My eighteen year-old cat with feline dementia wanted dinner and saw no reason why my smelling strange or having a giant thing on my foot should mean I shouldn't do my duty and get out of bed a feed him. So I'm up with my foot raised above my hip, trying to figure out how I managed to cut myself just hours before my first dose of Lovenox.
With him temporarily satisfied, dinner for me is a simple, warm and mushy chicken and dumplings as my throat recovers from the intubation.
I arrived at the surgical center bright and early, went through all the paper work and was put in a little dressing room and told to strip naked, couldn't even wear my out underwear, instead I got these cotton net things that not even a cheap stripper would wear. I always forget how repetitive the questions are as a safe-guard measure - pre-op nurse, anesthesiologist, resident, OR nurse, second OR nurse. Got my allergic to Morphine wrist band and saw Dr. Hubbard and the band of inquisitors and was led to the OR around 7:40.
Two beds in my OR so they could start me on my back for the IV and anesthesia and then roll me on to my stomach for the surgery (where I'm sure I got to show off my net undies). I commented on the 70's early 80's influenced soft rock on the OR speakers, very different then the hip-hop from my knee surgery. The resident joked they liked the quiet stuff to keep Dr. H calm. I remember the anesthesiologist putting in my IV and telling me he was adding the sleeping meds and it was going to burn. It didn't, but it did act quickly.
I now understand the term "swimming into consciousness" as that is certainly what it felt like as I opened my eyes in the recovery room to see the resident, the recovery room nurse and the anesthesiologist standing at my bed. My entire left leg felt like a dead weight and I could taste the plastic of the breathing tube in my throat.
When I could focus on the clock on the wall opposite my bed it read 10:30 - so much for leaving the hospital by 9:00. Betty said that no one told her I was out of surgery and when she finally found the ill-marked in-house phone no one gave her any info the first time.
It was a very different post-op attitude to what I've had at HSS, my Usbeckistani nurse (the woman in the next bed asked her where she was from) made not-so-subtle hints that she was over worked (as far as I could tell she was only covering two bays) and that my nit moving on her schedule was a bit of an inconvenience. I watched another nurse get huffy when a young woman who was in to "get hardware removed" needed extra Percocet for the pain and then after being discharged came back crying because she didn't feel well. My nurse told me the nausea I felt the first time I tried to stand was because I didn't sleep enough when I was moved to the recovery room. She also felt my knee-walker wasn't good enough, so provided me with crutches whose max height was 3 inches too short.
By 12:15pm I was sitting up eating a corn muffin, having managed the short crutches and showed I could use the bathroom. (Never understood the science behind needing to show you can pee and eat before discharge.) At 12:30 I got a new nurse who was entranced by my knee walker and was ready to put my clothes on and come home.
I was home and in bed by just after 2pm and happy to drift in and out of sleep with the odd sip of water to help flush my system and sooth my throat until the cat decided it was dinner time. I did take this picture wit my phone. The blob is foot shaped, so I'm assuming there is one in there somewhere.
I did have some un-planned issues with the knee walker. I had thought through the 4 steps in my hall and left the crutches for easy access once I got home, but I didn't think of the difficulty of getting in and out of the car. Just figuring out what to brace on to hop off the curb gave me a couple worried moments. Also elevators are not great as the wheeler has the turn radius of a bus. I wound up having to back out of my galley kitchen and I haven't even tried to take it in the bathroom yet. But I do feel steadier on it then on the crutches, especially around the cats. We'll see how the relationship progresses. I have decided what it really needs is a bicycle bell, or one of those reverse horns. Betty thinks it needs a flag to tie to my heel like one of those truck long load notifications. For now, I'm going to use it to go back to bed.
With him temporarily satisfied, dinner for me is a simple, warm and mushy chicken and dumplings as my throat recovers from the intubation.
I arrived at the surgical center bright and early, went through all the paper work and was put in a little dressing room and told to strip naked, couldn't even wear my out underwear, instead I got these cotton net things that not even a cheap stripper would wear. I always forget how repetitive the questions are as a safe-guard measure - pre-op nurse, anesthesiologist, resident, OR nurse, second OR nurse. Got my allergic to Morphine wrist band and saw Dr. Hubbard and the band of inquisitors and was led to the OR around 7:40.
Two beds in my OR so they could start me on my back for the IV and anesthesia and then roll me on to my stomach for the surgery (where I'm sure I got to show off my net undies). I commented on the 70's early 80's influenced soft rock on the OR speakers, very different then the hip-hop from my knee surgery. The resident joked they liked the quiet stuff to keep Dr. H calm. I remember the anesthesiologist putting in my IV and telling me he was adding the sleeping meds and it was going to burn. It didn't, but it did act quickly.
I now understand the term "swimming into consciousness" as that is certainly what it felt like as I opened my eyes in the recovery room to see the resident, the recovery room nurse and the anesthesiologist standing at my bed. My entire left leg felt like a dead weight and I could taste the plastic of the breathing tube in my throat.
When I could focus on the clock on the wall opposite my bed it read 10:30 - so much for leaving the hospital by 9:00. Betty said that no one told her I was out of surgery and when she finally found the ill-marked in-house phone no one gave her any info the first time.
It was a very different post-op attitude to what I've had at HSS, my Usbeckistani nurse (the woman in the next bed asked her where she was from) made not-so-subtle hints that she was over worked (as far as I could tell she was only covering two bays) and that my nit moving on her schedule was a bit of an inconvenience. I watched another nurse get huffy when a young woman who was in to "get hardware removed" needed extra Percocet for the pain and then after being discharged came back crying because she didn't feel well. My nurse told me the nausea I felt the first time I tried to stand was because I didn't sleep enough when I was moved to the recovery room. She also felt my knee-walker wasn't good enough, so provided me with crutches whose max height was 3 inches too short.
By 12:15pm I was sitting up eating a corn muffin, having managed the short crutches and showed I could use the bathroom. (Never understood the science behind needing to show you can pee and eat before discharge.) At 12:30 I got a new nurse who was entranced by my knee walker and was ready to put my clothes on and come home.
I was home and in bed by just after 2pm and happy to drift in and out of sleep with the odd sip of water to help flush my system and sooth my throat until the cat decided it was dinner time. I did take this picture wit my phone. The blob is foot shaped, so I'm assuming there is one in there somewhere.
I did have some un-planned issues with the knee walker. I had thought through the 4 steps in my hall and left the crutches for easy access once I got home, but I didn't think of the difficulty of getting in and out of the car. Just figuring out what to brace on to hop off the curb gave me a couple worried moments. Also elevators are not great as the wheeler has the turn radius of a bus. I wound up having to back out of my galley kitchen and I haven't even tried to take it in the bathroom yet. But I do feel steadier on it then on the crutches, especially around the cats. We'll see how the relationship progresses. I have decided what it really needs is a bicycle bell, or one of those reverse horns. Betty thinks it needs a flag to tie to my heel like one of those truck long load notifications. For now, I'm going to use it to go back to bed.
