Look out, she's got a knife.
Wednesday a woman from the hospital called me at work and took a very thorough medical history for the anesthesia, other than that there was no real lead-up.
Got to the hospital, checked in a little before 10am, waited around in the surgical holding area - not a reassuring name. After about an hour they sent Tyler and me back to a waiting room. Everything was a little confused, since it was the first week this team was working in this hospital, so there was disorganization throughout. A nurse took some blood, gave me a gown, started an IV and settled me into my gurney. Apparently the anesthesiologist insisted on a day-of-surgery pregnancy test even though the one from a week ago was negative. I never actually heard, but I assume it was clear. The surgeon came in and talked to us for a few minutes. I like her a lot, despite the part where she cut my knee up. She talked us through some of the post-op procedure and then took off for the OR.
After some more waiting, the anesthesiologist decided that there was a miscommunication, they should have been called, and we should all just head down to the OR and see what was up there. Halfway there she leaned over and said 'I'm going to give you something to relax you' I said I was actually pretty relaxed. She laughed and pushed some liquid into my IV tube. A few seconds later I was unable to see straight. At that point there was some kind of kerfluffle, and I heard Tyler arguing with someone, then he rushed up and kissed me, and then disappeared. Apparently we passed the 'hospital personnel only' line before he got a chance to say goodbye to me and someone tried to deter him.
The OR looked much more utilitarian than the ones on TV. My impression was that the guiding design principle was 'easy to sterilize.' There's something about a room with a drain... Anyway. Once we got there everyone was ready to go. The surgeon asked me some questions and talked to me, but I was sufficiently 'relaxed' that I don't really remember.
Woke up in post-op, shivering and surrounded by nurses. My heart rate was apparently pretty high, and it took them a little while to get it back down, and to get me warm enough to stop my teeth from chattering. Once I could sit up they let Tyler in, and he sat with me for another couple hours while I got over the nausea enough to eat some saltines. (It took medicine.) Then a guy came in to show me how to use the crutches and several people asked me questions I wasn't really tracking. Just about twelve hours after we got there, they wheeled me out and Tyler drove me home.
I was pretty out of it coming home, but I managed to get up the stairs on crutches and into bed without too much pain. Tyler got me all settled in on the futon in the living room, since our bed is just a mattress on the floor, and that's not really workable with one immobilized leg. I was supposed to get a hard brace, but because of the confusion with the hospital there wasn't one available, so until my follow up appointment I have a foam immobilizer velcro'd over the surgical dressing to keep me from bending my knee at all. The dressing on the knee is actually pretty neat, in includes a water pack hooked up to a cooler full of ice to keep cold water circulating around the wound so the swelling stays down. You can unplug the tubes so you can get up.
Friday the nerve block wore off and, well, it hurts. It shouldn't be surprising that getting your knee cut open and having holes drilled into your bones and then having corpse tissue grafted into them would hurt. But it hurt a lot.
Saturday Tyler went to work and Heather and Jessica came over and spent the day with me. I don't think I was particularly entertaining company, but I had upped the dosage on the painkillers enough that I managed not to cry on them at all. Today the combination of the pain, the painkillers and irregular meals meant I spent some time throwing up in a bucket. Not the best day I've ever had.
Turning point (I hope) today was when I unwrapped the dressing. (Backing up, we didn't get actual post-op instructions from the surgeon. She gave us some general guidelines, and I felt okay about them, but then everyone else at the hospital kept asking about the instruction sheet we were supposed to get. She didn't return calls Friday, and the supposed 24/7 advice nurse line isn't picking up. But she did say to take the dressing off after two days, and I looked up some protocols on the internet.) Snipped and soaked off all the blood-soaked gauze and tape and replaced it with a couple of appropriately-sized waterproof band-aids and a fresh wrap of gauze. It feels a whole lot more comfortable now, especially since I can take the water pack off when I need to get up. And I feel better now that I've seen my leg. It's very swollen, and cut open in several places, but it looks mostly like a leg. Like something you recover from.
Next spring I'm going hiking a lot.
Got to the hospital, checked in a little before 10am, waited around in the surgical holding area - not a reassuring name. After about an hour they sent Tyler and me back to a waiting room. Everything was a little confused, since it was the first week this team was working in this hospital, so there was disorganization throughout. A nurse took some blood, gave me a gown, started an IV and settled me into my gurney. Apparently the anesthesiologist insisted on a day-of-surgery pregnancy test even though the one from a week ago was negative. I never actually heard, but I assume it was clear. The surgeon came in and talked to us for a few minutes. I like her a lot, despite the part where she cut my knee up. She talked us through some of the post-op procedure and then took off for the OR.
After some more waiting, the anesthesiologist decided that there was a miscommunication, they should have been called, and we should all just head down to the OR and see what was up there. Halfway there she leaned over and said 'I'm going to give you something to relax you' I said I was actually pretty relaxed. She laughed and pushed some liquid into my IV tube. A few seconds later I was unable to see straight. At that point there was some kind of kerfluffle, and I heard Tyler arguing with someone, then he rushed up and kissed me, and then disappeared. Apparently we passed the 'hospital personnel only' line before he got a chance to say goodbye to me and someone tried to deter him.
The OR looked much more utilitarian than the ones on TV. My impression was that the guiding design principle was 'easy to sterilize.' There's something about a room with a drain... Anyway. Once we got there everyone was ready to go. The surgeon asked me some questions and talked to me, but I was sufficiently 'relaxed' that I don't really remember.
Woke up in post-op, shivering and surrounded by nurses. My heart rate was apparently pretty high, and it took them a little while to get it back down, and to get me warm enough to stop my teeth from chattering. Once I could sit up they let Tyler in, and he sat with me for another couple hours while I got over the nausea enough to eat some saltines. (It took medicine.) Then a guy came in to show me how to use the crutches and several people asked me questions I wasn't really tracking. Just about twelve hours after we got there, they wheeled me out and Tyler drove me home.
I was pretty out of it coming home, but I managed to get up the stairs on crutches and into bed without too much pain. Tyler got me all settled in on the futon in the living room, since our bed is just a mattress on the floor, and that's not really workable with one immobilized leg. I was supposed to get a hard brace, but because of the confusion with the hospital there wasn't one available, so until my follow up appointment I have a foam immobilizer velcro'd over the surgical dressing to keep me from bending my knee at all. The dressing on the knee is actually pretty neat, in includes a water pack hooked up to a cooler full of ice to keep cold water circulating around the wound so the swelling stays down. You can unplug the tubes so you can get up.
Friday the nerve block wore off and, well, it hurts. It shouldn't be surprising that getting your knee cut open and having holes drilled into your bones and then having corpse tissue grafted into them would hurt. But it hurt a lot.
Saturday Tyler went to work and Heather and Jessica came over and spent the day with me. I don't think I was particularly entertaining company, but I had upped the dosage on the painkillers enough that I managed not to cry on them at all. Today the combination of the pain, the painkillers and irregular meals meant I spent some time throwing up in a bucket. Not the best day I've ever had.
Turning point (I hope) today was when I unwrapped the dressing. (Backing up, we didn't get actual post-op instructions from the surgeon. She gave us some general guidelines, and I felt okay about them, but then everyone else at the hospital kept asking about the instruction sheet we were supposed to get. She didn't return calls Friday, and the supposed 24/7 advice nurse line isn't picking up. But she did say to take the dressing off after two days, and I looked up some protocols on the internet.) Snipped and soaked off all the blood-soaked gauze and tape and replaced it with a couple of appropriately-sized waterproof band-aids and a fresh wrap of gauze. It feels a whole lot more comfortable now, especially since I can take the water pack off when I need to get up. And I feel better now that I've seen my leg. It's very swollen, and cut open in several places, but it looks mostly like a leg. Like something you recover from.
Next spring I'm going hiking a lot.