Monday, September 22, 2008

Home time and recovery

I am at home one more day today, I have to get a medical release to go back to work from my doc's office, for my Boss.

Well, I have to say that the whole thing has had it's ups and downs- i was pretty nervous going into the procedure. the night before the surgery I had to put on a anti motion sickness patch, I will tell you why this was critical in a few moments. I did this following the directions, it resided behind my ear.

the morning of the surgery, I was at the hospital a little after 7:00 am but didn't get up to the room on the 5th floor until about 8:00 am too late to be the first one in the surgery suite. I got to go second. The NP Renee and the nurse Christa where there and got me ready to go and consented me by telling me all the awful things that might happen as a result of having the surgery. the poor nurse need to start an Iv and that didn't go so well on the right arm as that vein "looks great" but never gives any blood- it is now one big bruise- so left arm and more talk about all the things I needed to know. the IV went fine in this arm and we were getting there. at 9:30 or so I got wheeled to another floor for the surgery. Nice nurses here too, Jackie I think was at the head of the table with me, What ever they gave me made the whole room begin to roll - thus the motion sickness patch....!!!!! - a life saver I am sure other wise it would have been gag city with dry heaves. they shaved a spot on my right side groin and then there was a pinch and pressure. Then the rest of the procedure was alot of lights on and lights off and warm feeling in my abdomen ( the dye) alot of the Dr. telling me to hold my breath and then to breath! and then it was done?? it seemed to go by pretty fast.
According to S it was about 1 1/2 hours overall. but it seemed to take less time then that. I then went to the recovery room on the 5th floor with nurse Christa- she hooked me up tot he PCA and let me start dosing ? at some point. S finally left to go into work about 12:30 pm and at that point I was pretty out of it. I was in some major pain for a while then... cramping and fevery and moaning. I wanted to drink but had to remain laying still for quite a while after the procedure was finished.
Later on in the afternoon Christa took me to the 3rd floor for my 23 hour observation! I had my C-pap machine with me, but was not coherent enough to hook that up. so I was in and out of it for quite a while then. They took the Foley catheter out prior to moving me to the observation. That was a good thing, I was getting some kind of drug that didn't really let me go pee for a while. but I tried. Tuesday night S brought Hh to the hospital and they visited with me, we managed to get a pulmunology nurse to come hook my c-pap machine up with oxygen and that helped me actually get some rest. I had a rough night but not a huge pain med need. I had one vomiting episode ( with my iced tea at dinner) and then they gave me a couple does of toroidal to help not do that anymore. my BP remained high for quite sometime after the surgery and into the recovery. That was a little scary but i was in a lot of pain and had a lot of stress.
I felt much better after the 24 hour mark on Wed morning about 9:00 am or so, and S and Hh came to get me to take me home after 10:30 we had to wait quite a while for discharge orders. we got home about 1:00 pm or so on Wed. I have been convalescing since then.

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