1 Week Out

Aug 17, 2011

Tomorrow will be one week post-surgery.  Time does seem to fly by, as it's been a very busy week.

The surgery went well.  Dr G was all business on the day of the surgery, and I really appreciated that.  The hospital and surgical team is all about safety - from the skin wash, to Dr G asking me to tell him what surgery I was having, to the team asking about a red splotch on my shoulder (from carrying a backpack into the hospital). The anesthesiologist had my CPAP settings, and used that as they put me out.   I had an EKG monitor on the entire time I was in the hospital, as well as a fingertip oxygen monitor.  Of course, the oxygen monitor has an alarm for pulse and oxygen.  My pulse was typically 55-60 for the first 24 hours, which meant the alarm went off the entire time.  For safety, the lowest level is set to 60, so I just went with the flow and didn't make a big deal. 

My son came with me to the hospital, and I was really touched by how great he was.  Although he is only 19, he kept his siblings up to date, and even called my admin assistant to let her know everything was OK.  He stayed through the surgery (Dr G had to wake up my son to let him know everything was OK).  My son then spent a couple of hours with me in my room.  I also got a nice visit in the evening from my daughter, who lives an hour away. 

The nursing staff was wonderful.  When I got to my room, the floor RN took a glycerin swab, and wiped lot of coagulated blood from my teeth.  My son said the brown teeth were pretty gross! (I do remember that my first request in the recovery room was to ask for a tissue so that I could spit out a lot of brown gunk from the back of my throat.)   The nurses responded to my calls in a time-appropriate fashion.  They came in right away to see what the issue was, and then prioritized it according to the requirements for all the patients they were caring for. On that first day/night, nothing ever took more than about 10 minutes. I was particularly thankful for the nurse who helped me get into the chair in the middle of the night.  My back hurt since I woke up in the recovery room.

I was amazed when Dr G said I would go home on Friday, and that I did - within 36 hours of walking into the hospital! In addition, I have had very little pain, and only 5 little tiny incisions.  Surgical technology has really come very far! 

So now I'm home, and relearning how to eat.  I did fine on the clear liquids, but I'm having trouble with moving to the protein shakes.  I think that I may have become lactose intolerant, as I had skim milk early on, and then I had horrible stomach cramps.  I can only dring the shakes at a rate of 1 or 2 small sips per 10 minutes.  So I was getting slightly dehydrated.  Today has been better, as I have alternated more concentrated shakes with clear liquids.  I can drink the clear liquids a little faster.  So we'll see how this goes for the next couple of days. 

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