Surgery

On Monday night, I had to call the hospital for the arrival time for my surgery on Tuesday.  Bethany and I were shocked when they said 7am (not that we didn’t expect it to be early, just that needing to be anywhere at 7am is shocking).

Tuesday morning, my mom got to the house to watch the kids (who were straggling out of bed as we were leaving) and we left for the hospital.  By getting there early, we got a nice parking spot (the hospital is extremely busy and parking is tiiiiight!) and things were quiet there.  Like you’d expect early in the morning, staff were getting papers ready for the day, maintenance staff were taking care of little things in the lobby, and some of the medical staff were coming in to start their day while others were counting down the minutes left until the end of their shift.

We checked in at the “Same Day Surgery” lobby where Bethany would spend the rest of her morning.  I went back for all of my prep work (questionnaires, consent forms, meeting what felt like 100 different nurses/doctors/technicians, vitals, and my IV) and Bethany had to wait in the lobby.  After about 45 minutes, Bethany got to come back and visit for about 15 minutes before they took me back.  I was awake on the stretcher for the tour down/around the building to the operating room.  I remember going into the OR and getting to look around for a minute.  I saw the daVinci Surgical System and got to talk to some of the OR staff for a minute.  Once they moved me onto the table from the stretcher, I only remember them asking me to put my arms in a specific spot.

The next thing I remember is some spotty memories in the recovery area.  My right shoulder was killing me and I was confused about where I was.  Then I fell back asleep.  Then I woke up and looked around, then fell back asleep!  It went on like that for a while until they took me up to my room.  I only remember parts of the trip – we went around some corners and up the elevator.  Bethany came in after a little while but I know I was still groggy.  At some point, they started my morphine and other medications.  I know I wasn’t good company – she said I was slurring my words and I remember having a hard time holding a conversation.

My shoulder pain kept coming back and there was little I could do about it.  I was also wearing compression sleeves on my legs (SCD/sequential compression device).  I had compression stockings on and the sleeves were velcroed on tight over them.  I spent the whole evening burning up until the nurse finally took them off for me (for a little while).  She called the doctor but he wouldn’t let me leave them off or move to the boots.

I got up once for a walk before Bethany left for the night – we walked to the end of the hall and back.  I was surprised at how hard it was (and how much everything hurt).  That short walk satisfied the nursing staff and they let me back in bed for the rest of the night.  I slept for a few hours here and there – they staff was great in letting me sleep (though I’m sure my half-asleep confused expressions were entertaining for them).

In the morning, I got to eat a “real” breakfast (pancakes, fruit, muffin, juice) and it felt great.  With more morphine, I was still foggy.  I spent part of the morning sitting up in a chair, then around noon I took another walk with Bethany – this time was a few trips up and down the hall.  It felt good to move everything around and, as the nurses promised, moving around provided relief for the pains that the medication wasn’t helping.

We ran into the surgeon in the hallway on my walk and caught up quickly.  It turns out that through some confusion, one of the pain medications I was supposed to be getting hadn’t been ordered.  Once we got that cleared up, I felt much better.  I was astonished at how much improvement there was from early morning to the evening when I got ready to go home (though I’m sure the additional pain medicine was a large factor).  At the start of the day, I fully expected to be staying an additional night (which was an option if I needed it).

I got to eat lunch and napped for a little bit (so did Beth!).  When we started to get ready to go home, Beth ran out to pick up all of my medications from the pharmacy so we had everything and didn’t need to run back out.  I had dinner at the hospital so that was out of the way.  When she got back to the hospital, we did our final paperwork and were on our way.  I’d been worried about the trip home (and up the stairs) but I was feeling great and everything went smoothly.

Last night, I got a good nights rest (in between getting up for medicine) and had a great day today.  I’m looking forward to the next couple days when I will finish up with the pain medicine and get back to feeling more “normal”.

 

Thanks to everyone who has checked in on us this week!