Whew, Glad That Is Over With!

At this moment I am sitting in my hospital bed, almost typed  hotel for some reason, listening to the noise outside my door. I am extremely sleepy, however when I try to lay down I either can't sleep fall asleep, someone comes into my room to check on me or something beeps. Sigh. Hospitals are not restful. 

The surgery was pretty uneventful. We arrived at the hospital on the 13th around 5:45 am and were called back for vitals, and to make sure I was really me, around 7 am. From that point on everything went pretty fast. I changed into my gown, had my IV placed (first stick!), talked to the anesthesiologist who had the personality of a door, and made sure my personal belongings were labeled. At 7:30 I was wheeled back to the pre-op room to get my epidural, which I don't remember much of because they gave me Fentanyl. I do remember the anesthesiologist taking forever and needing to retry because the first time he placed the epidural line he hit a blood vessel. Soon after that I was wheeled to the operating room the last thing I remember was an oxygen mask on my face and the anesthesiologist letting me know he was giving me something to help me relax.

When I woke up I was still in the operating room and was being moved onto a bed. Someone wheeled me into recovery where I got some ice chips, apple juice and Zofran for nausea. X-ray techs came and took a series of pictures and then I had to hang out a bit until they collected my belongings and found someone to take me upstairs.

When I finally made it up to my room I was hooked and unhooked to a bunch of things, asked how much pain I was in.. not much because the epidural was doing its job beautifully and then left to "rest". Of course they needed blood, which my poor little veins just couldn't provide. I hadn't had anything to eat all day and when I did try to eat I threw up. It became a vicious cycle with the nurses coming in here trying to find a decent vein to take blood from and my trying to eat and throwing up. Eventually they ended up calling someone from the Burn Unit, apparently they can get a vein on anyone,  to come down and they were able to get the blood that they needed. Afterward I got a nice big dose of Phenergan and slept. 

My surgeon came up and talked to me, right before I zonked out, and he told me that the surgery went really, really well. They were able to exert 800 lbs of pressure on my leg! Go me!!! That has been one of my biggest worries that my bone strength has deteriorated that past 18 months and he reassured me that it hadn't. It was still nice strong and solid. The plan was for the epidural to be taken out today and for me to start hobbling the hallways but when the Resident came up this morning he told me that they were going to let me rest, pain free, one more day. My Physical Therapist came up to say "hi" and was disappointed that she wouldn't be the one to get me out of bed. She told me she was looking forward to seeing me in the clinic and that we would start out very gently, but she was looking forward to getting me up and moving. Eventually.

From what I've been told, tomorrow's plan is to get the epidural out and get me up and hobbling for a bit. On Sunday my surgeon will come up to remove my drain and i'll be able to start doing some range of motion exercises. I'm not sure when i'm going home, maybe Monday or Tuesday, basically when I can control my pain without morphine and I can get around without too much trouble. I will be toe touching only for 6 weeks and after that I will be full weight bearing. It's so weird to think that i'll be off of crutches the end of February. Perfect timing because my husband and I have tickets to Wicked on February 25. Maybe that will be our night to celebrate being crutch free? I'm keeping my fingers crossed.