Surgery every day

WARNING!

DO NOT READ OR LOOK

IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH

Doesn't sound so bad when I can get my legs back and have Brando off for three days to stay home and pamper me. Okay he took those all on his own accord, I didn't expect him to be there, since really it was a MINOR procedure even though I was out of it.

Let me explain, since I was 8 months pregnant with Shawn I have had varicose veins in my right leg, the kind that bulge out. Which over time worsened until I slept with a pillow under my feet every night for the last five years so the blood would drain back to my heart from my broken vein. I checked out this surgery to take care of them five years ago but back then insur*ance didn't cover it and it was $3000 a LEG. Yikes. Glad I waited. Now the technology is better AND insurance covered it! Yay!

I'll post an after, but for now it's presurgery and postsurgery, which by the way looks worse than it is because they had just unwrapped an ace bandage that had been wrapped around my leg from thigh to foot for the last 24 hours following the surgery. They did intravenous laser therapy and used a laser to burn the main vein, then used a tiny hook to pull out the veins thru tiny holes. They used sclerotherapy on the veins that weren't big enough to bulge but were still quite visible where they injected a medication into the veins that took care of them. I'm feeling a bit muscle achey from the laser they used to burn the vein, and bruised from the injections, a bit like somebody took a baseball bat to me but other than that I'm looking forward to maybe having a normal leg again!!

 *Edited to add: The reason I got varicose veins is not just because I was pregnant but because I stood for three hours when I was eight months pregnant listening to three ladies tell me their birth horror stories when they SHOULD'VE known better and told me to sit the hell down and for that matter shouldn't have been telling me their horror stories either. The varicose veins showed up the next day. So, L, don't worry you should be okay - just don't stand for 3 hours straight when you're 8 months pregnant!

*By the way, we have arteries that take the blood to parts of our body and the veins bring the blood back to the heart with one way valves. Varicose veins happen when those valves break. The blood can't go up anymore so it pools and makes the vein bulge. Now you know more than you ever wanted to know about varicose veins : ) .

BEFORE:

This is the veins, on the inside of my right knee - gross

My IV - I'm such a baby, I've had two natural births but I bawl at needles 

Marking the veins for intravenous laser therapy, microphlebectomy, and sclerotherapy.

After unwrapping the compression bandage. Today I'm wearing a compression stocking that makes me look very granny like, and taking Advil every 6  hours. I tried to stop taking Advil after  last night and that beaten with a bat feeling came back so I called the doctor's office. They told me, um, yeah, be taking that for at least seven days. Thanks, now you tell me.