Hello everyone!
My DSL was out of commission, so I wasn't able to "talk" to you guys for a couple of days before surgery...except for some quick check-ins from work.
My surgery was Thursday morning, and I had to be at the hospital at 5:45 am. I had an umbilical hernia that the Dr. found during surgery, and he fixed that as well. I had a hellish time in the recovery area. Through my grogginess, I tried to keep telling the nurse that I was in extreme pain...the Dilodin in the PCA pump wasn't doing anything except making me groggy. She insisted that since it was making me groggy, and I was dozing off for a minute or two at at time, that meant it was working. So obviously, my time in the recovery room with the nurse-from-hell was pure misery.
I'm not sure how long I was in the recovery room, before they took me up to my regular room. They had given my husband a pager, and the nurses said they paged him several times, but he said it never went off. Meanwhile, he was asking about me, and being told I was still in the recovery room (which I wasn't). About 2 hours after I was taken to my room, one of the nurses let me use her cell phone to call him (thank goodness I could remember the number), and he was up in the room within a matter of 5 minutes after that. So, that whole experience was just bad luck with a broken pager, and poor communication from the recovery room.
I told my new nurse that I was in a huge amount of pain, and the pain really hadn't decreased since I first woke up in the recovery room...even though I was hitting my PCA pump as often as it would go off. I told her the nurse in the recovery room told me the Dilodin was working because it was making me groggy. She shook her head no, and said she was going to call my Dr. and see about getting the meds in my PCA pump changed. Within an hour the Dilodin was changed to morphine, and I started to get some relief.
I had assumed they would get me up that evening to walk, and asked about it, but they didn't get me up until the following morning. Maybe the lateness with this was due to the issues with my PCA pump? I dunno. Anyway, they had me up and walking a bit the following morning. In late morning, I was sent for the upper GI test where they test for leaks. That took less than 10-15 minutes. But afterwards, I was put back into my wheelchair, and put in a line of 5-6 patients awaiting transport back to their rooms. After I sat there for about 30 minutes, I asked a passing nurse for a cup of ice with a mouth swab. And then I waited, and waited, and of course asked a few times about getting taken back to my room. This particular hospital (which is very highly rated believe it or not) has a certain group of people who transport people back to their rooms, and it seems like they were either extremely backed-up, or too many of them went to lunch at the same time. And I waited some more. The cup of ice that the previous nurse had given me had melted to water by this time, and I nodded off and dumped the whole cup of water all over my lap. I was there for so long, that my nightgown completely dried out from 7-8 ounces of water.
By this time, I was starting to shake, and I must have looked pretty darned miserable, because a lady (employee) in a business suit stopped and asked me if I was okay. I said no I wasn't, that I had been waiting transport back to my room for almost 3 hours. She looked angry, and said she would bring someone back. It ended up that 2 regular RN's (not the patient transport people) took me back to my room, and this lady followed up to make sure I got there. Thank goodness she finally came along and rescued me. (During all of this Hubby had went home to get a shower, changed, etc, and wasn't around to watch out for me.)
Well, that whole experience didn't bode well, because then my right lung got all congested, and I was running a high fever. Honestly, I blame a lot of this on the bad experience of sitting there stuck in a wheel chair for 3 hours. Before that, I was feeling half-way decent. So...I spent the rest of Friday battling a high temperature (the highest I remember was 104), and only walked 1 time because I was so miserable from the high temperature. On Friday night, the Dr. ordered a full set of chest x-rays, and I had to be transported down to the x-ray area again. This time I had my husband go along with me, to make sure I got returned to my room within a reasonable time.
Saturday morning came along, and I didn't get discharged because of the issues with the congestion in my right lung, and the high temperature I was running the day prior. The doctor wanted me to stay an extra day. I was feeling somewhat better because my temperature was almost normal, and I forced myself to go a gazillion walks around the halls. I also started doing my spirometers (I had 2 different ones) 2 times an hour, instead of one. At this point, I was more than ready to go home, just so I could sit on a comfortable chair/recliner and get some rest. And speaking of comfortable chairs...
The chair in my room when I first got there was not even bariatric sized...it was just a normal, hard, waiting room chair with arms on it. I could barely squeeze my swollen stomach past the arms. After 2 or 3 unfulfilled requests to get a different chair, my hubby took matters into his own hands. After people started getting discharged on Friday morning, he "stole" me a recliner out of a different room. Well, that was great...until I tried to get out of it. The recliner mechanism was broken, and it wouldn't go down. My hubby had to end up taking his foot and forcing the recliner section down, and then had to kick it back into place. Oh yeah, those vibrations from the forcing and the kicking just felt wonderful on my poor body.
That chair then got swapped for another one from another empty room, which had no padding whatsoever and became very uncomfortable after about an hour. Finally, he ventured further down the hall, and got me what was probably the only good chair in the joint. In between walks, I highly enjoyed it for the last few hours of my stay. Oh, why didn't I just sit up in bed? Well, the beds were almost as bad as the chairs. Mine wouldn't go up all of the way, so it was dreadful to get out of. Not to bitch and complain (oh heck, I'll do it anyway!), but the poor beds and chairs at this hospital were a main contributor in making my stay miserable. On top of this, the air conditioning was out of whack in my room, and I had to constantly leave the door open (noisy) or the temperature jumped into the 80's.
I purposely did all of this over an hour from home, so I'd be a a major respected hospital, instead of at one of the smaller local hospitals. So far at this point, I had gotten a brainless nurse in the recovery room, my husband had been forgotten about and misinformed when trying to find me, I had been left sitting outside of the x-ray department in a wheel chair for 3 hours, and that's not to mention the broken furniture which further made me miserable. Alas, my hospital stay was NOT the best.
Pgh3rivers was in this same hospital while I was (her surgery was Wednesday and she was discharged on Friday). I'm interested to know if she had any of the same problems that I did. By the way, it was nice to meet her...she stopped by my room and said hi to me, and bye before she left.
When the Dr. was at the hospital on Saturday morning, he had already told me he wanted me to stay an extra day because of my lung, and the fever I had the day prior. However, by Saturday afternoon I was so freaking miserable because of the furniture, I was ready to blow the joint! (Me and hubby were actually going down and sitting in the nearby patient waiting room for long periods of time, because it had decent chairs and the air conditioning worked.) During all of Saturday, I took a gazillion walks and doubled up on the use of my breathing spirometers (I had 2). My temperature was normal all day, and the RN commented that I was doing so much better than the day before, and she thought that maybe the Dr. might release me IF he came back for evening rounds. (My normal dr. was off for the weekend, and another dr. was filling in for him for hospital rounds.) At about 5 pm, I asked if he'd be coming in for evening rounds and the nurses said it didn't look like it. I asked my nurse to call him, describe my improved condition, and ask if I could be discharged that evening. He made me wait until 7 pm (he wanted 24 hours of normal temperature readings), but he discharged me. He talked to me on the phone first and told me he'd rather have me in the hospital another night, but he'd discharge me if I really wanted to go home that bad. (I did!) He stressed the importance of doing my breathing exercises, taking my temp, etc. By 8 pm I was discharged, and we were on our way home! I already live about 1 hour from this hospital, but several miles of road were semi-closed because they were replacing sections of concrete. So our normal 50-60 minute ride home stretched into about 1 1/2 hrs.
So, we get home and hubby and son helped me out of hubby's truck. Thank goodness it isn't a very high truck. I gently plopped my butt down on a kitchen chair, and all 3 cats went into "love my mommy and haven't seen her in almost 3 days" mode. The 16 pounder tried to jump up in my lap, and was quite confused when I pushed him away. He tried it again a few minutes later, and I was ready with a water gun and blasted him with it. Poor kitty, he'll probably never be loving to me again. Hubby got one of the spare bedrooms all fixed up for them, and all 3 of them have been shut up in there since Saturday night. They are not happy at all, and have been meowing piteously. Hubby's suggestion was for me to stay in the master bedroom 24/7 and let the cats have the run of the house. I thought he was joking, but he actually argued with me over it. What'd you know...he loves the cats more than he does his wife.
Yesterday (Sunday), I slept for most of the day. I had a lot of gas pains yesterday, and the only thing that helps is walking. So, I've been pacing around the downstairs of my house. Also yesterday the home health care nurse came out...she checked my vitals, made sure I was emptying my JP drain the right way, and stripped my JP tube for me (it was cloggy). She also checked my incisions, where my drain comes out. About 2 hours before she got here, I caught my drain tube on a kitchen cabinet. Ouch! I screamed curse words that I didn't even know were in my vocabulary. Word of advice to any pre-oppers...if you come home with a drain, keep the tubing UNDER your clothes. Anyway, the nurse took off the dressing and checked the drain sight and said it didn't look like I had torn out the stitches or done any permanent harm.
Today I am feeling much more alert, and I've only napped for about an hour so far. The hardest part of my day was taking a shower (getting undressed, bending down for the undies and socks, stepping over the sides of the tubs, drying off, etc). I was debating on skipping a shower today because the whole experience was so mind numbing yesterday...but then I had the diarrhea last night and again this morning. Well, let's just say that I'm having trouble wiping, even with baby wipes. Skipping my shower today was no longer an option. Wow, that's way TMI!
I'm working hard on getting all of my fluids in...I came close yesterday, but only had 50-odd ounces, one shot glass at a time. Extreme cold and hot piss off my pouch, so I'm going with room temperature diluted Crystal Light, diluted Gatorade 2 (the new kind with less sugar), and lots and lots of low sodium chicken and beef broth, heated to just barely warm. Oh, and SF jello...although I now hate the orange flavor, it tastes like crushed orange flavored baby aspirins. Ick.
I go for my 1 week post-op appointment on Wednesday morning. Hopefully my diet will get advance, as I am already sick of liquids after doing my "10 day pre-op liquid diet from hell". At least I'm not hungry though, except for head hunger. Hubby and son had fried chicken from WalMart last night for dinner, and I was salivating from the smell. Earlier today, my son made a bag of microwave popcorn and I had to make him eat it on the back deck. The smell was making me nauseous. Hopefully I get over that smell problem, because I sit near the kitchen at work, and people make microwave popcorn at least 2 or 3 times a day.
Well, I think I ended up writing a novel! Even though I am definitely going through Hell Week, I am SO glad to be on the loser's bench!
I'm home!!! Y'all scoot over and give me a place on the bench...
thank God your ok, did the doctor say it was pneumonia? that is alittle scary
Deborah 
Gobble-Gobble!
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