Just the thought of watching someone operate on me is terrifying. That was an amazing account.

While if Jon Singer were to be incarnated as a book, he would certainly have at least one appendix, I (and my critical apparatus) are pleased to hear that the abridgement went well.

Some medical procedures, like ultrasound or cardiac catheterization, are sufficiently disassociated as to be easy and interesting to watch (there is neither exposed tissue or sensation -- all it really needs is a teeny little Donald Pleasence and Raquel Welch). Others, which I won't detail, were interesting once, period. Venipuncture is routine and isn't hard to watch, but I usually don't, to avoid tensing up for the stick.

I watched the screen when the doctor worked on my knee cartilege problem. It was fascinating stuff, swirls and colors, like groovy man.

Will NOT watch this winter when I have same knee replaced. In fact. I will probably be Down Under.

Jane

I've got to have sinus surgery. I'm such a coward; I don't want anything to do with it. (Hey, my brains are in there!) But I'm sick of the recurring infections and it's time to do something about it.

Arrrgh.

-l.

Unforgettable sensations #6472: waking up in bed with stitches in your eyeball. It's like sharing your orbit with a dead fly suffering from rigor mortis, and it goes on for weeks until they dissolve. (That's after the soreness -- from having your eyelid clamped for six hours while your eyeball is sliced open and the vitreous humour schlurped out so the surgeon can fiddle with your retina for a few hours -- goes away.)

The only thing that made it remotely tolerable was knowing that the alternative would be Much Worse (TM).

Here's a hint: deep general anaesthesia, and copious morphine afterwards, made it all a bit less unpleasant.

Eek! My sympathies to Jon. I watched my first colonoscopy live and in color on tv. It was cool, but I'd just as soon not do it again.

MKK: I don't know if I watched any of my colonoscopies or surgeries. Mmm. Versed. Mmm. Dilaudid.

I like to think of the last six months as set of repeated alien abductions.

Am naturally glad that Jon is recovering, and that he bothered to find out what was going on in the first place. Peritonitis is No Fun.

Damien: You'll note I specified my first colonoscopy. For that one I only had Valium. The second one was the Versed one. And I still remember them trying to go around the second turn and waking up and hearing the doctor say, "Give her some more." In spite of it being Versed. Apparently my colon twists in a highly unusual way right there. Ouch.

MKK

Hooray for Jon. My knees are both being done this week under a spinal, but I am opting not to watch. Too much like This Old House. I too will ask for Versed--a marvelous drug.

I wanted to be awake and watch when they operated on my elbow the last time I broke it (I broke a bit of bone off and it needed to be pinned back on), but the doctor wouldn't let me. I thought I'd got over the disappointment but this is bringing it back.

Colonoscopy was piece of cake (as it were), for me, Mary Kay. Barium enema was much more uncomfortable, but still not dire.

Camera down throat, without drugs to help it on it's merry way, was much less fun, but I'd still rather have 5 mins of retching uncontrollably over 6 hours doped out of my skull.

You millage may vary, of course. Different people are squicked out by different things.

I'm fond of all my bits, I'm not convinced I'd like to watch my appendix removal.