Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Hospital time....

10 days after surgery.... I am surprised at how much I can do!! I can sit at the computer long enough to check e-mail, play games and attend to this blog thing... which we all know I am horrible at doing!!
My first two thoughts waking from surgery were I couldn't get warm, and the oxygen up my nose hurt!!! Very strange everyone asking me to wiggle toes, did I know where I was, wiggle toes again.
Pretty quickly got moved to my room. Delighted that it was private! And that I stayed in the bed I was in! Chris looked happy to see me, I know he was worried. Nurses came in, set up and explained the pain pump. Also explained the other options. Dilaudid was the shit! Don't remember a lot of that day or night.
Next morning sadly my morphine pump was capped off and taken away and got my last injection of dilaudid. But that was then replaced with percosets... Yay!! Dressing was changed, and when I saw all the layers no wonder I couldn't even wiggle my knee! Those staples are scary looking. Late morning, they got me out of bed and I walked an amazing 12 steps! Sat in my recliner and had lunch. Someone from anesthesia showed up to remove the epidural. The worst was all the tape coming off. Didn't realize until later how many welts were on my back from that.
My nurse said she would remove the foley before my afternoon rehab class. But tech Dan insisted I go with it still in! Yuck it was uncomfortable. Class was tough, had to do lift knee and bend it.. OUCH but going to push it! Then more walking, and learning stairs. Walked back to my room, and finally got the foley out... good and bad because from that point on I had to get up and walk to the bathroom.
The food in the hospital was interesting. Breakfast both days was really good, eggs cooked perfectly. Lunch was good on Saturday, but it's hard to mess up a grilled cheese. Pot roast was horrible!!!! Chris got me a hoagie (he got a cheesesteak) but apparently the place had no idea how to make either! He got me snackies for the evening, and he went to get some rest.
I got forgotten when it was time for my pain meds... ended up in a lot of pain, with nausea right around shift change. After I got taken care of, I got back in bed, and finally slept, and slept!
Sunday morning got the good news from the doc that I could go home!!! Went to my morning rehab class. Found out my walker would be delivered around 2, decided to wait to leave until I took meds at 3. And yes by 3:30 we were on the way home!!

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