Badass X-Rays

Fans, it came and went, and the hero survived scathed. But in a good way.

The surgery was Thursday, as scheduled, and a good time was had by all. It's a curious experience, this whole getting-put-to-sleep-and-cut-up thing. I got to the surgery center courtesy of El Padre y La Madre, and proceeded to do a whole lot of sitting around. Which is similar to what I'd been doing before, but this time I got to do it while wearing a light purple gown.

Luckily for everyone involved, they let me keep my underwear on. I laid on a bed in a waiting area in the surgery center while nurses, including the very nice Cecily, prepped me with aplomb. That meant shaving my leg (nothing to do with the surgery, it's just a common thing in Boulder, you know, all those cyclists), washing it down with disinfectant, and hooking me up to an IV.

Then the fun started. They injected me with something to make me "relax," which actually worked. Whatever it was didn't knock me out, but did quiet my pounding heartbeat and make me less worried. With that coursing through my veins, I was taken down an elevator and into the operating room, where they had nice pictures of branches on the ceiling. Eager to prove that I was neither unconscious nor completely delerious, I told the anesthesiologist to ask me something that I would remember later.

"What's the capital of Costa Rica?"

"Oh, I know that one! San Jose!"

Anesthesiologists must love these semi-lucid moments from their patients.

Pretty much the last thing I remember is sliding myself onto the operating table. Then they put the hi-test in the IV, and that was that. For a visual of what the operation looked like, see the artist's rendering to the left.

I woke at some point (probably a little more than an hour later) in a bed on the opposite side of the room from where I had first waited. Dream and reality meshed briefly until the pain in my leg put me a little closer to Planet Boulder. Another friendly nurse came by to ask about my pain, and the wince on my face was enough to convince her to dump a couple doses of Fentanyl (a.k.a. a kind of morphine -- boo yah!) into my IV.

From then on it was just a matter of clearing my head and reducing pain. I drank ginger ale and ate the surgery center's supply of sesame breadsticks so I could take a percocet, which helped keep the pain down. No, I'm not going to give you any of my pain pills, stop asking.

El Padre y La Madre came over and soon headed off to the bagel store to fetch some appropriate post-surgery food. El Gordo, meanwhile, thought it was time to take advantage of my addled state, so I dopey-dialed the elder Gordo, who was mildly amused at my attempts to be coherent.

Remarkably, I had no real side-effects from the anesthesia and eventually came back into my own in a fairly short time frame. Then I got to see what the Doctor Hath Wrought -- pics of the screws. You can see them for yourself and will probably have the same reaction: "BADASS."
Ignore the bright white on the lower section of the x-ray, that's the flash. But do note that the doctor clearly went to Home Depot, purchased a couple 2-inch tapping screws for 50 cents each (a stainless steal!) and drilled them in as instructed by his copy of Bob Vila's Do-It-Yourself Orthopedics.

Anywho, after an overnight at the posh Boulderado hotel (sporting the oldest and bounciest elevator in town), it was back to El Casa del Gordo to continue the recuperation and writing of the papers (which I am clearly not doing now.) Meanwhile, it has dumped snow here, and there's probably about a buttload or so on the ground. Who knows, I'm not going outside anytime soon.

Thanks again to fans everywhere who sent best wishes or otherwise sought to distract, entertain, or assist me!