The knee arthroscopy operation

I had my knee arthroscopy operation on 19th April 2006, 38 days after my skiing accident.

The nurses prepared me with a gown, laid me on a stretcher and took my blood pressure and temperature.

After asking me some standard questions, they then wheeled me into the operating room at about 4.15pm.

The anaesthetist asked if I would like a local or general anaesthetic. She told me she had had knee arthroscopy surgery on both her knees (due to 'old age', she was perhaps 55 years old) and opted for the local anaesthetic so she could watch the operation on the screen.

I took her advice and she injected the local anaesthetic into somewhere near the base of my spine. There was some pain although the needle was very fine. Within two minutes, I had lost about 95% of the feeling in both my legs.

Doctor Panya entered the operating room. He said a brief hello to me and that we would review the operation together tomorrow (including the operation videos).

There was a team of about 6 people in the room. One of them shaved my knee. Then, the doctor started his work.

I still had some feeling in my legs and whatever Doctor Panya was doing, it was painful. I took the pain for a while but then ran out of willpower and opted for sedation!

Within a few seconds of the injection into my left hand (through a needle inserted earlier and ready for immediate use), I felt a loss of sensation and I slipped into unconsciousness.

Tick, tick, tick, tick…

40 minutes later I stirred. It felt as though I woke quickly. I saw the television monitor and the arthroscopic camera was still inside my knee.

The anaesthetist - who oversees the whole operation - was by my side and explained that the knee arthroscopy operation was almost complete. I watched as the Doctor removed the miniature tools inside my knee and then out came the camera.

Within 5 minutes, I had been wheeled into a ward where nurses greeted me. I was told to sleep for an hour and given an oxygen mask.

An hour or so later, I woke. I could feel my legs again and wiggle my feet. There was pain in my left knee, so I knew the anaesthetic had worn off.

The nurses gave me water, coffee and a newspaper. I still had the needle in my left hand and a drip was feeing it what looked like a clear saline solution.

WARNING! This gets personal now. However, any men having this operation should know about this possible side-effect…

At 8.30pm, the nurses asked if I would like to urinate. I had no particular urge but on inspecting my bladder, it was bloated. They gave me a pot to urinate into from my bed but when I went to direct the proceedings, I discovered there was no feeling whatsoever in my penis!

This, apparently, is common. So I used my stomach muscles to force out perhaps 50% of the urine.

In order to be discharged, I needed to be able to urinate normally, so I waited. And waited. And waited.

At 10pm, there was still no feeling in my penis. Now I was getting concerned. Had the anaesthetic needle damaged a nerve and paralysed my private parts? It didn't bear thinking about. I read the newspaper.

By 11pm, I realised that I would not be going home to my hotel that night. I asked for a bed in the hospital and was taken to an unoccupied twin room on the 8th floor.

After a bland tuna sandwich and cup of tea, I watched the BBC World News and some football highlights.

Every 20 minutes I had checked to see if any feeling was returning to my penis. At 12.30am, I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I started to feel something. By 1.30am my personal belongings were definitely coming back to life. I was a very relieved man.

Next… recovery from the operation.