I want to thank you for all the wonderful well wishes and thank you’s. It is so nice to read.
I didn’t want to have surgery. In fact I put it off for almost a year. But it was getting to the point where I couldn’t even lift a coffee pot without pain. My doctor told me I would be off work 8 to14 weeks or longer. I told him he has 7 ½ weeks to get me better (9 ½ including Christmas break.) That’s all my vacation time, my sick days, and personal days until 2011.
So, the night before surgery I’m reading my dos and don’ts. Do not eat or drink after midnight. I know why, but my surgery was scheduled for 11:30. I am usually eating lunch by this time. Wash with anti-bacterial soap. The only anti-bacterial soap I had was Ajax Orange dish washing soap. I figured it was better than nothing. That was a new one for the nurses.
The day of surgery they are trying to put an IV in me. I told them that I was a hard stick and to get the professional. Oh no, did they listen? The first stick found a vein (after wiggling around) but it wouldn’t go back up, vein was to small. They took it out, slapped gauze on it, and had me lift my arm to hold it in place. They were going to get Chico, he’s the one they use when there is a hard stick. (Didn’t I just tell them I was a hard stick?!) So Chico comes in. He wants to see where they stuck me, so I held out my arm. Blood came gushing out, Chico was frantically looking for gloves. I would have laughed out loud if it wasn’t me bleeding all over the place. He did get the bleeding to stop. So he’s looking at my arm looking for a new vein to poke. Just not my hand, others have tried before and doesn’t work so well, plus it hurts like h*ll! He goes for my hand. Again the vein was found, and again it wouldn’t go back up. NOW they are going to call in the professional, this is all she does all day. (It’s probably because she has to practice!) Her first poke was behind my arm. After that wouldn’t work, she ask the doctor if she could use a smaller needle as I was a hard stick. (No kidding!) Ok the 4th and last stick was in the bend of my elbow. This meant I could not bend my elbow. Keep this in mind.
I wake up and after a couple of hours in the recovery room, I was wheeled to my room that I would have for the night. My sister was suppose to be there, but they couldn’t find her. They gave her the wrong pager. My sister finally made it to the room and helped me call my daughters. My oldest daughter moved to Chicago in August with a new job. She could only get 3 days off, so we decided the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday after surgery so she could take care of me until my youngest was thru with finals and had 3 weeks off before school began again.
The nurses put a button in my hand and told me it was morphine, and that I could control my pain medicine, just push the button. It would only go off every ten minutes. It is now 3 o’clock in the afternoon and I am starved. I was surprised that I was allowed anything on the menu. I should have stuck with liquids. Just before the food came my sister decides to go get my overnite case (in her truck) and have a cigarette break. As soon as she left, my food arrived. Coffee, ham and cheese omelet and cheetoes. All I could do was look at it and smell it. I couldn’t eat it. My right arm was in a sling and numb and my left arm had an IV in it and I couldn’t bend my elbow to feed myself! After about 15 minutes I decided to see how far my elbow could bend. I figured with the morphine it wouldn’t hurt to bad. I got about 2 spoonfuls of food in my mouth before the warning buzzer came on, telling me and the nurses I shouldn’t be doing that. OK so do you think I cold get someone to help feed me then? They will send someone right in. My sister showed up half an hour later and fed me.
The rest of my night didn’t go so well, mostly because I couldn’t bend my elbow. Even if I bent it a little bit (in my sleep) the (loud) buzzer went off. The morphine was also making me sick, so they had to take me off the good stuff. If you have read this far, then I think you deserve another free file. This is the snowman before he melted. Download here. The nurses would wake me up every couple hours to check my vitals, but they wouldn’t wake me up when it was time to take my pain meds. They also had to take my blood pressure down by my ankle and calves.
I went home the next morning and my girls have been taking care of me since then. I thank God for them every day, because of them I am healing fast. My doctor says I am doing really good. They removed the staples and sling. I can move my arm at the elbow, but not the shoulder. I have some home exercises, but hopefully I go to therapy soon. Then back to work before all my vacation time is used :)
Well, that’s all for today. Hope you all have a great new year, Rita :)
