunately, the reality was different. When I woke up (or at least when I became aware of it) I felt a sickening pain rip through my leg. And there it was:the panic I had feared beforehand. Pain is a strange concept. You can't see, smell or hear it. It is difficult to describe and a lonely experience. All around me I heard loud beeps that seemed to go faster and faster. Would Jaimie have heard that too? "Madam, take a deep breath," I heard from afar. That didn't work unfortunately. The panic caused a feeling of tightness. "You're getting extra oxygen because you're hyperventilating," I heard the same voice say. Hmm, so that's how it feels, like you're choking. Can't remember Jaimie ever having such an experience in her hit series. I tried to move my operated leg to avoid the pain. No chance of course.
After consultation I get an extra injection of morphine. I feel myself sinking into a wonderful, pink sleep. Bye pain, bye panic, bye beeps:life is good. My experience with morphine is that after a while you still doze off wonderfully, but you can still hear the conversations in your environment. I can tell sweet stories about nurses discussing their private lives around the beds, assuming the patients are asleep. I have heard all kinds of things after operations while I lay that lovely doze. Difficult children, affairs, unmanageable specialists and so on I could go on and on. This time I heard the word 'Ajax' mentioned. Well I've been a fan of this football club since childhood so I was triggered. And then I heard it:'Is that Ajax player out of the OR and on his way here?' Suddenly I was wide awake and sat up in bed. “Which Ajax player?” I asked aloud. The nurses looked at me in amazement. Unable to control my curiosity, I asked them who they were talking about. Unfortunately I was not told that for privacy reasons. But I was awake. And again I almost had to go on oxygen but this time out of sheer excitement. Holy shit:did I have a bionic ear after all?
Who is Marie-Anne? Marie-Anne, 48 years old, is married and mother of three daughters. She has a serious cartilage problem. It all started after a skiing accident, but hereditary factors and factors that doctors still don't know much about also play a role. Every other week she blogs about her (patchwork) family, care in the Netherlands, her knee and other things that occupy her.
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