Spare body parts out of the garbage can

Now, that was more like a walk in the park. Or maybe I'm just getting used to it. Even my pulse rate remained quite average, and just after the surgery was down as low as it ever gets.

Ok, been a good boy, doing my exercises n stuff every second day till Sunday, not to mention getting decent sleep and almost plenty of it nearly every day, including some extra hours the night before the night before (on the eve itself probably will always be less cause of my wicked rhythm, usually working all night and therefore sleeping way into the day or even afternoon).

5 days to go:
The obligatory pre-surgery shot
© Anger 2006

Amongst other things, also managed delivering all of the layouted pages I had promised, erm, about 5 o'clock a.m. today. The Prof in NY with whom we're doing this project even mailed back they'd look 'very appealing' (without blowing my trumpet too much, like of most of the others too also think they're actually not so bad myself, not to mention they better be, considering all the hours, days, weeks, months etc. I poured into them), so I hope at least he'll forgive me a tiny little bit for how bloody long it took and still takes till the whole thing will be in print. Though far from being all my fault nor responsability, still feel so embarrrassed about.

Surgery itself went rather smooth, too. Mysteriously, after shoving in the implants, the lump on my right side (which is, or in the meantime more accurately was, the one on the list for today) started shrivelling considerably, though the surgeon said it hadn't been affected directly by the surgery. Which actually was cool, cause once the pressure being off, some of the skin at it's base even recovered some and started growing hair again. So he also punctured the remaining ones on top (which on the other hand had kept growing bloody fast during the last few months), hoping for a similar effect.

Instead of Quasimodo -- Frankenstein
© Anger 2006

Concerning the one to be removed, he went for another technique, i.e. peeling it out and then using the still good parts of the skin to pull over the wound. Which worked particularly well so far, despite the peeling out part for him actually not really being a picnic. But in the end got alla the stuff out and could close the hole without another skin graft. Even the better, as he had hoped, had some ok spare skin left to put into the fridge and hopefully use later on the remaining ones.

Showed me a photo of the stitched wound, looks quite allright, actually a lot nicer than the back of my head, howgh. Also put in a small passive drainage just in case. Cool.

As usual had donated quite a bit of the red juice, so in the end there was a huge pile of soaked towels, not to mention the floor needing the obligatory additional cleaning, again. Guess he's getting used to that, too, at least didn't even mention it, only his assistant stated me having thin blood while cleaning up the mess afterwards.

'The filth took me with 'em!'
Won't even need to to change
my favourite taking the mickey
© Anger 2006

One funny thing was, especially after just having written about the minor mishap while removing the drip during my stay in hospital some 35 years ago, today's anaestesist, contrary to the nurse from then being quite on the ball, removing the needle very carefully, explicitly remarking, 'You've got big veins, so we'll put on a big bandage, too.'

The other rather odd incident being the assistant in the heat of the moment throwing away the spare skin with the rest of the mess, and then having to get it back from out of the garbage can (yuck!) in order to get it soaked in saline solution and put into the fridge.