Vein Surgery

Okay - so either I'm extremely sensitive or that was the worst pain I think I have ever felt. Let me back up. I have varicose veins. I had them checked out a few months ago to see if I have a "dysfunctional valve" creating the bulging vein. And yes, three out of the four valves are not functioning. So, I scheduled the vein surgery (Endovenous Laser Therapy- EVLT). They informed me it would be "uncomfortable." Yeah, the biggest understatement of my life! They gave me a Xanax and Viacatin before the surgery to help relax and calm me. I felt a little loopy, but not much different than usual. Then came the prep. No biggy - they scrubbed the area clean and prepped my leg with a beautiful purple marker, marking where the vein was. Then the doctor came in - Dr Pain, I mean, Dr. Pang :). He told me I would feel a few pricks where the needle was numbing some areas of my leg where the needles would be inserted (picture included). Ouch, but tolerable. Then he informed me he was going to put the needle in, with the wire. Holy mother of $%#@##$!!!! I could not believe how bad that hurt. The three staff just worked quietly. Then my blood pressure started dropping, I could feel I was going to faint. (I usually do when I give blood, so they prep me by tipping the chair back to help the blood flow.) My hearing was going and the room was getting black and I felt like throwing up. I told the doctor and he had them check my blood pressure. I heard him say, "Tip her back on the table." Then he had the assistant check my bp three more times, each time tipping me back further. He said, "I don't want to go up any further, let's stop here below the knee." Finally, I could hear again and the pain was horrible. He asked if I wanted to proceed, informing me that it was my choice, but that they were ready to start the laser. I asked, "How much longer???" He said, "Two minutes." "Okay." He said, "Let me know if you feel this." It started and immediately I said, "Yes, it kills." So he stopped, put a few more shots in my leg, then tried again. "Yes it still hurts." He shot me up once more and tried one more time. "No, I don't feel it now." He completed that part of the surgery, stitched me up once where I was bleeding a little too much (picture included) and then said to have me wait in the room until my bp was back to normal. I forgot to mention that they had put a turnicate on my leg to inflate the vein a little when marking it, but did not release it during the procedure, probably contributing to the pain. When I asked him later why it hurt so bad, he said it was because my vein was small - due to being dehydrated and that my bp dropped because of a reaction I had to the medication. I think it was due to hurting so freaking bad! So I asked a friend of mine who had the procedure done and she told me that the first time killed, but the second time, it wasn't as bad because they shot her leg up with a lot more pain killer. I don't know. My favorite part of it was when Daniel walked in and was told that there were some complications and that they didn't finish the procedure. I told him in Portuguese how badly it hurt. He smiled and asked in Portuguese, "So, do you really want to have children?" I said, "No, we can just adopt." Classic.

Okay -so this is a horrible picture, but I love that Toby is in all of these.

This is my leg where you can see the purple markings where the procedure was supposed to go up to - there's a little "x". However, he stopped just below my knee.

This is a picture of the bandages, nothing too exciting.

This is me being brave to see what my leg looks like this afternoon.

Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

Here's the little stitch they had to make by my ankle.

There's a little bruising, but not too bad.