Lisa -
this was my response to someone asking about local vs general anesthesia for BAHA surgery - I copied it from an old thread.
"Everyone is different (the old discussion forum motto, which is true), but I'm confident you can do it with local if you want to.
I was a little nervous about doing it that way, but in all honesty it was fine.
The sounds and a brief smell are a little freaky at times, but they drape your entire face and you can't see or feel anything.
Because my head was turned to the side, the drapes made a kind of tunnel that I was looking down. At the end was a really nice nurse who engaged me in conversation throughout the whole procedure. Every once in a while the doc would ask me how I was doing, but other than that it was easy to pretty much ignore what was going on with my head.
My doc made a point of keeping the whole thing fairly humorous for me - just the way I like it - which also helped immensely. I had jokingly asked him while I was in the holding area if he'd ever performed BAHA surgery before and he jokingly told me no, but he had the instructions. On occasion throughout the surgery he'd stop and tell me that he was referring to the instructions. Cracked me up. But then again, I sometimes have a warped sense of humor
Having local you also have the advantage of not having to "come out" of the anesthesia. No groggy head, etc., and you can pretty much go about the rest of your day normally. My sister, who drove me to surgery and back, and I had lunch at a fast food place about an hour post op and then I attended my son's volleyball game. I felt just fine."
As for returning to work post op, you could actually do it the very same day, but chances are - as Wendy mentioned - you'll be sporting a BAHA hat of sorts and will probably get some very strange looks
I was able to remove my "hat" 24 hours post op and so I went to work the very next day.
The BAHA surgery is incredibly easy on the patient - 90% of my neurotologist's BAHA surgeries are done with local (no sedation), as was mine.
I took no pain killers other than Tylenol for a day or two - didn't even fill the Rx for Vicodin I was given - but everyone is different and my head was still very numb from my AN surgery (9 months prior). My whole procedure took about 90 minutes from start to finish and a lot of that time was spent prepping and draping the area. When I was done I could have quite literally walked out of the OR if they would have let me.
There are many posts on the forum about BAHAs - some include pictures of BAHA "hats", sites, and processors. I posted my pictures about a year ago - as did Bucko - and there have been others since. If you have some time you should search under "BAHA"; you'll find lots of interesting information - and some very amusing pictures also
Jan
