Let's hear surgery horror stories!

[HEyHEY]

I got one, I had been shot in the chest with a pellet gun, the pellet went deep into my chest. IN fact, I would have died if I had been shot directly on. ANyway, at the hospital they merely froze my chest and proceeded to cut into it to look for the pellet... only thing was the tissue wasn't 100 per cent frozen yet, so I felt them cut into me. Still chills me to remember that sting.

[WindRavenX]

1. goddamn

That's...wow. Wow.

[HEyHEY]

2. That what I said...oh wait take of the first "w"..there, that's what I sai

[WindRavenX]

3. how freaked out were you?

How much blood?
If it was me, and I was awake to see them cut into me....ohhh bad times.

[HEyHEY]

5. It was such a sharp sudden pain

That I wasn't freaked so much as delaing with the pain itself. Kinda like when you stub your toe. THe blood? Plenty, I didnt look at first, but later I opened my eyes and looked at the mirror they had over my body, I wish I hadn't you don't want to see people with tools stuckin your chest... gross. Lucky for me it only went skin deep or they'd of been REALLY in my chest.

[LizW]

12. Here's a disgusting little detail about surgery

They used to keep it really, really cold in the ORs so the doctors could stay comfortable in all those scrubs and gowns and hats and gloves.

My husband said that when they cut into my abdomen for both my c-sections, steam rose up from the incision.

I'm glad I couldn't see that. Somehow, that freaks me out.

[yvr girl]

4. Not exactly a horror story, but funny.

I had day surgery, where I was put under.

I remember being in the operating room and the nurses hooking me up to various monitors. They put something in my IV, the world became fuzzy and I was out.

Next thing I remember was someone (a nurse) shaking me, "Time to wake up now, c'mon wake up"

My reply was somewhere between a grunt and a groan.

A few minutes later she tried again. I was a bit more aware, but I felt like a lump of lead...a nauseous lump of lead. She turned my head to the left just in case I got sick.

Off to the right, I heard the following comments:

Nurse: Mr. Smith, you need to get back in bed.
Nurse: Mr. Smith, you can't leave yet.
Nurse: Mr. Smith, you don't have any clothes on.

I thought to myself, 'you should take a look at this little spectacle.'

I couldn't. I was unable to turn my head to the right and look. For the life of me, I don't know how Mr. Smith managed to get out of bed. I tossed my cookies when they moved me from Recovery to the ward. (And I love every amusement park ride you could mention.)

It wasn't so bad though - I lived to tell the tale.

[HEyHEY]

7. That is wierd

I can almost imagine being there

[CanuckAmok]

18. Aren't you HEyHEY Smith?

What are you doing out of bed?

[CanuckAmok]

17. I dated this doctor....

...before I met my ex-wife. She told me all kinds of surgery horror stories.

One of the worst was this story which has been around for a while, in doctors' lore:

An obese woman was being put under with a general anaesthetic, and a general to cause muscle paralysis during the operation. She was being treated to drain fluids, and to treat other complications of an immune deficiency. After she went under, the chief surgeon made all kinds of jokes about how fat she was, and how they should do some lipo while she was out and sell the fat to a soap factory or an African nation, etc. Really cheap shots.

Anyway, after a few minutes of this, the anaethesiologist realised that the woman's muscles were paralysed, as they should have been, but the general hadn't taken full effect. In other words, she was conscious, but unable to move/communicate.

So she had not only experienced the preliminary incisions, but had heard all these doctors and nurses making fun of her.

And she didn't survive the procedure. It's still wildly speculated that she would have survived, had she not been a prime candidate for malpractice plaintiff.

Brrr.....

[Maddy McCall]

6. I ran a go-cart off of a bridge.

Put my leg out, as if that would break the fall.

Broke the tib-fib in my right leg. The surgery started without general anesthesia, but let me just say that it didn't end that way. I screamed bloody murder, and the doc had me put under.

Four screws later, I'm just fine. :)

[HEyHEY]

8. eee

those are nasty breaks. Thank god I've never done that

[babylonsister]

9. How 'bout chest surgery at 27, to be

followed by a few more? (Never mind)
Or, my bro just had 9 hours under the knife for back surgery. EEWWEEEHH! Miraculously, he's feeling better!

[LizW]

10. Yikes! That is horrible!

Mine is funny, not horrible.

I was having a C-section and they had already taken the baby out and whisked him off ot the nursery, and the doctors were sewing me up. This takes a while, and the nurses were straightening up and it was pretty quiet in the OR.

My doctor suddenly said, "Oops."

I was drugged to the gills, and it took a moment for what he had said to sink in, then after a pause I said, "Did you say 'Oops'? Don't say 'Oops'!"

The nurses all cracked up laughing.

My doctor got sort of flustered, apparently he was not used to conversation with people whose gaping body he's in the process of sewing up. He started explaining, "It's okay. I just pulled a stitch through, it's nothing. I'm fixing it, don't worry."

The nurses snickered through the whole rest of the process.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

11. I watched my operation

At least, that's the way it seemed. I had no idea what the precise details of the procedure were, but I had the distinct sensation of leaving my body and watching them lift my small intestines to get to my kidneys. Then I returned to dreamland.

[Floogeldy]

13. I was in my late twenties

I played the guitar and sang for a living. I went in for a check up. The Doc told me my tonsils were swollen and atrophied. He said they had to come out. Seemed to be a little late in life, but I said, "Okay, maybe now I can hit even higher notes."

They knocked me out cold and cut on my throat. I woke up in the hospital and cried. I went home. I felt like shit. I kept taking Percocet. I didn't feel better after about ten days. I doubled up on the Percocet. That was pretty good, but I woke up one morning and coughed. Blood spewed out.

My Aunt called the Doc and he told me to come in immediately. Turns out, the incisions were infected. He cauterized the open, bleeding gaping holes in my throat. For those of you who do not know, it is like taking a soldering iron to the skin in the back of your throat to burn/melt them shut.

My Mom was standing in front of me while the doctor worked. He turned to her and said, "I wouldn't stand there if I were you." She stepped over to the side. About that time, I projectile vomited blood all over the wall on the other side of the room. How the Doc knew I was going to do that, I don't know.

Perhaps because HE FORGOT TO PRESCRIBE ANTIBIOTICS TO EVERY POOR FUCKING SOUL HE HAD EVER CUT ON IN THE PAST.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

15. Omigod, that was dreadful!

Please forgive my ignorance, but do you still sing for a living? How's your voice? I hope your recovery after all that fucked up mess was uneventful! That should never have happened...

[progressor]

21. Was having a cyst removed...

Anyway, it was in my left ass cheek.

I was numb and I have an allergy to epinephrine (I think). We hadn't identified what I was allergic to at the time, so needless to say, I threw up all over the floor, pillow and my face. Filled two bedpans. I had to finish the surgery lying in vomit, while the nurse tried to clean my face.

The worst part, was the cyst was kinda deep and the doctor was cutting the little fleshy attachments that were still holding it in my butt cheek - *pulling/pressure* "SNIP" *pulling/pressure* "SNIP" *pulling/pressure* "SNIP OUCH!". The anesthetic didn't go deep enough and I suddenly felt him clip a hunk of flesh from my buttock.

Hurt like a sonuvabitch and he had to do more shots inside the incision to finish the surgery. Which made me sicker, of course.

[liberalnurse]

14. All I can think of at the moment is.....

OOPS!

Sorry, that must of really stung a bit.

[khashka]

16. How about let's don't!

There is a gross out factor here, HEyHEy - a line that should only be crossed with a cast iron stomach and a few shots of vodka.

My horror story - never had major surgery, but..

I busted my head open (don't ask it was really stupid) and got rushed to the hospital. They had to sew it up and clean it out (ugh) and the macho asshole doctor refused to give me a local - he just said "Suck it up, be a man!" (Since when did they start giving medical degrees to high school gym teachers?)

Anyway, I managed to beat the living hell out of a nurse before they strapped me down. Which I regret - it wasn't her fault and I shouldn't have hit her so hard. But she was between me and him and I had every intention of killing the bastard. Hey, it hurt, and he was being really nasty about it. I still wish I'd broken the bastard's nose.

But they tied me down, cleaned the wound, picked pieces of icky stuff out of my flesh and then sewed it up. All without a local anaesthetic. Or even an aspirin.

I still have the scars. Unfortunately, that poor nurse probably does too. But if I ever meet that overpaid bloodmonkey in a dark alley, he's gonna be really sorry.

Khash.

[vpigrad]

19. Twice my wife was put under then...

the doctor decided to not do the surgery due to a "paperwork" problem. The first time he claimed her CAT scan wasn't good enough for him to go by. It was the same CAT scan he used to make his diagnosis. The second time, the same doctor and anesthesiologist stopped after one incision when they decided the referral from her GP wasn't worded correctly. They had that paperwork for about a week before the surgery and could have at any time decided to talk to the GP or delay the surgery. That meant we paid the same anesthesiologist four times for two surgeries that were performed. Since then, the CPA firm I work for part-time started doing the anesthesiologist's taxes. He made quite a few payments to the doctor including two each of the two days after my wife's failed surgeries. Of course I can't act on that information. Damn crooks in the medical field. I still have never known an honest doctor, and I've worked with plenty of them doing software and doing bookwork. The lure of the money attracts the worst people.

[tammywammy]

20. I had minor surgery on my wrist

to remove a cyst. First I was out before I got into the operating room. But when I did wake up finally in recovery, I couldn't see anything because I didn't have my glasses. My mom stepped up to my bed, and I remember the doctor saying that "oh you'll have almost no pain after this." Liar. I turned to my mom and said "they said it wouldn't hurt" and started to cry. I'm pretty much a wuss.

And then the doctor came over to talk to me, and said the cyst was the size of a martini olive and I just started talking about how I like martinis...but with vodka...and dirty....I like martinis.