Showing posts with label post-op care. Show all posts

For a few seconds I believe the bed has swallowed my entire body, leaving only my eyeballs. At first I can feel nothing else, and my brain seems to still be wiping the dredges of the anesthesia off - for the time being it can only send a few bursts of signals to my eyes. All I see are the glaringly obnoxious fluorescent lights above, then the curtain divider, and then from the corner of my eyes the machines with all of its wires that are all heading in my direction.
Meanwhile the room has begun a slow counterclockwise tumble: the ceiling melts into the wall, the fluorescent lights look like they're about to fall on to me and then there it is -- the tips of my fingers brush past the top of the cast. The familiar dimpled ridge texture of the fiberglass cast sends my brain shooting down memory lane, and then it all comes back to me: a rod surgery on my left tibia.

I yak up stomach bile as I always do after operations. It's the final signal that says: okay your body is awake now. The nurse holds out a small cup of water for me as I hungrily gulp it down, like it's some kind of mirage that might disappear on me any second.
It's sometime between when I first remember what has happened and the time I am given my first sips of water that the pain hits.
"It was a long surgery, Sandy. Far longer than anyone expected. It lasted 6 hours and Dr. Shapiro had to make 4 breaks into the bones." The nurse tells me.
Still not really able to form complete thoughts yet, I make a sound that is something between a groan and a cry. My hands grasp at the fiberglass cast, fingers scratching at a leg that only that morning I had been able to touch the skin of. Now it lay in several pieces, with all kinds of hardware screwed into the bone - that thought alone made me squirm.
"Don't be afraid to push the pain button, okay?" She put a small buzzer into my right hand, the one that wasn't already swamped with I.V.'s swarming about. I nodded my head, half rolling my eyes to tell her that I already know all too well what the pain button does.

After my vitals are checked again, and a room upstairs has opened up I am rolled to the 9th floor in a room that is across from the nurse's station. It's the room I am always in after rod surgeries, a single room to myself with the border of animal decorations going around the walls. The first night after surgery is always the worst for me. The throb of pain ebbs and flows all throughout the night, the morphine makes me frantically itchy, and my dreams are a mix of lucid reality with the backdrop of pain medication. In short: I have no idea what is going on.
Several times an hour various nurses will come and check on my vitals. But the blood pressure stands that give my arm a gentle hug at midnight, then 1AM, 2AM, 3AM.. has appeared to me as various morphed alien-octopus creatures with tentacles that squeeze for a bit then get ripped off.

In the dim of the night light, and mixed with the neon glow of the machines I could tell he was wearing a large blue cookie monster t-shirt. Must be one of the perks of working at Children's Hospital I thought. Rarely do I remember anything about my stays as an inpatient, especially during the first night after an operation - but for whatever reason the guy checking my vitals that night made an impression. He was going about his business, jotting down my numbers and adjusting my oxygen mask when all of a sudden I blurted out:
"Wouldn't you rather be somewhere else?" 
He stopped what he was doing and looked down at me, smiling,
"No of course not! If I were anywhere else I wouldn't be able to help you and there's nothing else I would rather be doing." 


To this day I have no idea what spurred on my question. I don't remember what my thoughts were before I asked it, but it's pretty obvious that I wanted to be somewhere far away from the 9th floor of the Children's Hospital in-patient floor. But his response comforted me the rest of that night, I remember I slept as comfortably as I could knowing that despite my drugged and broken state of being - there was someone in the world who wanted to be there to help hold me together.

American superstar Beyoncé recently gave birth to a daughter, Blue Ivy Carter. Among the reports of this new addition for Beyoncé and her husband Jay-Z is the 'over the top demands' they requested for the arrival of their first born, at the cost of a mere 1.3 million dollars... 
Since my orthopedic doctor has been seeing me since birth, my parents used to joke that I too get VIP service. I never wait in the waiting room and am able to directly page him when a fracture happens; rarely has he ever said that he won't be able to see me the same day a break happens. (It might be much later on in the day, after he has performed about 3 other operations on other O.I. patients..but it's always worth the wait).
So, what if I could have "swanky" hospital treatment at $1.3 million - what would I ask for?

1. A wave less waterbed that awaits me on the x-ray table. Instead of just lying on the hard and cold x-ray table, I would like the cover of the mattress to be silk covered - please and thank you. Wave less water beds are made up of water and air that can be set to personal preferences in terms of water to air ratio, and amount of wave reduction. Ideally something that takes the pressure off and is able to support fractures without me holding an injured area. Also, if a duplicate of that waterbed mattress could also be waiting for me in the cast room - that would be great too.

2. An iPad that is connected to the hospital network. These days you are able to send an 'electronic page' to doctors within the hospital network, and all of the x-rays are uploaded digitally into the hospital records. With an internally connected iPad I would be able to see the x-ray being uploaded in real time AND let my doctor know that I was done with the x-ray and will see him soon in the cast room.

3. Designer cast fashions. How awesome would it be if I could have a Ralph Lauren Polo cast design? Complete, of course, with the signature polo emblem printed on the cast. Or maybe the classic Paul Frank monkey face? Or even better, to have my favorite Vera Bradley pattern cover a broken arm? (In case you're wondering, it's java blue..) All casts would be waterproof of course.

4. A security guard. He'll mostly be for eye candy purposes but also block younger patients from accidentally bumping, running, hopping, skipping, or crawling onto me. Oh, and he'll warn off the hospital clowns...

5. On demand supply of green jell-o. Because I like green jell-o and I know the hospital has endless amounts of it. And cherry popsicles too, please and thank you. Hold the ginger ale because I know the hospital makes killer milk shakes. STAT!

6. Personal wheelchair and wheelchair pusher. Sometimes if I have a broken arm or leg it makes sitting up in my regular chair difficult or just impossible. It would be nice to have a gel-seat cushion manual wheelchair waiting for me at the hospital, and a charming conversational wheelchair pusher (personally interviewed by me first) to keep me company as well.

7. Oxygen bar in my recovery room. Because why not? Let's make that oxygen mask more fun! Dude seriously -- could you imagine this experience while on codeine and morphine? Maybe I'd be able to discover the solution to the healthcare problem in this country!

8. On Demand cable or Netflix hook-up in my post-surgery room. There's only so much day time television a person on morphine and codeine can handle. Well, I'm just sayin'... What about a shelf of the top 10 NYTimes best sellers? Or the top rack of the gossip magazines in grocery store check out lines? Or an iTunes gift card so that I can download all the addicting app games on that iPad? How much money do I have left at this point? Heck -- let's just get'em all!

... Okay, okay, I've had my fun of day-dreaming. As you can see there are probably a million other things that I could dream-up that would make my hospital stays and appointments more comfortable. But the point is that unlike Beyoncé, I have figured out what I NEED to get better. 80% of that knowledge is from personal life experiences, and the other 20% comes from a mixture of trusting my doctors and their own knowledge. The next time you are at a crossroads of decisions with your doctors, think about the fine lines that differ between: medical need, requirements, and wants! 

Welcome to November!
For folks on the East coast (U.S.) it looks as though we're in for a looooong winter, but with the way things have been going I trust that we'll be able to keep each other company :-)

• Monday: We started the week with the end of October.

• Tuesday: This post was about post-op visitors after my rod surgery & includes a few tips 

• Wednesday: Should I include my blog on my resume or not? To put or not to put? 

• Thursday: As a hearing-impaired student, I had to learn early on how to advocate for myself

• Fracture Free Friday: One reader asked "Have you ever hidden a fracture from your family?"

"These saltines are STUPID!" I screamed. I clutched the packet of crackers and zinged it like a frisbee across the room. Supposedly I hit the nurse trying to get me to eat. I say supposedly because I have no recollection of any of this happening. That part of the story all comes from friends who visited after my operation.