Forgive me for not posting anything in the last few days, but I have been surprisingly woozy.

Early Friday morning Andrea drove me to the Rex Hospital Surgery Center in Cary for my ear surgery. We checked in, and I was pleasantly surprised that the receptionist liked my John Boy and Billy denim shirt (a gift from my brother-in-law Jurgin). I don’t have too many casual shirts that button up the front, and they had warning me to bring one because the bandages on my head might make it hard to pull a shirt over it.

After a short wait we went into “pre-op” where the first thing they went over was “the pain chart”. I wasn’t aware that we were going to need “the pain chart” but apparently I need to learn the 0-10 scale for pain (and yes they did ask me about it). Everything above a 5 looked unpleasant, about the point in the Millgram experiment where you would be thinking about dumping the whole thing for a rerun of Oprah.

I had to put on one of the little dresses that leaves your butt hang out as well as little blue socks. Everything else went into a bag. They offered me a choice of two sizes – a Carolina blue gown sized “normal” and a white with red flowers gown that would fit the largest Samoan. I went with “normal”.

The anesthesiologist came in to describe all the wonderful drugs they would be adding to my body. Apparently they dope you up pretty well, since you are not to move at all during the operating, which means they put you so far under you can’t breathe on your own. He was actually pretty cool, and I was glad he was the one “turning me off”.

At this point I got to lay down on the bed in preparation for the surgery. They started an IV and, very reassuringly, placed a temporary tattoo on my left cheek that said “This Side”. Unfortunately, as I asked Andrea to get out the camera (I’ve never had a tattoo before) we were told “no pictures”.

They started the happy juice, and said that I had about 20 minutes before I’d go into surgery, which was soon moved up (I guess the doc had an early tee time), so off I was into the operating room, and Andrea was off to the waiting room.

I remember that the room was larger than I thought it would be, and the operating table was smaller. I was moved from the gurney to the table, and something was added to my IV. Before I went “nighty night” I remember them putting EKG sensors on my chest, but that was about it.

I woke up in recovery. I was way dizzy and my throat hurt like hell. They stuck a tube down my throat so I could breathe and I think they also turned my head to the side for the operation, so it rubbed a bit. It’s still pretty sore now.

The nurses seemed to want me out of there, so they had me drink ginger ale and eat a cracker. That didn’t go too well, and I got to use not one but two of the little plastic basins they keep around for just such occasions. I decided I could be miserable a home much easier than being miserable here, so I managed to walk around a bit and then they wheeled me out to the truck. Andrea must have driven me home very well, since I remember little of the trip. I just fell into bed a stayed there for a few hours.

The weekend was spend either in the bed or on the couch. I’m still somewhat dizzy at times, and they have me on my third antibiotic (keflex). We watched 14 episodes of “Firefly” (review later) thanks to my friend Mike Huot and Amazon.com. My head hurts where they cut out the fascia, and I can’t hear anything out of my left ear, but other than that I feel okay.

This morning I went to the doc (I drove myself) and he says everything looks good. I still can’t here out of my left ear much, but he says there is a plug in place holding the patch against my eardrum. I need to keep it dry for three weeks, except for eardrops that I start on Friday, and I hope by then things will be better.

Well, this is the most I’ve sat in front of a computer for days, so I’m signing off now.