Friday, June 2, 2017

Somethings on Friday #110

Rather my normal 5 things, I'll just tell you a surgical tale.  I know you are already on the edge of your seat with delightful anticipation.

Most Gentle Readers are aware that I was scheduled on Thursday to have surgery on my hip to repair a tear in the cartilage of my right hip.  I did what any reasonable person would do this entire week: prepped.

I tackled so many errands and tasks!  The most important things I did were on Wednesday.  I went to see the Chiro, which I should have done on Tuesday since my pain level went from an 8 to a 5 after he was done aligning me.  THEEENNNN, I followed that up with a deep tissue massage (hooray for pain meds because Thursday morning I was pretty sure I was going to see bruises on my neck and shoulders).


Wednesday was a a busy day.  I had plenty of work to accomplish, in addition to going to the Chiro, meeting with "Mr. Flexible" (which was not the case at all despite his claims) at my office to receive my post-surgery equipment (hip brace, DVT machine, and ice pack/cooler).  My massage appointment was at 3 so around 2:15 I started moving out of my desk.  I brought both monitors home with me so I don't have to fight with the tiny laptop screen while I'm teleworking.

Of course, I got stopped by the longest, slowest train in Charleston less than 1 minute away from my work.
It took 10 minutes for the train to pass.

After my massage, I picked up deserts from the deli that is 2 doors down from the massage place.  #worthit  Finally, I headed home and picked up dinner from Roux's Parents and went home to release the beasts. 

This deli has so many delicious looking deserts!
I wanted one of each, but I settled on a cream puff thing a chocolate peanut butter thing.

Teh German got home shortly after me.  We had steaks and brussel sprouts for dinner and there were no regrets.  We went on one last pack walk (for me for a while) and then came home and watched some episodes of Modern Family.  I completed the laundry right before bedtime.  Just in case, I popped a Lorazepam to make sure I slept.  This worked out better than I could have predicted. 

We got to the hospital at 0600 and my name wasn't on their surgery schedule.  I wasn't worried (thank you Lorazepam), although it did concern me quite a bit when the receptionist asked if  was even at the correct facility.  Uhhhhhh. Yes?  While she was very friendly, this question really upset Teh German.  It took an hour to get thing straightened out and during that time, I curled up in an arm chair and napped (thank you Lorazepam).  Finally, around 0700, everything had been sorted out and we got the process started. 


The biggest downside to not being on the schedule was that I didn't get a reminder call the night before.  The one that says consume NOTHING after 10pm.  Oops.  I totally had water when I woke up.  In fact, I was even proud of myself for having water.  The doctors and nurses were not impressed with my hydration.  I wasn't impressed with my absence on the surgery attendance sheet.....

Finally, they gave me the meds to put me under and the last thing I remember before waking up in post-op was telling Teh German that I loved him and he gave me a kiss.



Once I came to in post-op, I was determined to stay awake so I could get out of the hospital ASAP.  I did have to pee, which is good since generally, they won't discharge you until you've peed.  Pretty sure it was a first for me, but I can now say I've peed in a bed pan.  It was gross and the nurses were trying to rush me.  As in, they were trying to remove the bed pan while I was still peeing!

Finally, they rolled my bed back to the recovery room where Teh German was waiting on me.  After getting dressed, they wanted to have a physical therapist come and show me how to do stairs since she misunderstood Teh German saying that I'd have to step up to get into the house (as in, cross the threshold).  It was a disaster and with 3 people trying to hang on to me, I wanted to take 2 of them down with a crutch (the PT and the nurse).  I was drugged and frustrated and my eyes starting tearing up, as they do when I am overly frustrated and then the nurse was dabbing at my face and eyes with tissues.  The PT had a small set of stairs that I could practice on, but it didn't really work since she had them up against the wall since I was a fall hazard from the drugs making me dizzy.  AND the PT had a "seat belt" around my waist that was pinching me and she was pulling on me.. and it was all really fucking horrible and I was glad that Teh German was like, I'll just take her home now since we're not going upstairs tonight anyways.


The Kleenex Nurse wheeled me out while Teh German went and pulled up Yurtle (which we brought since I have to jump in/out of Baloo.  Once I was loaded, I asked Teh German if we could stop by Metto and he was happy to comply.  I did take a little nap in the car.  When we got home, Teh German put the dogs out and then came and helped me into the house.  We sat down and ate leftovers for a late lunch since it was about 3 when we got home.  After Teh German set up all my equipment on the couch, I crutched over and managed to lay down. 


All the medicines were making me narcoleptic so it didn't take long for me to fall asleep.  I drifted in and out for a while. 



I realized when we got home, I might not have gotten those Minnie slippers at Disney, but the hospital gave me some sexay yellow socks that I would call a substitute (I wouldn't say a cheaper substitute) for Minnie Slippers.
PS.  The hip brace was off because it's hard to pee with your pants on.

Eventually, Teh PT Neighbors came over to check on me to see how everything had went.  After they left, another neighbor delivered baked ziti.  He didn't stay long sine he was on his way somewhere.  Have I mentioned lately how awesome our neighbors are?  Not to be left out, Roux's Humom stole Meri and Pax away for a while during the day to have a play date with Roux.

After all our company had left, we watched a few episodes of Modern Family and it was finally bedtime.  Which is completely relative since I have a timer going off every 4 hours to remind me to take more pain meds.  At one point, I traded out my pants for a dress and put the brace on under my dress so I no longer had to take off the brace to go pee.  This enabled me to go pee in the middle of the night on my own.  I wouldn't say doing it by myself was good, but I didn't pee on the couch, so I consider that a success.  Figuring out how to unhook myself from the ice machine was the biggest debacle, which we handled before Teh German went upstairs to bed.

Of course, my movements downstairs stirred the dog so they came downstairs to check on me.  Pax seems to be terrified of my crutches and will skitter out of the way when I'm hobbling back to the couch from the bathroom.

Teh German woke up around 0630 to check on me and feed the dogs and he read my mind and turned Roomy off while I was still trying to sleep.  After the dogs came back inside, Teh German laid with me on the couch and we dozed until about 0900. 


I had planned to join my daily conference call but 3 minutes before it was time to call in, the power went out and I couldn't get everything loaded fast enough to make it to the call.  I realized after the fact that I could have just literally CALLED in on my phone, rather than through the web meeting.  I'm blaming it on the medication.

I did review a few documents, but didn't see anything that needs immediate attention.  My main purpose in working at all this morning was to only have to take 4 hours of PTO instead of 8.  Gotta save those days for the honeymoon!

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.  I'm able to be 50% weight bearing on my bad leg, so that makes life a little easier.  As does the granny stand around the toilet for me to lower/raise myself up from.  Teh German gets full credit for that one since I wouldn't have even considered it.  #Mine

Fingers crossed, my mending doesn't take too long and I'll be able to attend dance classes with Teh German in July!



Happy Friday, Gentle Readers!

1 comment:

  1. I hope your recovery goes quickly & smoothly! You really do have awesome neighbors!

    ReplyDelete

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