Straightened Out - Part 2

December 16-20th, 2014

The 5 days in the hospital were spent as typical days in a hospital would be spent. I laid in bed hooked up to oxygen, IV drips, an epidural drip into my spinal column (which didn't take completely, only numbing my left hip and lady bits), and a foley catheter to drain my urine. Not having had general anesthesia was actually the best thing that I could have had ever. I came out of this surgery smiling, laughing, alert, not miserable, not nauseated, not wanting to die. General anesthesia just has a way of wanting to play terrible mind games with you. I did not feel 100% by any means as I still felt like I had surgery to chop up my entire left side from here to next week but there is something to be said for epidurals and spinal anesthesia. I am a fan. My first night started out pretty well on the ortho floor with a great health care tech and a nurse who would later turn out to be awesome, but that night was not the best. My epidural started to fail early on in the shift and the pain management team had left instructions on how to dose it but she wasn't familiar with it, was getting easily frustrated, and was also getting slammed with tons of admissions throughout the night. My first night was bad. But once the epidural situation was figured out and the medication was maxed, I was more comfortable after that and able to rest better. Physical therapy came to see me the next morning (my dear friend whom I see and trust and love everytime!) and got me up and out of bed at my pace considering I had the epidural in. The feeling leaves you with the sensation of a cement block for a lower body. Or like you are trying to walk through cement that is already setting. It's difficult and very trying. Crutches just weren't going to cut it this time and I earned myself a beautiful new walker ($135 a pop! Thank you insurance). It took 30 minutes to go from my bed to the door that leads to the hallway. And she wanted me to do this 2 to 3 more times today! I am not one to turn down a challenge though and promised her I would. I ended up sitting in the chair next to my bed for a bit until my husband and MIL came over for the day. Then I went back to bed. There was never really a moment where nausea hit, but I was starting to feel "off". The next 2 attempts to try to walk were failures. All I could do was stand up at the side of the bed with the walker to steady me. The last attempt I proceded to dry heave and remain completely immobile for an hour with tears streaming down my face otherwise the nausea was so intense with any movement it was impossible to do anything. It seemed my blood pressure was probably to blame. It was pretty low just laying down, so upon standing, I could feel myself getting really lightheaded and weak, then the intense nausea. Zofran IV and PO did not work, but what did end up working was IV benadryl. It was a nice little treat as it not only knocked out the nausea but also gave me a nice needed sleep. My nurse made sure to just go ahead and give me the IV benadryl around the clock for the next 24 hrs without even asking as I was feeling pretty miserable.

On post op day 2 (Dec 18) the pain team and Dr. Z consulted with me and we decided to take the epidural out that morning to see how I'd do. Once it was out, my foley catheter would be out 4 hours after that to give the bladder time to wake up. I would be switched to oral pain meds with IV push for break thru pain and continue to work on physical therapy. The beauty of all this is it was my decision when the epidural came out. It could have stayed in one more day if I wanted it, but because I was part of the decision process and I was motivated to get out sooner than later, I opted for that day. The switch to oral meds was rough and it took some time to figure things out, especially because I started getting muscle spasms in my surgical leg. My right leg (the one I worried about with CRPS was doing so well and did not bother me at all) but both Dr. Z and I were having some concerns over my left lower leg. The pain response there was out of control and he is not sure what's going on but thinks we'll have to start PT at 2 weeks rather than at 8 weeks as per normal protocol.

Other noteables for this surgery compared to others that I've gone through are that I actually ate meals at the hospital (willingly), I was able to pee on my own after the catheter came out, I didn't have horrible uncontrollable diarrhea. I attribute these things to not having general anesthesia.