Day 13 after surgery

WOW!!! This has been much more of a "punch" than I ever imagined it would be.  I cannot believe it has taken me this long to even get on the computer for more than 30 seconds.  I HAD to get on to pay some bills at one point, and just never felt like looking at emails, or blogging.  But here it is...day 13 and I'M BACK!!!!

First of all, during surgery, I had a general anesthesia and an epidural and the epidural didn't take AT ALL.  So, after surgery, I was in tremendous pain....once everyone realized I was getting nothing from the epidural, they started a morphine pump and the pain was eased to a great degree.  The doctor said that the surgery was a success and everything looked great.  Except for the nausea and pain in my knees and a general all over yukky feeling, I thought things were going fine.  Then they noticed that my foley cathether (for urine) wasn't producing anything.  They said my kidneys had shut down.  After a bit of scrambling, they gave me 2 units of blood and the urine started up.  My kidneys were ok.  

They took me to a room and for the next 2 days I was totally and completely out of it.  I hallucinated all the time and quite frankly, was very confused about what was happening.  Quite an elaborate imagination was running through my head and I hardly even recognized anyone.  They said I needed more blood and couldn't find a vein, after dozens of tries and my one available arm black and blue, they called in the people from anesthesia to put in a "line" for blood transfusions.  They ended up putting that line between my FINGERS.  I've never heard of that before, but that's what they did.

I was examined by Internal Medicine, because apparently I had a very low respiration and a very high heart rate.  The fear was a blood clot.  They sent me to X ray Dept to have some sort of scan.  They said they couldn't do a CT Scan because of the fears they still had with my kidneys, but the scan they were going to do required that I lay on this table completely flat for an HOUR!!! after 15 minutes, I could not tolerate it any longer, the pain was unbearable and the pain was in my BACK.  Having to lay totally straight was just something I could not do. I asked for a pillow, the technician said I couldn't use a pillow.  This was the straw that broke the  camels back ( ha, no pun intended)......I had the test stop and they took me back to my room.  At this point, seems like all they did for the next day was draw blood and give me IV's.  

I started manually drinking a lot of water. I forced myself to drink plenty and by now the catheter was out and I was peeing regularly.  STILL, they came in with the bags of saline. I asked why and they said it was necessary.  I didn't believe it.  By this time, it is day 4 and I WANT TO GO HOME.  

My ortho agreed that I could go home the next day.  Internal Medicine wanted me to stay and still have whatever that test was that I had to lay still for an hour.  THANKFULLY, (I think) my ortho won out and I went home on day 5.

Since that time, I have had a home health care nurse and a physical therapist coming to my home regularly and I am making progress.  The nurse took my 67 staples out today.  I'm walking around a bit with a walker and have been able to come off of one of the narcotics that I was on and now I am just taking the one every 4 hours for pain.

The fact that I even feel like writing today has me overjoyed.  I felt so terrible those first days when I just couldn't talk to anyone....not even my children.  They both called daily and John kept them up dated, but the nausea and hallucinating was just too overwhelming for me.

John has been my guardian angel through all of this.  He didn't go into work at all the first week, and worked completely from home.  Now he is going in in the mornings and is home by 12:30 pm each day and works from home the rest of the day.  He has been a wonderful nurse and makes me realize what a great guy he is.  I am truly blessed to have him loving me and caring for me.  I couldn't have gotten any better or more loving and attentive care from anyone. 

Now, for just a tiny bit of bragging.  My son, who has just fininshed up his classes and teaching requirements at Cal State University at Northridge, has only his thesis to complete to get his Master's in History.  One of the things that the graduate school does at the end of the semester is have an award's ceremony.  This week at that ceremony, Jeff was awarded the highest honor that they give.  It was for having the best graduate paper of the YEAR.   He will be flying to a convention in San Francisco later this month to present this paper at a History convention.  His dad and I are so very proud of him.  He will come home for a little while this summer and go to the Library of Congress for research, etc. to complete his thesis.  After that, he will continue on with his pursuit of a PhD in History.

I'm also looking forward to seeing Jenny and Dave in June. They are flying back to DC  to go to Grant Cothran's  wedding (a dear friend of Jenny's from high school) and then on up to New Hampshire for Dave's sister's graduation from high school.  So, I have both of my babies to look forward to seeing very soon.  This will help me in my recovery, I'm sure.