Surgery

Two weeks ago today I was in surgery. It is crazy how quickly the last two weeka have gone, but it seems to have balanced out how slowly the week leading up to surgery went.

I arrived at the hospital at 9am for an 11 am surgery time. Once I completed check in and received my ID bracelet we waited int he waiting room for the nurse to take me back to preop. The preop process involved getting into the gown, having some blood drawn, urine sample, talking to the anesthetic nurse, the surgeon and the anesthesiologist. After I was all settled, they had Tim come back to keep me company. They gave me a mild sedative and I was wheeled back into the operating room. I hopped over to the table and once I laid down, I was out. The next thing I was aware of was just some chaos around me in the recovery room. People checking things and taking of masks, IVs and such. The took me up to my room and Tim was waiting.

The rest of the day just floated in and out, lots of morphine hits (they put you on a pain pump), frequent blood pressure, temp and heart rate tests. They also had massaging leg cuffs on me to keep my circulation going to prevent blood clots. Towards the end of the day, I walked around the floor once to make sure to keep things active and moving. That night was okay- nothing compared to night two! (more on that below). I was in and out most of the night because every hour they come in to either take a measurement, draw blood or whatever. Tim went home around 8 because I was falling asleep on the phone talking to everyone. I didn't want him to stay since there were plenty of other people keeping an eye on me.


I was up around 7 am on day two. I felt pretty good and got up to walk around the floor as soon as Tim arrived. They took me off the leg massage machine and I spent a good chunk of the day in the chair instead of in bed. I also was able to wash my hair in the ink- heaven! I started having some trouble with not producing enough urine (sorry if that is TMI) so they gave me a diuretic and two double doses of fluid (the IV drips twice as fast). Even after that I was still low. The catheter was only working if I stood up, so it made me walk a lot more than I might have. Tim went home at around 8 and I went straight to bed. At about 1am I woke up having to pee the worst I have EVER HAD TO PEE EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE! Which was weird since I had a catheter in. Long story shot, the catheter had stopped working for some unknown reason. The nurse took pity on me and removed it since we hadn't heard back from my surgeon yet.

It was the best pee ever.

The doctor later told me he had only seen that happen twice in his career. Leave it me to have a difficult bladder.

Anyways, the rest of the night went by great since I wasn't in pain anymore. At 6am the doctor/surgeon came to see me and said I was all set to go! By 9:30 we were checked out and one the way home.