My surgery

bruise101
Originally uploaded by bookworm91770.

Mom convinced me to go ahead and have my surgery done on Tuesday. Dad had stabilized, and I was scheduled to be there at 10:30. Even assuming they didn’t start the surgery until 12:00, I should have been out of there by 1:00, and back at the hospital by 3:00. 4:00 at the latest.

We arrived, and they took me back and took a little more history, then started my IV. They let Chris come back and sit with me. After a little while, the doctor came by and told us they had booked 2 rooms, but only got 1, so they were running a little behind and it would be another hour or so. So we waited. And waited. And waited. We never saw anyone, no one told us what was going on, we just waited. About 2:00, the anesthesiologist assistant came by to ask some more questions, and told us that my potassium was too low, so they were going to draw some more blood to test it again, and that if it was still low, they might not even do the surgery.

We had a couple of problems with that. Mostly: They couldn’t tell us that when we got there this morning and had us do the blood work then, and if it was too low reschedule me for a later date? And, THEY COULDN’T TELL US THAT 3 ½ HOURS AGO?

While he’s telling me this, the lab lady shows up to draw the blood. I don’t like needles, so I always turn my head while they are sticking me. I have one good vein for getting blood from, but it’s in my right arm, and that’s where the IV was, so she couldn’t draw blood from that arm. I have no idea which is a good vein in my left arm, I just assumed that she would find one. Next thing I know, it feels like she’s stuck a spike in my arm, so I turn to look and she’s not getting any blood out of it. So she pulls it halfway out and repositions it. She did that three times, each time hurt a little worse, then on the fourth time I about came out of the chair. “Oh my God, what are you doing to me?” It felt like she had ripped my vein in half – a very sharp pain. Chris came out of his chair and said something to her and I was crying so she pulled the needle out of my arm and bandaged it up. She disappeared for a few minutes, then came back with one of those little butterfly needles, poked my hand and that easily got the blood she needed.

Poor Chris, I cried for the next hour. It wasn’t my arm so much, though it did (and still does) hurt. I guess with Dad, and the stress of the surgery, and waiting all day, once I started crying I just couldn’t stop. I told Chris I was ready to go home. Forget the surgery, we’ll come up with the money somehow, I just wanted to be home. Right about then, the doctor came by and said they were prepping the OR for me.

From there on it was smooth sailing. I went into the OR, talked to the anesthesiologist for a minute, and the next thing I know I’m in recovery and they are handing me a glass of ice water. Heaven is…a glass of ice water after almost 16 hours of nothing except for an IV. They got me dressed, handed me some drugs and wheeled me out to the truck, where the very first thing Chris handed me was a lit cigarette! I love that man.

I didn’t, and haven’t had any pain. There’s been no bleeding. Chris has been over-protective, when we got to the hospital to see Dad, he made me wait until he got a wheelchair and he wheeled me around. He won’t let me do anything, every time I get up he gets onto me and goes to get whatever I was after. Apparently they put a tube down my throat, that and my arm has hurt worse than anything else. They gave me Tylenol 3, which I’ve taken a few of today for my throat. I’ve actually got a nice little buzz going on right now, vision is just a little blurred, feeling pretty good.

The above was written last night, but posted today. I'm not going to go thru and update all of the days, so there.

I’m back at work today. I missed class this week, and I had a test last night that I’m going to have to make up before class on Monday. We’re meeting with the nursing home tomorrow to discuss things. We have a list of questions to ask them, and we have to make sure that what went wrong this time isn’t going to happen again. We’ve all agreed that the nursing home has taken good care of him up to now and they know him and his quirks, and that if possible, it’s in Dad’s best interest to keep him in familiar surroundings.