"If we don't suffer enough we won't remember it."

Brent took me to the Orem Community Hospital at 8:15 a.m. to prepare for the surgery. 
I initially planned to have a spinal block because I don’t like having general anesthesia.  I always have a sore throat from the tube they put down my throat and usually end up feeling sick to my stomach afterwards.  I also thought it might be interesting to watch the procedure on the screen.  I spent about 30 minutes talking to Dr. Brown, the anesthesiologist about it.  He convinced me he could put me under with general anesthesia and wake me up quickly without putting a tube down my throat.  He said I would be out of the hospital a lot faster than with the spinal block and since they literally charge by the minute I went for that.  He said he wouldn't put a tube down my throat and if I had problems he would get down on his knees and beg my forgiveness.  
I convinced him to give me the least amount of everything possible and told the nurse I would rather deal with a little pain than all the problems pain medications seem to cause me, high blood pressure, heart racing, nausea, etc.  When I had my nasal passage surgery a year ago I was feeling ok until they gave me medication for pain.  Then I needed three of four other medications to deal with the side effects of the pain medication and I went home so doped up on stuff I felt horrible. 
When the nurse anesthetist came in he said he was going to give me some medication before we went into the operating room.  I said I didn’t want it and asked exactly what it was for.  He said it was to calm me down.  I said, “I don’t want it.  I want the least medication possible.”  I had just had a 30 minute conversation about how I wanted the least medication possible with the anesthesiologist.  I calmly told him I would be fine. 
They wheeled me down to the operating room and I got on the table.  The nurse put the mask on my face first with oxygen and then something to put me to sleep.  The next thing I knew I was back in the room I started in and Brent was sitting on the chair next to me. 
The anesthesiologist came in a few minutes later and asked if he needed to beg my forgiveness.  I said I felt great.  He brought me straight to the room I started in instead of the recovery room clearly to save me money.  I thought that was nice.  It also shows that it sometimes pays to ask about the cost.  Then Dr. McCarter came in and showed me pictures of my uterus.  He said I had a lot of tissue and blood vessels built up in there probably because of the IUD.  He thought the procedure would fix my problem.  They were sending the tissue to the lab to be tested to make sure there wasn’t anything serious though.  We signed our discharge papers at 10:55 a.m. and left a few minutes later. 
I talked to Melanie in the hospital shortly after the surgery, as soon as I felt with it enough to carry on a conversation.  We talked for a few minutes and then I called her again after I got home.  Melanie said, “You need to tell them to give you something to fix your blood.  Tell them you’re a marathon runner and you have a race in a month.”  I was thinking, “I don’t know that I’ll be running the race in a month,” but didn’t tell her that.
I was surprised I wasn’t sore after the surgery and also that my bleeding stopped so quickly.  I was spotting a little when I left the hospital but by 2:30 p.m. even that stopped.  It was nice to be able to tell the kids I was fixed and not bleeding anymore.  I was so glad to be on the road to recovery instead of feeling like I was slowly bleeding to death!