Well, obviously, I was under anesthesia the whole time, so I don't remember much of what happened. But I will explain to you what has been explained to me.
After you get the happy juice in your system, you are wheeled into the operating room (OR).
There, the nurses will put you under anesthesia, and you will fall into a deep sleep. The anesthesia will continuously be put into your system by breathing tubes that are placed down into your throat. These can make your throat horribly sore if they scratch your throat. It's not that much fun. Anyway, then they will go about their various procedures, readying your body for surgery. I had to get an arterial line (art-line) placed into the artery on my left wrist. I was out for that, so it didn't hurt. I chose to have the art-line and IV on the same side (left) so that I could have a totally free right side. You can choose to have one on left, one on right, though. The purpose of the art-line is that it makes the nurses able to draw blood without poking me each time. It was very helpful, I won't lie.
The other things they did was sterilized the skin outside of my stomach so that in case the lining of my brain ruptured, they could patch it with a fat graft. Also, they put a catheter into my bladder. NOT FUN. :(
The operation began. What they did for me was to have me get several CT's and MRI's so that they could make a digital map of my brain, and hooked their instruments up to the computer map so that they would know where they were. Since my cyst was on my pituitary, the docs chose to do a transsphenoidal approach. Basically, they went through my nose. They shoved my septum (the part of my nose that divides the nostrils) over and used the path through the sinuses to get to my cyst. Here's some photos explaining:
After you get the happy juice in your system, you are wheeled into the operating room (OR).
There, the nurses will put you under anesthesia, and you will fall into a deep sleep. The anesthesia will continuously be put into your system by breathing tubes that are placed down into your throat. These can make your throat horribly sore if they scratch your throat. It's not that much fun. Anyway, then they will go about their various procedures, readying your body for surgery. I had to get an arterial line (art-line) placed into the artery on my left wrist. I was out for that, so it didn't hurt. I chose to have the art-line and IV on the same side (left) so that I could have a totally free right side. You can choose to have one on left, one on right, though. The purpose of the art-line is that it makes the nurses able to draw blood without poking me each time. It was very helpful, I won't lie.
The other things they did was sterilized the skin outside of my stomach so that in case the lining of my brain ruptured, they could patch it with a fat graft. Also, they put a catheter into my bladder. NOT FUN. :(
The operation began. What they did for me was to have me get several CT's and MRI's so that they could make a digital map of my brain, and hooked their instruments up to the computer map so that they would know where they were. Since my cyst was on my pituitary, the docs chose to do a transsphenoidal approach. Basically, they went through my nose. They shoved my septum (the part of my nose that divides the nostrils) over and used the path through the sinuses to get to my cyst. Here's some photos explaining:
See how simple that is? Nice, huh? I didn't even have to shave my head, and there were no external scars. It was great! When they had drilled through a little bit of bone, and drained/marsupialized the cyst, they shoved my septum back in place, and stitched up my nose a bit.
Then, they rolled me into my room to recuperate. Apparently, lots of teenagers have issues waking up from anesthesia peacefully, and I was no different. I don't remember this, but I was flailing around when they tried to transfer me into my new bed. They knocked me out again, and the second time, I went in just fine.
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