post-op

DAY OF SURGERY: POST-OP

After surgery, they take patients to a "wake-up room", where each nurse is assigned to one patient until the patient wakes up. That's the nurse's only duty. I remember waking up and seeing a man-blur over me asking if I wanted some ice chips. "Yes." I responded for no reason.

When you're in surgery, those waiting for you get a pager and your status is updated on a screen: "in surgery", "in recovery", etc. When you're being wheeled out from the wake-up room to the room where you'll be staying, they call your name over a speaker. My dad thought they called my name when the speaker announced "Nicole" (many people botch my name by calling me Nicole), so he took his smiley, supportive face to the bedside of a girl who wasn't me. Chances are if she was in the same state I was, she didn't notice, or at least didn't remember. I was rolled out right after Nicole - I have no memory of any of this - but eventually I ended up in my room.

I could only open one eye for what felt like hours. I was exhausted, it was bright, voices were booming, I fell in and out of sleep (by the way, the first doctor I saw - the one I ended up dumping for the good one - said I would be going home right after my surgery, which I can't even imagine because I was FUCKED).

NURSES: Were for the most part awesome. There was one super bitchy lady who came to help me pee in the middle of the night and told me I had too many blankets on (I WAS FREEZING) and took them off.
PEEING: I was so parched that I was drinking (and consequently peeing) constantly, but the meds made it so I could only let out a little bit of pee at a time. The first time I peed I used a bedpan and obviously couldn't hang, because it dripped everywhere and they had to change my sheets. Gross. From that point forward I peed in a portable bucket-toilet with handrails that they brought right next to the bed and helped me get on and off of one-legged (nurses, godblessem). Since I couldn't fully empty my bladder (a side effect from the anesthesia and the other drugs I was on) I was going like once every half hour.
POOING: Ha! Yeah right. That wouldn't happen for daaaaays (more on that later).
PAIN: My leg-numbing shot wore off at about 2am, at which point I was pumped full of Oxycodone (a crazy strong oral drug) and more morphine (ugh, that fucker again). Eventually the pain was controlled with the help of my primary night nurse, though the nurse who took over for her in the morning was in her own world and wouldn't stay on top of my dosages so I - the super stoned post-op patient - had to.
DRUGS, FOOD & CRUTCHING: The Oxy made it impossible to stay awake, impossible to balance (which sucks when you're on crutches), and impossible to eat (meanwhile J was eating hospital burgers and steaks and every possible disturbing piece of meat on the menu). They had a gluten-free menu - generously speaking - and the blueberry muffins were about the only things I could stomach. Eventually a LOUD TALKING physical therapist came by to make sure I could get up and down stairs on the crutches, he tested me on a stairway to nowhere that looked like this:

I was eventually sent home that evening (a day and a half after the surgery) with prescriptions for Oxycodone and a stool softener - I was also told to take 1 Aspirin per day to prevent blood clots, and Tylenol to go with the Oxy (apparently you're not supposed to take anti-inflammatories like Ibuprofen after surgery because it slows the healing process).

I still craved strawberries.