Surgery

This post is about Thursday, and I'm writing it on Saturday. It's been a rough couple of days, but surprisingly the hip its self hasn't been too much of a problem.

We got to the hospital at about 10:30am.  I hadn't had anything to eat since the night before, and I was both cranky and punchy.  So Paul and I were cracking ourselves up in the pre-surgery room, watching episode after episode of Ridiculousness.  Watching people fall down is funny, no matter where you are.

I was in the pre-surgery room for about an hour and a half.  Surgery was scheduled for 11:45am, but I didn't get rolling until after noon. A parade of people came by to see me, to take blood, sign paperwork, and every single one had to ask me if I knew my name and birthday.  Every single one!  Gah.

The anesthesiologist came in and told me I had two options for surgery.  The first would be a spinal block and some sleeping medication.  I would be in and out of consciousness, but that meant I wouldn't need a breathing tube.  The other option was general anesthesia, where I'd be completely knocked out.  The recovery time would most likely be longer, and I'd have that sore throat from the breathing tube.  Tough decisions!  On the one hand, if the the thought of a catheter creeped me out, the thought of a breathing tube REALLY freaked me out.  On the other hand....does anyone really want to give the OK to WAKE UP during surgery? On purpose?

As nervous as I was about the waking-up-during-surgery part, I knew the recovery would be even worse. Post surgery pain, weakness, nausea, etc.  I didn't really want to add general anesthesia ick and a sore throat to the mix.  So I opted for the spinal block.

Spinal blocks?  They're kind of wonderful.  Chipper Surgery Nurse chatted with me the whole time about our wedding (having to explain about six times just who Paul was will spread the word quickly), and then the anesthesiologist was all "OK I'm done!"  Immediately I had a warm sensation spread down my legs, and then I was numb from the waist down.  Sweet!  I had also gotten some "happy" drugs, meant to relax me, so really every thing was pretty sweet at that point.

I did wake up half-way through the surgery.  The anesthesiologist told me she should be able to wake me up by shaking my shoulder.  Instead, I woke up to them hammering my femur!  Or, at least, that's what the noise and the shaking table led me to believe.  I couldn't actually feel anything, and I was so groggy that I just didn't care.  The biggest annoyance for me was an itchy nose.  Something in the combination of drugs running through my system, complete with with oxygen mask, make my nose SO ITCHY!  I couldn't keep the mask on, and was aware enough to keep pulling it off.  The anesthesiologist finally gave me some Benadryl, and I feel back asleep.

The surgery was over in about 2.5 hours, which was the estimated time.  I was in recover for an hour and a half, though, so I didn't get up to my hospital room until almost 5pm.  Both Dr. Peters and "Jeremy" (he's a doctor too, but he kept introducing himself as Jeremy) told Paul that the surgery went really well, but that my hip was a mess.  Both of them couldn't believe I was still walking, let alone going to work.  That's always good to hear...I guess.  At least I can rest easy in the knowledge that I made the right decision.

They knocked me out with morphine that first night, but it did nothing for the pain.  Got me some Oxycontin and well...things got slightly better from there.  The pain died down, but the nausea set in, and I didn't sleep all that well  Thursday night.  That's a story for my next blog!