Surgery recap

I guess it’s probably time to make some sort of record of events of my surgery before I forget. My admission time was set for 11am so we left just before 10am in order to allow time to find parking as it is fairly limited around the hospital. We got there and eventually found our way into a side entrance. The Scientist and I passed a man pushing a rather large machine of the sort where visibility is quite limited and he was moving fairly quickly. Just afterwards we heard an older woman crying out as the machine hit her. The poor lady was there due to a recent injury to her hip and she was quite distressed. Fortunately some medical staff came to her aid rather quickly. We arrived at the reception area right at 10:30 so were early as were several other patients. My wait wasn’t terribly long and before I knew it was had been admitted and soon was taken to my room. This was different from my gallbladder surgery last year where I stayed on a bed in a pre-op area and didn’t get a room until after surgery was over. At this point I had no idea when surgery was likely to occur. I was pleased to find my room had a nice view that overlooked the Swan River.

The first person to see me in my room was the physiotherapist who wanted to go over the initial information I needed for after surgery. Apparently our private health insurer is one of the few to cover physio session in the hospital which was good. It never occurred to me that it wouldn’t be so I am glad ours does. Important information I learned in this session:

• I have to wear the brace (actually more of a splint) for four weeks.
• I’m not to bend more than 90 degrees before I reach six weeks.
• I really shouldn’t be doing leg lifts before six weeks but my surgeon usually does start patients on them before then. Surgeon has the final say, of course.
• RICE protocol will be important once home to keep down swelling and prevent infection.
• Several post-op exercise I need to do 3-4 times daily

A nurse came around for some routine checks and said I was still on the morning list for surgery so it shouldn’t be too long. She gave me clothes I needed to change into and left.  After nearly three hours since arrival, the Scientist left me to my surgery as the car needed to be moved and he hoped to get a bit of work done in the afternoon. I spent the remaining time working in a puzzle book I’d brought.

At 2pm, an orderly came to take me to the operating theater. I find the worst part  of this journey is that they wheel you backwards which I find rather disorienting. After lots of twisting and turning I was in the pre-operative area and I thought I’d been left in the middle of the room as there were a couple of bays along the wall I was facing, filled with patients. It wasn’t until we moved out I realised that I was placed up against another wall. While waiting there, a surgeon or anesthetist went to talk to another patient and I noticed he swaggered a bit as he left. A short time later my surgeon came to see me and I saw he was wearing heavy boots so perhaps that was the reason for the swagger of the previous doctor. My anesthetist finally came to see me and asked the usual questions. He was going to inject a nerve block in my groin and some other places in addition to the general anesthetic. He queried me about dry eyes when I mentioned my Sjögren’s syndrome and said they’d put in some drops while I was under to help with post-op dryness. I did have my own drops, brought after a negative experience during my last surgery, but it was good to have some preventative treatment.

I was wheeled into the operating room at about 2:30pm and the anesthetist soon started putting an iv into my arm. My glasses were taken from me and a mask was put over my face as I was told to take some deep breaths. It wasn’t long before I started feeling the effects of the anesthetic and everything seemed to be a bit surreal before I was completely out.

Next thing I knew I was awake and couldn’t see.  As happened last time my glasses seemed to have disappeared during surgery.  I think I came out of the anesthetic much faster this time and there wasn’t the seemingly long wait before anyone attended me again. I was taken back to my room not long after waking and mostly had to just wait for my glasses to be brought to me. I could just make out the time on the large clock and it was now 4:30 so I assume I must have been under for nearly two hours.

Once back in the room I was looked after by two different nurses, each accompanied by a student.  I was given a meal card to complete for dinner and the next day. Eventually my glasses did find their way back and I could see again. I’d been back for an hour or so when I noticed that my left arm with the iv had ballooned on both sides of the iv. Fortunately a nurse appeared just after and was able to remove the iv. I was told a vein must have ruptured and it would be sore and bruised for a few days on that arm. I think it was a couple of hours later I finally had another one placed in my other arm. The swelling had completely settled by this time.

It must have been just before 6pm the Scientist came back to see me because we were going to watch Letters and Numbers at 6pm as is our usual habit on a weeknight. I hadn’t gotten my dinner so I queried the nurse about this and something was brought to me. It seems my order had been misplaced but fortunately they still had the meal I wanted, which was a chicken and leek pie. It was quite good and I had no problem with appetite as occurred last time. I also found I was far more alert at this point than last time. I think the Scientist left after an hour or so and I was on my own for the night.

The rest of the evening was something of a blur of frequent observations by the nursing staff and me watching tv and hoping to nod off at some point. I don’t seem to sleep well after having surgery. The night nurse turned off my light even though I would have like to read or do more crosswords so I was left to watch tv and just veg out. I did eventually feel some drowsiness come over me and turned off the tv in an attempt to get a bit of sleep. I did finally sleep for what I thought was a few hours and woke up later, thinking that morning light should be showing up soon. I waited and waited and couldn’t sleep and light didn’t come. Eventually I put the tv back on to check the time and it was only 4:30am. I watched for a couple minutes then turned it off and tried to get a bit more sleep before the morning noise picked up. I think I got another hour and then woke up as the noise level became too great for sleeping. I watched mindless breakfast tv programs from this time on three of the commercial channels, each as mindless as the other. I did find refuge on the ABC morning program but it became repetitive after a while, being mostly news-based.

The nurse had come around once before 7am to do the usual stuff and then I waited for my breakfast, which was supposed to be served between 7-7:45am. My bladder was feeling full by now and I was waiting to finish breakfast for some relief. But breakfast didn’t come and soon it was the end of the meal period. I rang the nurse and waited ten minutes before ringing again. It was almost another ten minutes when my food finally arrived, well after the scheduled time. The nurse showed up just as I started to eat so my meal was again delayed. Breakfast wasn’t anything special and the highlight was a tub of yogurt.

I was told the physio would be there around 8:30am but it was more like 10 when she got there and found my drain hadn’t been removed so couldn’t get started. She went away and later on a nurse finally came to remove it, only to be called away to handle another patient’s discharge before she got started. She did get back to me eventually and the drain was removed. My iv was removed some time after this and I waited again for the physio.

The physio finally came back just as I’d gotten my lunch. She took me through the process of getting out of bed and using crutches before taking me to a small gym where I practiced going up and down a step. I was then returned my room and ate my lunch.

After seeing the physio I was free to leave when I was ready so I called the Scientist and shared the news. The rest of my time was spent sitting in bed and waiting. I chose to not shower before I left as I was in a hurry to get home. I tried to do more crossword puzzles but found it hard due to poor concentration. Lack of sleep was catching up with me.

The discharge nurse filled out my papers and left for the day. Another nurse was due to bring my discharge medications to me. When that nurse got there, she found only a bottle of strong naproxen in the bag. There should have been some other sort of painkiller too. Stupidly I piped up and said I still had some tramadol from my gallbladder surgery that was good so might be able to get away with that. In hindsight I might have done better to have her sort that our there because my tramadol was pretty limited and it was a long weekend coming up.

The Scientist showed up soon soon with Game Fanatic along for the ride. He was curious to see the hospital, I guess. Lego Lover emphatically didn’t want to come and stayed home. This marks a milestone for him as he’s never stayed home alone before. The Scientist advised a nurse I was ready to leave and she came back with an ordinary wheelchair instead of one meant for orthopedic patients. She’d planned to prop my leg on the footrest with a pillow…not a great idea and not very stable. Sigh…Fortunately this plan was thwarted by another nurse who organised for a proper wheelchair with leg rest and an orderly to wheel me down. Soon I was at the front door and getting into the car rather carefully. It was tricky but my leg did fit into the front seat and we were soon on our way home.