Hi there! Remember me? (Warning: very tl;dr)
I've been really horrible about posting this month... just so much to do about getting ready for surgery, I've been too exhausted to write.
Speaking of, the surgery on my nose to fix my deviated septum (and thus my headaches, hopefully *crosses fingers*) went so so well. I LOVED MY DOCTORS. First, the two ENTs were awesome. Dr. Roberts is really nice, incredibly knowledgeable (and very cute, too), and is the senior resident for ENT. I also had Dr. Davis, who is another resident, and was very sweet. The fact that they were able to do so much, with such minimal stuff for me to deal with post-op, is incredible. I feel really lucky to have had them take care of me.
Second, the anesthesia team. Here's the story with that: Last Monday, I went in for my anesthesia consult, where they look over my labs, x-rays, ekg, etc. to make sure I'm healthy enough for surgery, and discuss exactly what will be done. The resident I met... Oy. The first thing she said? "Oh! We're the same age!" Not a good start. I immediately said, "So you're, what, a second year?" She confirmed that she was. "So you've been an anesthesia resident for 9 months?" "Yep!" "Uh huh. *wary*" How do I put this? She was... perky. Way too perky for my taste. I want someone confident and somewhat serious as my anesthesiologist. Sis's anesthesiologist when she had part of her lung removed a couple of years ago said a very interesting thing: "Anesthesia is 98% totally routine and boring as hell. The other 2% is sheer FUCKING terror." I know what can go wrong when under general, and want someone who's seen what can go wrong monitoring me. I told her that I wanted her to make a note that I wanted either an attending in the room or at least a 4th year at my side at all times. She explained that generally, an attending would be there to start the procedure, then an intern or 2nd year would be there for the bulk of the procedure, and the attending would only come back at the end to bring me back out. This was unacceptable to me, since the time when things go wrong is in the middle. I said, "No offense, but if something goes wrong, I want someone in there who can measure their experience in YEARS not months." She tried to reassure me by saying, "Well, the attendings' offices are only just down the hall, we have their phone numbers, and they can be there in about 20 seconds." My thought? "Yes, but that's 20 seconds of oxygen deprivation I don't want." She said she'd make a note about my request, but seemed to kind of blow me off. She then consulted with her attending, when I mentioned that I was having some PVCs (premature ventricular contraction - basically, when your heart tries to beat ahead of its normal rhythm. Everyone gets them from time to time. It feels like a pause, then a large thump, and then back to its normal rhythm), and my vitals that day were a pulse of 120 and bp of 140/80. The attending told her to send me over to internal medicine to see about putting me on a beta blocker to keep my blood pressure and pulse lower for the week prior to surgery, so I wouldn't come in with those vitals the day of surgery. I explained to this girl that I had been on beta blockers before, and I was sensitive enough to them that my blood pressure would drop so much that I'd be constantly woozy. Not good when you live in a house with stairs. She still insisted that I see the docs at the clinic the next day. I mulled over this recommendation that Monday night with Mom. The more I talked, the more anxious I got about what that 2nd year would do with my requests. So, last Tuesday morning, I called the pre-op clinic and asked to talk to the attending, so I could explain what I was thinking with regard to the beta blockers, and reiterate my request to have experienced people monitoring me during the procedure. An hour later, I received a phone call. From the chief of anesthesia. Her name is Dr. Raty (pronounced ray-tee) and she is AWESOME. A.W.E.S.O.M.E. She listened to my feelings about coming in to the clinic - something I was loathe to do since it meant a long commute, a possibility of catching a cold/infection just by sitting in that waiting room, and a waste of time since I'd just refuse to take any beta blocker prescribed. She said that she understood and told me that what they would do would be to use a short-acting beta blocker to bring my heart rate and bp down if necessary on the day of, with the caveat that I needed to know I'd be super-woozy afterward. I said that that was fine, since I was anticipating being woozy from the post-op pain meds, so a little more wooziness wasn't a problem. As we talked a little bit more she said something fantastic. "You know what? Since we've talked, I'm going to work my schedule so I can be on your case." My prayers for God to take care of me were answered with that sentence. And she did! She called me a little later on that afternoon to let me know that she'd gotten together with Dr. Roberts and I was to be the first case of the day so she could be the attending. She also said that she was going to make sure that whoever was scheduled to assist her would be either an experienced resident, or a good CRNA (nurse anesthetist).
The day of surgery, I was actually rather chill. I had a ton of people praying for me, and I had been able to really hand over control to God. I got to the point Monday night as I was trying to sleep of realizing that there was nothing more I could do to control the situation, and I just had to trust in God and the doctors to take care of me. The CRNA, Dennis, was fabulous. Very calm, very experienced (he said he'd been doing this for roughly a decade), and cute enough that Sis flirted with him A TON. I gave her shit for flirting with my nurse while I was being prepped for surgery. She jokingly flipped me off. (She literally said, "Oooh, what's your tattoo of? I have one in the same spot." *exposes arm*) I agree with her, though. He was really cute. When I finally met Dr. Raty in person, she was everything I expected. She was very friendly, sweet, and you could just feel the intelligence radiating off of her. She laughed with me, saying that in all of her 20 years at that hospital - the main one that serves all of us either on the county system, or homeless/uninsured - I was the first one who had requested her. She also said that Dennis was her "favorite" to work with, which made me feel even better about all of those who were going to be there with me in the OR.
Recovery was rather a different story, however. The two post-op nurses didn't follow the same standard as the rest of the staff. The charge nurse was a controlling, rule nazi, ass. Cranky doesn't even begin to describe this guy. Dr. Davis went out and got Mom as I was waking up. This guy, Danny, immediately told Mom that she needed to leave, because she wasn't allowed back there. She started to object. He started to argue with her. I looked him in the eye and said, "She's my mother and she's a NURSE. She knows how to get out of the way should you need to get to me. Also, I WANT HER IN HERE." He acquiesced while grumbling that he was making an exception and that now ALL of the patients will want their family members back in recovery. I felt rather, And that's my problem HOW? The second nurse I was given was the BIGGEST IDIOT OF ALL TIME. My nose was dripping blood - which wasn't surprising, considering. I was sitting up, holding a gauze pad under my nose to catch the drips. She walked by and told me to pinch! All three of us - Mom, Sis, and I - immediately said, "Um, NO. Just had surgery! Can't pinch!" She still tried to convince me to put pressure to stop the bleeding. Then, as I was getting ready to leave, she suggested that we tape a piece of gauze under my nose to catch the drips without me needing to hold something there. The first pad she made was triangle-shaped. She tried to put it on my face, with the point up and pushing on my nostrils. PAIN! I told her that it needed to be a rectangle and just sit below. She then just folded a 4x4 gauze pad in half, and tried to tape that to my face. Of course, this covered my mouth, too. I immediately ripped that off and asked her to just give me a piece of tape and another gauze pad. I folded it up so it was 1"x4" so it would only cover my upper lip and catch all of the drips. This is what she should have done in the first place, had she had a brain. I feel really really good 2 days post-op. I was anticipating a month ago what most people go through after rhino work - gauze packing up in the nose, bruising, black eyes, swelling, etc. (See the post from March 15.) What I have? Two tiny splints inside of my nose to keep my septum from re-deviating now that they have it all straightened out, but that's it. I don't look like I just had people spend over an hour working on my face AT ALL. I'm just astonished. And, with a little vicodin on a fairly regular basis, I'm only uncomfortable because I feel like I have a bad head cold - the snotty, congested feeling. I'm still really active, when I thought I'd be basically stuck on the couch in pain at this point.
We finally got Monsieur fixed. The poor guy got hormonal enough that when Bandit started to go into heat, he started trying to tap that. Which is a total no-no. We decided to let him live in the living room with Cole while we were waiting to get him to the vet for surgery. He's such a well-behaved kitten. He doesn't jump up on counters or tear up anything. He's become super-clingy. He will follow you up and down the stairs. He's one of those cats that winds around your legs as you walk so you're constantly tripping. He's so fuzzy!! His tail alone is about 4" wide. He's so cute, and so so sweet. I finally got a picture! (Click the thumbnails to embiggen.)
Cole, as soon as I settled down on the couch when I got home Tuesday afternoon, jumped up and cuddled with me. Every now and then, he'd wake me up with a soft "meow?" and a nudge with a paw, just to make sure I could wake up. He's a good kitty nurse. Monsieur is annoying the crap out of Cole right now. Monsieur has become rather possessive of me, and will hiss at Cole if Cole comes near or jumps on the bed when Monsieur is already there. I keep snapping my fingers at Monsieur when he does that. He needs to learn that Cole has seniority.
Anything else happening.... Um... Those are the big things. I'm hoping that I'll be well enough to go to Easter Mass. We'll see. If I'm still this congested Sunday, it would be rather silly to go. I've got that stuffy nose "d"-for-"n" sound thing going. I don't know if it'd be all that great to say, "Our Father, who ard id Heaved..."
Now to lie down again. And more vicodin! Woo!
Speaking of, the surgery on my nose to fix my deviated septum (and thus my headaches, hopefully *crosses fingers*) went so so well. I LOVED MY DOCTORS. First, the two ENTs were awesome. Dr. Roberts is really nice, incredibly knowledgeable (and very cute, too), and is the senior resident for ENT. I also had Dr. Davis, who is another resident, and was very sweet. The fact that they were able to do so much, with such minimal stuff for me to deal with post-op, is incredible. I feel really lucky to have had them take care of me.
Second, the anesthesia team. Here's the story with that: Last Monday, I went in for my anesthesia consult, where they look over my labs, x-rays, ekg, etc. to make sure I'm healthy enough for surgery, and discuss exactly what will be done. The resident I met... Oy. The first thing she said? "Oh! We're the same age!" Not a good start. I immediately said, "So you're, what, a second year?" She confirmed that she was. "So you've been an anesthesia resident for 9 months?" "Yep!" "Uh huh. *wary*" How do I put this? She was... perky. Way too perky for my taste. I want someone confident and somewhat serious as my anesthesiologist. Sis's anesthesiologist when she had part of her lung removed a couple of years ago said a very interesting thing: "Anesthesia is 98% totally routine and boring as hell. The other 2% is sheer FUCKING terror." I know what can go wrong when under general, and want someone who's seen what can go wrong monitoring me. I told her that I wanted her to make a note that I wanted either an attending in the room or at least a 4th year at my side at all times. She explained that generally, an attending would be there to start the procedure, then an intern or 2nd year would be there for the bulk of the procedure, and the attending would only come back at the end to bring me back out. This was unacceptable to me, since the time when things go wrong is in the middle. I said, "No offense, but if something goes wrong, I want someone in there who can measure their experience in YEARS not months." She tried to reassure me by saying, "Well, the attendings' offices are only just down the hall, we have their phone numbers, and they can be there in about 20 seconds." My thought? "Yes, but that's 20 seconds of oxygen deprivation I don't want." She said she'd make a note about my request, but seemed to kind of blow me off. She then consulted with her attending, when I mentioned that I was having some PVCs (premature ventricular contraction - basically, when your heart tries to beat ahead of its normal rhythm. Everyone gets them from time to time. It feels like a pause, then a large thump, and then back to its normal rhythm), and my vitals that day were a pulse of 120 and bp of 140/80. The attending told her to send me over to internal medicine to see about putting me on a beta blocker to keep my blood pressure and pulse lower for the week prior to surgery, so I wouldn't come in with those vitals the day of surgery. I explained to this girl that I had been on beta blockers before, and I was sensitive enough to them that my blood pressure would drop so much that I'd be constantly woozy. Not good when you live in a house with stairs. She still insisted that I see the docs at the clinic the next day. I mulled over this recommendation that Monday night with Mom. The more I talked, the more anxious I got about what that 2nd year would do with my requests. So, last Tuesday morning, I called the pre-op clinic and asked to talk to the attending, so I could explain what I was thinking with regard to the beta blockers, and reiterate my request to have experienced people monitoring me during the procedure. An hour later, I received a phone call. From the chief of anesthesia. Her name is Dr. Raty (pronounced ray-tee) and she is AWESOME. A.W.E.S.O.M.E. She listened to my feelings about coming in to the clinic - something I was loathe to do since it meant a long commute, a possibility of catching a cold/infection just by sitting in that waiting room, and a waste of time since I'd just refuse to take any beta blocker prescribed. She said that she understood and told me that what they would do would be to use a short-acting beta blocker to bring my heart rate and bp down if necessary on the day of, with the caveat that I needed to know I'd be super-woozy afterward. I said that that was fine, since I was anticipating being woozy from the post-op pain meds, so a little more wooziness wasn't a problem. As we talked a little bit more she said something fantastic. "You know what? Since we've talked, I'm going to work my schedule so I can be on your case." My prayers for God to take care of me were answered with that sentence. And she did! She called me a little later on that afternoon to let me know that she'd gotten together with Dr. Roberts and I was to be the first case of the day so she could be the attending. She also said that she was going to make sure that whoever was scheduled to assist her would be either an experienced resident, or a good CRNA (nurse anesthetist).
The day of surgery, I was actually rather chill. I had a ton of people praying for me, and I had been able to really hand over control to God. I got to the point Monday night as I was trying to sleep of realizing that there was nothing more I could do to control the situation, and I just had to trust in God and the doctors to take care of me. The CRNA, Dennis, was fabulous. Very calm, very experienced (he said he'd been doing this for roughly a decade), and cute enough that Sis flirted with him A TON. I gave her shit for flirting with my nurse while I was being prepped for surgery. She jokingly flipped me off. (She literally said, "Oooh, what's your tattoo of? I have one in the same spot." *exposes arm*) I agree with her, though. He was really cute. When I finally met Dr. Raty in person, she was everything I expected. She was very friendly, sweet, and you could just feel the intelligence radiating off of her. She laughed with me, saying that in all of her 20 years at that hospital - the main one that serves all of us either on the county system, or homeless/uninsured - I was the first one who had requested her. She also said that Dennis was her "favorite" to work with, which made me feel even better about all of those who were going to be there with me in the OR.
Recovery was rather a different story, however. The two post-op nurses didn't follow the same standard as the rest of the staff. The charge nurse was a controlling, rule nazi, ass. Cranky doesn't even begin to describe this guy. Dr. Davis went out and got Mom as I was waking up. This guy, Danny, immediately told Mom that she needed to leave, because she wasn't allowed back there. She started to object. He started to argue with her. I looked him in the eye and said, "She's my mother and she's a NURSE. She knows how to get out of the way should you need to get to me. Also, I WANT HER IN HERE." He acquiesced while grumbling that he was making an exception and that now ALL of the patients will want their family members back in recovery. I felt rather, And that's my problem HOW? The second nurse I was given was the BIGGEST IDIOT OF ALL TIME. My nose was dripping blood - which wasn't surprising, considering. I was sitting up, holding a gauze pad under my nose to catch the drips. She walked by and told me to pinch! All three of us - Mom, Sis, and I - immediately said, "Um, NO. Just had surgery! Can't pinch!" She still tried to convince me to put pressure to stop the bleeding. Then, as I was getting ready to leave, she suggested that we tape a piece of gauze under my nose to catch the drips without me needing to hold something there. The first pad she made was triangle-shaped. She tried to put it on my face, with the point up and pushing on my nostrils. PAIN! I told her that it needed to be a rectangle and just sit below. She then just folded a 4x4 gauze pad in half, and tried to tape that to my face. Of course, this covered my mouth, too. I immediately ripped that off and asked her to just give me a piece of tape and another gauze pad. I folded it up so it was 1"x4" so it would only cover my upper lip and catch all of the drips. This is what she should have done in the first place, had she had a brain. I feel really really good 2 days post-op. I was anticipating a month ago what most people go through after rhino work - gauze packing up in the nose, bruising, black eyes, swelling, etc. (See the post from March 15.) What I have? Two tiny splints inside of my nose to keep my septum from re-deviating now that they have it all straightened out, but that's it. I don't look like I just had people spend over an hour working on my face AT ALL. I'm just astonished. And, with a little vicodin on a fairly regular basis, I'm only uncomfortable because I feel like I have a bad head cold - the snotty, congested feeling. I'm still really active, when I thought I'd be basically stuck on the couch in pain at this point.
We finally got Monsieur fixed. The poor guy got hormonal enough that when Bandit started to go into heat, he started trying to tap that. Which is a total no-no. We decided to let him live in the living room with Cole while we were waiting to get him to the vet for surgery. He's such a well-behaved kitten. He doesn't jump up on counters or tear up anything. He's become super-clingy. He will follow you up and down the stairs. He's one of those cats that winds around your legs as you walk so you're constantly tripping. He's so fuzzy!! His tail alone is about 4" wide. He's so cute, and so so sweet. I finally got a picture! (Click the thumbnails to embiggen.)
Cole, as soon as I settled down on the couch when I got home Tuesday afternoon, jumped up and cuddled with me. Every now and then, he'd wake me up with a soft "meow?" and a nudge with a paw, just to make sure I could wake up. He's a good kitty nurse. Monsieur is annoying the crap out of Cole right now. Monsieur has become rather possessive of me, and will hiss at Cole if Cole comes near or jumps on the bed when Monsieur is already there. I keep snapping my fingers at Monsieur when he does that. He needs to learn that Cole has seniority.
Anything else happening.... Um... Those are the big things. I'm hoping that I'll be well enough to go to Easter Mass. We'll see. If I'm still this congested Sunday, it would be rather silly to go. I've got that stuffy nose "d"-for-"n" sound thing going. I don't know if it'd be all that great to say, "Our Father, who ard id Heaved..."
Now to lie down again. And more vicodin! Woo!