One week!

One week ago I had my LPAO, and I think it was still going on at this time as well. I'm amazed at how much I am able to do already. I can get to and from the bathroom and bed without any assistance. I am able to dress myself using my grabber. I haven't tried putting on my own socks yet, but it is summer, so I can live without them. I plan on taking another shower today which I hope will go quicker than last time. I have been doing my exercises twice a day: ankle pumps, quad sets, glute sets, heel slides, abductors, and leg lifts at the knee. The only exercise I have any trouble with is the abductors. I have to move my leg out to the side and back in and I do not have enough strength to do it correctly. I am still taking my Norco every 3 to 3 1/2 hours. I was trying to spread them out more, but the pain is still too much. I did sit up in my wheelchair and the couch for a total of 3 hours yesterday, and that left me with a lot of pain last night and this morning. Some of it is muscle pain, but then I also have pain in my butt and groin, which I think is bone pain or screws. I will be making my first trip out on Thursday to take care of some paperwork, which is also Jeff and I's four year wedding anniversary. Who knows if we will do anything special. It's up to Jeff since I can't move to do anything, lol. I'm happy about the progress I've made in one week, and I hope I can keep the progress going. I just need to find the focus to get back to my school work. I finished my first summer class with a 100% so I hope I can pull off the same for my other two. Well, now I am rambling.

Last, but not least, please keep my friend Ashley in your thoughts and prayers. She is about to have her 8th orthopedic surgery on June 20th in Boston and is super stressed about it. She needs all the good vibes she can get!

Here is a pic of my silly Lilly doing what she does best. I hope it brightens your day!
EDIT: I forgot to add that I have my follow up appointment with Dr. Scheid on Wednesday, June 22nd at 9:15 am. I can't wait to see my x-rays!

Day 5- Clean!

I just wanted to add a quick update about progress since I've been home. I also changed my dressing today so I have a pic of my incision.

• I can walk to and from the restroom on crutches by myself
• I was able to sit in my wheelchair for about 30-40 minutes before my hip was irritated
• I got dressed this morning using my grabber
• I took a shower with just a little help from my husband
• I pooped! (I thought it was funny that the Dr at the hospital asked me everyday if I had or not)
  

Here is the pic of my incision. Whenever I can move around more I will get a measurement on it.

Day #3- EXHAUSTED

So I woke up this morning determined--I was going to go home today. So I made sure the nurses were bringing me pain meds when I needed them. I stopped using the morphine during the night. So after I had my IV unhooked (it's still in my arm) and they took more of my blood. I had my morning meds then my nurse removed my catheter. It felt weird getting that out, but I also felt cleaner. The tech came in and got me water for a sponge bath, I cleaned up and got to put on normal clothes for once. Then at 9:30 PT showed up. He had me get out of bed completely on my own and then I crutched to my wheelchair. He showed me how to use the wheelchair safely, then he took me down the hall to where the stairs are. He showed me how to use the crutches on steps and then I practiced a few times. It wasn't too hard. Then I came back to my room and just stayed in my wheelchair. This was at about 10:15. I asked for some ice for my hip and then I had to get up to use the restroom while I was in the chair. I was so exhausted and in pain by the time I finished with that, that I just got back in bed. I called the nurse for some pain meds because she was a little late. Then I settled down in bed and slept. I woke up around 12:15 and was very stiff and sore. I ordered my lunch and it came pretty quick. At some point the Methodist doc came in and said that everything should be ready to send me home as long as PT cleared me. Jeff got off work a little early and showed up at 3:30 to take me home. I was still waiting for my nurse to come remove my IV hookup and go over any paperwork. I think with getting all my stuff to the car, making sure I had all my supplies, and getting prescriptions filled, we ended up leaving the hospital around 4:45. Now I am all set up in my bed with my computer and remotes for the TV and Wii. I probably won't move much this weekend except to do my exercises and go to the bathroom. I am looking forward to a real shower tomorrow and building strength in my legs. I'll try to update each week on what kind of progress I am making.

Post op Day #2

So this is Thursday. It was a bad idea for me to sleep so hard the night before because I woke up very stiff, sore, and had a horrible headache. I was also very nauseous. At about 6:30 am, some little blond nurse came in and said that Melissa (my nurse) had asked her to draw my blood for labs. I was all cool with this until she spent forever digging in my arm in 2 spots trying to get a vein. So now I have two bruises on my left arm from blondy. Around 7ish both Melissa and Rhonda come in. Rhonda is my day nurse and they are going around and taking care of all my stuff. I told them I was really nauseous, so they gave me some zofran with my pills. I told Rhonda about the blood taking ordeal and she was really annoyed that she had done that. Apparently Melissa had requested someone from a heart place that specialized in drawing blood but blondy took it upon herself to try anyway. I do not like being a guinea pig for people with needles. I ate some breakfast, but I couldn't have much. I just wasn't feeling up to eating. Dr. Scheid came in to see how I was doing and he thought I was making good progress. I asked about my screws and he said that I have 1 small and 3 large screws in my hip. The large screws are about the diameter of a pencil. Then Denise came in and removed the drain from my hip (that hurt a little bit) so I am glad that is gone. She said that depending on the progress I make I could go home Friday night or Saturday morning. As of right now, I'm not sure when it will be. I did some more sleeping after they were gone, then Maria came to visit with me some. She brought me some fruit to munch on, so that helped me hold over until lunch. When she left I ordered lunch and dozed some more. After lunch I got a little sponge bath from Nita, my favorite PCA. She was kinda mad because she normally does her baths in the morning. She told me tomorrow morning that she is giving me the "Nita Special". After all that, PT came in to see me. It was a different lady than yesterday, but she was good. She gave me a set of exercises that I need to do, and I went through those. Ankle pumps, heel slides, abductors, and butt squeezes (not a technical term!). Then she helped me get to the side of the bed. I stood up and crutched all the way to the bathroom, sat on the raised toilet seat, then got back up and went back to bed. She said that she will be back in tomorrow morning to practice some more. Well, I will add on to this post if anything else interesting happens tonight.

Post op day #1

I didn't sleep much the night before because I just kept dozing off and waking up, so I continued that pattern through the morning. I had breakfast with no problems except that the bagel was really hard a chewy. I got a whole slew of meds in the morning: iron vitamin, calcium vitamin, something for itching/nausea, norco, and the lovenox shot. While I'm in the hospital I get the lovely Lovenox shot twice a day to prevent blood clots. I also have braces on my legs that constantly inflate and deflate to prevent clots. All kinds of people came in during the morning like Denise, Dr. Scheid's assistant, who just checked everything over and talked to me about my meds. I told her that I thought some of the itching could have been coming from the Norco because I itch when I take it at home. So she got me switched to a liquid dose of Loritab and I was getting one pill of benedryl with it for the itching. My case manager came in and talked about how I would be getting a wheelchair to have at home and it would be delivered to the hospital. I asked about other occupational therapy objects and she said it would just be cheaper for me to get them at CVS rather than pay through insurance. So PT is supposed to go over what I need for that before I go home. Sometime that morning the hospital doc came in and then my parents came around 12:30 or 1. They watched me eat lunch and helped me get some stuff I needed (like a back scratcher). PT came in that afternoon, her name was Mary Kay, and she was really nice. I got myself to the edge of the bed and was able to stand up on my crutches and take one step. I was just too tired to do anything else. I didn't want to accidentally fall. My parents hung around until about 10 after 4. Jeff came over at 4:30 and Heather came over about 6. I was in and out of sleep while they were here, so it wasn't much of a visit. At least Heather got some lotion on my legs where I couldn't reach them. They both left by 7:30 and I just let myself sleep after that. I slept like a rock only waking up a few times when nurses came in the room.

Surgery Date

Okay, so I am going to try to go back and recap the events that have happened so far. I will start with surgery day.

Jeff and I get to the hospital at about 6am and go to admissions. I sign some paperwork and then get taken up to the surgery waiting area. I got checked in and they got Jeff set up with a restaurant pager for updates. Then they took me back to pre-op alone. I told the person taking me back that I really didn't want to go alone because the IV was the scariest part, so they cleared it for Jeff to come back with me. I did the normal pregnancy test and then got changed into the hospital gown. My nurse came in and had me sign the consents. We talked about getting something for my nerves and she said she would have to start the IV in order to give me anything. So she did the IV, it was really quick and didn't hurt nearly as bad as every other time. Then the anesthesiologist cleared it for me to have some morphine and something for nausea. So after that I was pretty happy go lucky. Dr. Goodlow, the anesthesiologist came in to ask me health history questions and go over the way my anesthesia would go. After that Scheid came in to discuss how the surgery would go, and Maiers came in last. They both signed my hip. Then I went back to the operating room. I was awake, but didn't have my glasses on so I couldn't see much. I did see all the contraptions on the table to hold me in place. The next thing I remember is waking up in recovery, but barely being awake. It seemed like as soon as I woke up they moved me. I also had A LOT of hip pain at this point. I didn't know why. Once I got settled in my room and they were getting all my stuff hooked up, we saw that there was liquid dripping down my arm by my IV, it wasn't connected all the way. So once they got that set, my pain got a lot better. They also put me on oral pain medication to help me through the night because they wouldn't do a basal. So at this point I was really hungry, I was getting Morphine through my PCA pump and taking Norco 10 by mouth. I think I started itching really bad before bed so they gave me something for the itch, but it wasn't benadryl. Jeff left that first night around 7pm and I was awake a lot over night. I had no problem eating at all. I was a little scared about the nurses I had that night because I had two nurses and one of them was new. They couldn't figure out the PCA pump, how to change it. During the night I was able to get one shot through my IV of benedryl to help the itching.

1 more week!

Holy cow! I only have one week until my surgery. This time in a week I will be recovering in my hospital room hopefully feeling pretty good from the pain meds. My surgery is at 8:00am, so I will hopefully make it to my hospital room by early afternoon. I had my check up at Methodist to make sure I am fit for surgery and I was given the "all clear". It was a little nerve rattling because they had to take a lot of blood, but I survived and even went by myself! I had a bit of a panic this morning when I realized that I will be alone every night that I am in the hospital next week. It is going to be so hard to let Jeff leave on surgery day and then he will only be over after work the rest of my stay. My parents said they would come the day after surgery to be with me and other people have mentioned coming to visit. Then the work week after surgery I have "baby sitters" set up for Monday thru Thursday. I'm hoping to be independent by Friday, June 17th, ten days after surgery. I'm just trying to be positive and think about the final outcome but there are a lot of things worrying me.

• Am I going to be able to do my class work? Will I get bad grades?
  
• Am I going to be in a lot of pain?
  
• Am I going to be able to do the exercises they tell me to do?
  
• Can I get around the house with two large dogs?
• Am I going to be stuck in the bedroom for several weeks or can I move to the couch?
• Is the surgery going to fail? Am I going to be stuck having a lifetime of surgeries?
• Is my insurance going to be a pain?

Am I crazy for worrying about all this stuff? I can be extremely irrational sometimes, but I don't think I am being that way right now. I just need lots of hugs and I am probably going to cry a lot this week. For those who see me regularly--be prepared!