Then read this...
Today was the Great Killing of the Great Sapheneus Vein.
In the interest of full disclosure of too much information and the release of all my remaining pride, let's just start with this picture.
Ativan, I love you, but holy cow you put me into a slump. At the time this photo was taken (4 hours after the Great Killing), my tongue was still huge and when I told Eva to take a picture, it sounded like "falla nico my sunday feeeeel schmeeel."
You know when they promise you that as soon as you arrive, they'll give you a sedative, you're in for a real treat of a procedure. Second clue is when they ask your "driver" to sign the paperwork under your name and then hand them the copies instead of you.
Nurse Amy fetched me from the waiting room (still super nice ladies in there, by the way) wearing full body gear - hair net, scrubs, face mask. We went into a room with two more nurses dressed for a nuclear explosion. Um, are we expecting a lot of blood or something here?! (Turns out there wasn't - lots of blood or explosions - just extremely sterile everything.) McHotty was there as promised, and I'm telling you that Grey's Anatomy is for REAL, people! He had a scrub cap exactly like McDreamy's.
I learned my lesson from last time and went in with very very pretty underwear. Very. But darn it, Nurse Amy said I had to take them off immediately and replace them with paper shorts, which would soon be cut up to heeeeeeere. All the better for McHotty and his wandering wand, apparently. Oh the humiliation. Really, I cannot begin to describe what it is to lay on a table in cut paper shorts, on a sedative, surrounded by people in body armor, being probed all up and down my leg and in my nether-regions by a guy my own age. I reminded him that this is about my LEG, which he found funny. I was serious!
It lasted about 20 minutes. There were lots of shots up and down my leg, an incision, a catheter that burned off some ends or something. And then at the end, enough ace bandaging to mummify my whole body. It goes groin (a gross word McHotty said at least 6 times) to toes. Ryan wrapped some more up my thigh tonight. On his top-ten list of things to do in his lifetime, I'm sure.
But here's the good news....My leg is enormous in this bandage, and there's pain (and more promised to come during the night). But it already feels soooooooo much better. Tonight, I talked to one woman 20 years older than me who had this done. Her legs look amazing - no vein to be found anywhere. I talked to someone 30 years older than me who did it too, and hers, well, not so much. So I'm just going to hope and pray and follow the rules and wear the damn compression hose and tell the universe that this is going to fix it once and for all.
Next week is the Great Killing of the Great Sapheneus Vein Leg 2. I'm skipping the pretty underwear and going straight to a wax. TMI, as promised.