Part II of ACL Surgery: Forgotten Pain Meds and More Agony
Merry Christmas to all my readers who celebrate the holiday! I’ll be spending mine on the couch with an elevated, iced knee.
This is part II of my ACL surgery story. For the first post, go here.
Tuesday
My awesome night nurse left and I was worried. I had read in many online journals that day two was the absolute worst it would get. I couldn’t imagine it getting more awful, but it would.
In walked my day shift nurse. She came in, introduced herself, looked at my chart and said, "Oh honey, ACL’s are the worst! I know you’re just in agony right now." She was right. My day shift nurse told me that she had the exact same surgery seven years ago and that she completely understood how I was feeling. I told her that I was really concerned that I couldn’t pee. She confirmed that I wouldn’t be able to go home unless I could. She came up with a plan to wean me off of the morphine pump.
My breakfast was delivered and included scrambled eggs, a bagel with cream cheese, orange juice, rice krispies and coffee. Despite the hospital having very good food, it all made me sick. I felt like I couldn’t hold my head up and I also felt nauseous. I buzzed my nurse and she came in with an injection of zofran. Zofran and I are old friends. Zofran helped me when I had food poisoning two summers ago. The nurse told me she would be right back in with saltine crackers and some percoset. It had now been 40 minutes since I had hit the pain pump button. I was getting myself off the morphine pronto. I would just deal with the pain which was increasing each minute.
I kept dozing off, but it wasn’t a good sleep. I started to feel like when I fell asleep I was forgetting to breathe and I would wake up with a start, gasping. It was horrible. One of the surgeon’s from my doctor’s practice came in with two students. He took one look at me and all three of them looked like they felt really sorry for me. I must have been a sight. I don’t remember a whole lot of our conversation. I remember telling him I was in terrible pain and that I couldn’t pee. He said I couldn’t go home unless I could pee. He gave me some encouraging words and advice. He saw my backpack in the corner and asked me if I was on winter break and where I was a student. I laughed out loud, told him the backpack was my "diaper bag" when we went to Disney World and that I was 32 years old. When someone tells you on the day after ACL surgery that you look 10 years younger than you are, you smile despite the pain. He’ll be one of my favorite people for life.
An anesthesiologist came in a few minutes later and told me he was removing my nerve block. He pulled it out painlessly and I was sorry to see that thing go. Even if it wasn’t working perfectly, I can’t imagine how much worse it would have been without that block.
I was itching something terrible and found yet another lead stuck to my side that I hadn’t pulled off the night before. I was starting to get permanent rake marks on my good leg and stomach from scratching incessantly. I couldn’t have been more miserable as my pain continued to ramp up. My leg was just throbbing and burning something terrible.
About an hour later, there was still no sign of crackers or percoset. I was in pain and I was once again sitting on a very uncomfortable bed pain willing myself to just go already, when in walked my surgeon. Fabulous. I’m so happy I was at least covered up. He asked me how I was doing and I told him, "I’m sitting on a bed pan and I’m in pain." He smiled, unphased, and started telling me about the surgery. "Your knee looked great. Perfect, expect for the torn acl. We replaced it with the allograft. Everything went fine. Your knee was perfect except for the stability." He then loosened my knee brace and said "I’m taking your drain out now" and pulled that sucker out. It hurt, but only for a second and what’s more pain when you already feel like you’re dying. I had no pain meds at the time, but I was happy to see that bloody drain go.
I asked him why he thought I couldn’t pee and he told me it was probably the morphine, or perhaps the general anesthesia had put my bladder to sleep. I told him I hadn’t hit the button for hours now and that I was still waiting for oral pain meds. He seemed puzzled and concerned when I told him I was still waiting. He finished putting my immobilizer back on and talking to me. As he was leaving, I yelled "Hey!" and he stopped and turned towards me. "So, um, you know that part where you said it wasn’t going to hurt much?" He got a big grin on his face and said, "Yeah?". I said, "Well you are a big fat LIAR!" He gave me the biggest grin and made his exit. It’s hard to be mad at a man with a smile like that.
After going almost 2.5 hours without any pain meds, I had it. I was feeling a bit more "with it" and "with it" isn’t good when it makes you even more aware of the pain you’re in. I hit the call button and an assistant came in. I told her I was promised saltine’s and percoset hours ago. She acted like she had no clue what I was talking about. A few minutes later my nurse came in apologizing with the crackers and percoset. It was 10:30 a.m. My pain level was at least a 7 when she finally arrived.
The PT ladies showed up to take me to the "gym." I was disappointed that I had a brand new therapist in the hospital. A familiar face would have been really nice; and I was so scared about what they were going to do to me at the "gym." They helped me out of bed and I was finally able to go to the bathroom upright and on my own. I felt like breaking out a bottle of champagne until I saw my reflection in the mirror. My hair was crazy in the back and my eyes looked swollen and purple. I looked defeated; there’s simply no other way to describe it. No wonder the doctor had looked at me with such sympathy.
The PT and her assistant made me crutch it to their elevated wheel chair in the hallway. It was so painful and so hard to do. I had to go so slowly. It felt like it took me five minutes to make it from one side of my room to the other. The pain was making my whole body tense up and shake. I had to keep reminding myself to relax and slowly, mechanically go through each body part in my head and will it to relax.
I was wheeled down to the gym and they put a harness strap around my waist. I had to get up, crutch it over to the stairs and learn to go up backwards with my bad leg straight and without putting any pressure on it. She also showed me how to go down the stairs. Crutches, bad leg, good leg, was the order. The PT stood behind me on the stairs; her assistant stood in front of me, holding onto the harness. I had to back my crutches up until they were touching the back of the step, same with my right foot. Then I had to hop up and backwards with the good leg, dragging the crutches and bad leg up behind me.
On the first step, the assistant had to grab my harness. I wobbled and almost fell forward. I made it the rest of the way up and couldn’t even imagine how I was going to do this at home. To get in my house? One step up, six steps down, one step up. To get to my bedroom, seven steps up followed by another seven steps up. I made it back down o.k. and told them I needed to go back to bed. I was in agony.
I ate lunch, dealt with the pain by trying to distract myself with Fox News and HGTV and was told I wouldn’t be released until PT cleared me. Right now, I was not cleared. I had to do the steps again and better. In addition to all the other discomfort, my room was a furnace. My roommate and I were both roasting and getting annoyed that nurses kept coming in and covering us up with more blankets when we were clearly telling them not to! Finally, the PT assistant heeded our request and turned the thermostat down. Our room started pumping in cool air and my roommate and I got a little relief, at least in that area.
By the time 2 p.m. rolled around, my leg was hurting badly. I could feel myself tensing up again. I knew I had taken the percoset at 10:30 and that I would soon be due. When 2:30 rolled around I hit the call button and asked about my meds. My nurse was no where to be found. One of the LPN’s found my chart and said that I may have had the meds at 10:30 but it wasn’t written down until 10:50 so I had to wait another 20 minutes for another dose. Percoset takes 15-30 minutes to kick in and an hour to hit its peak. It was going to be a rough hour. My pain level was at least a solid seven now. For comparison’s sake, I never recorded a pain level over a 5 while going through over 15 hours of natural child birth. It was serious pain.
At 2:50, my roommate was having major problems. Her blood pressure dropped to 90 over 30 and she was in bad shape. There were tons of nurses trying to help her and she was moaning in pain. I was twitching at that point from my own pain (a solid 8 now), but didn’t want to call anyone when my roommate obviously needed them more than I did. At 3:00, my PT girls came in to get me. I told them I couldn’t possibly go right now. They knew right away that something was wrong. I had to pee terribly so there was that pain. Top that with my throbbing, on fire leg and I was a mess. The PT girls said they would come back for me in half an hour after I had my pain meds.
At around 3:10, one of the nurses at the main station buzzed my room and told Ana (one of nurse assistants) over the loud speaker in the room that a patient in the next room had too many blankets on and needed her to take one off. Ana was obviously annoyed. She yelled back, "I’m in the middle of an emergency here so do you think you could go do it yourself!?!" They were still trying to help my roommate get more comfortable and get her blood pressure back up. Trembling and sweating from the pain, I yelled out, "I will go take a blanket off of the patient if someone will please just get me my pain meds first." The nurses/LPN’s/assistants behind the curtain laughed and one of them said "You go girl." Ana remarked that she couldn’t believe I didn’t have my pain meds yet. As an assistant, she was not allowed to give them to me. She and I had previously bonded over the now lower room temperature, and she had spent part of her afternoon hanging out in a chair beside my bed doing her paperwork.
At 3:30, the PT girls came back into my room and asked me if I was ready to roll. One look at me told them otherwise. My forehead was dripping with sweat and I was trembling uncontrollably. "I didn’t get my pain meds" I blurted out and the tears started to flow. The PT assistant (who is an absolute angel and I am writing her a letter to tell her so) said, "What??? You didn’t get your pain meds yet? You should have had them an hour ago!" She stormed out of the room and there was much yelling in the hallway. The PT went with her and they were both going ballistic on the lazy nurses who were apparently just hanging out at the main desk. I was in too much pain to take what would have been usual enjoyment from someone sticking up for me in such a fashion.
Two minutes later, my original nurse who had disappeared in the morning came in with my percoset, a drink and apologies. She went on to tell me that she had been called to a meeting and that she had given explicit instructions to the next shift nurse to give me my meds. I didn’t care what her excuse was. I nodded at her and didn’t say a word. I had never experienced pain like that in my entire life and all I wanted to do was have it stop. The PT girls helped me get to the bathroom and now I only had one pain to deal with.
I told them I didn’t want to wait for the meds to kick in, that I wanted to go do the steps now and get the hell out of there. The PT and her assistant kept apologizing to me about what had happened, and I stopped them immediately. I told them they were the only reason I even got my pain meds and that I was so thankful for them. It wasn’t their fault at all.
By this time Mr. BBM and Big I had arrived at the hospital. I cried when I saw them coming down the hall. I was just so relieved my family was there. Despite my disheveled appearance, Big I only saw her Mommy and smiled at me and began telling me about her day. It was a fabulous distraction from the pain, and I now had advocates with legs that worked! They wheeled me down to PT and I did the steps twice in a row. The pain meds had not yet kicked in but I was determined to get them done and get out of there. They signed off on me and I was ready to go home.
Mr. BBM helped me get dressed and packed up all my belongings. The nurse gave me my discharge instructions and said she was going to call for transport to come and get me. Forty minutes later, no one had come for me. Mr. BBM, Big I and I shared my dinner tray and waited. Finally, Mr. BBM went to check on my transport and guess what? No transport had been called. Ten minutes later, when the man with the wheelchair (which looked more to me like a magic chariot to me) arrived, I was so happy. I said goodbye to my roommate, wished her well and said I’d pray that she got to go home soon.
Getting into the car was a challenge but the cool air outside, combined with knowing I was leaving made the pain seem minimal. It took me about 20 minutes to get in the house and up to my room once I got home. It was a real work out. Mr. BBM went to pick up my prescription and I thanked God I was home and had been spared another night at the hospital.
Later that night, I was breaking through with the pain meds just two hours after taking them and was miserable. Mr. BBM called the surgeon and spoke to the on call doctor. They promised me a stronger prescription in the morning when I went to PT and gave suggestions for managing my pain better through the night. They were shocked at how I was treated at the hospital and told me that unlike the two pillow max they gave me to prop up my leg there, I was really supposed to be using 4 or 5 pillows to elevate my leg. They said they would be "having a talk" with the nurses in the ortho surgical unit.
To distract me from my leg, Mr. BBM used a basin and washed and conditioned my hair while I lay in bed. The morphine had made me so itchy and it felt so good to have my hair washed.
Mr. BBM woke me up every two hours to give me either Vicodin or Ibuprofen through the night. He was amazing. . . exhausted and amazing. Besides the few seconds it took for me to swallow my meds, I slept almost the entire night. Finally some sleep and a little bit of relief.
Wednesday
I woke up, and was shocked to find that I had very minimal pain compared to the day before. Mr. BBM helped me get out of bed because my entire body ached. I felt like I had done 500 push ups and equally as many sit ups. My neck was also killing me, along with my arms, shoulders and back. Everything just hurt. My Mom said it could be from them moving me around while I was under general. I thought at least part of it was from being so tense during the previous two pain-filled days.
I brushed my teeth and went to the bathroom (a real pain in the butt for a woman who needs to sit when you have a brace so high up on your thigh). When I came out of the bathroom I was sweating and seeing spots. I had to sit down. Mr. BBM helped me get dressed and I realized I was going to have to take it a lot slower getting up and back down.
I arrived at PT and my PT gave me a big grin. I don’t know if he was happy to see me up and alive or he was more amused at my attire. I arrived wearing a pair of shorts with a pair of extra large aqua blue scrub pants over top (Mr. BBM’s from many years ago). I also wore a t-shirt that didn’t match a thing and a black zip up fleece sweat shirt. I had attempted to brush my hair, but left the make-up zipped in its bag. I was surely a sight.
He removed all the bandaging and what I saw wasn’t as bad as I expected. I have about 8-10 stitches total (I think): two small poke holes and two larger incisions (one below and one above my knee to the sides). My knee was swollen but not as badly as I expected, and there was only minimal bruising. That comes later I guess. Here it is, two days post-op, in all its glory:
The lowest incision with the steri-strips is the biggest and most annoying.
The view from the front. Pretty huh?
Some random nick on my thigh. What the heck is that anyway?
The scrubbed off remnants of the "yes" that told the surgeon he was on the correct knee.
My PT put ice and stims on my knee and it felt so good. He also refit my brace (They had messed it up a bit at the hospital). He showed me some exercises to do. I did some quad sets and both my PT and Mr. BBM laughed because I thought I was making a killer good muscle contraction but my leg was barely moving. He also had me bend my knee and checked my flexion. 55 degrees-not bad for two days post op. I was also able to lay my leg completely flat at 0 degrees extension.
My PT gave me a bunch of simple exercises to do and I headed back out. It went really well. Unlike so many horror stories I’ve read online about getting nauseous or dizzy at PT for the first time, I felt great. I made an appointment for a week later. My goals are to do my exercises at least three time a day, and ice it a lot. In one week, hopefully the swelling will have gone down, and I can start doing more.
The rest of the day went relatively well. With the new Percoset scrip, my pain was controlled pretty well. Mr. BBM continued to set the alarm and wake me up through the night to keep ahead of the pain and it seemed to be working.
After feeling like death would be easier on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday was a refreshing and encouraging day.
This is part II of III. For part I, go back a post. Part III will appear tomorrow.
Part I of ACL Surgery: Evil Nurses, Underwear and More than you EVER Wanted to Know
I’m back. Did you miss me? When I say "back," you should know that I’m still spending the majority of my life horizontal and that one week post-op, I am still hurting and hating being vertical. Here begins the story of the ACL reconstruction that happened one week ago today. This is part I of III. Hopefully, I’ll have some news of great progress by the end of the week. I have two PT appointments this week and an appointment to have my stitches removed. I had to divide it up into three because otherwise it was just too crazy long.
Monday and Tuesday were easily the worst days of my entire life. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t what I experienced.
Monday
I woke up at 3 a.m. and was unable to go back to sleep. I arrived at the hospital at 7:45 a.m. and wasn’t called back to get prepped for surgery until almost 9 a.m. By then, I was an absolute wreck. My hands were shaking and I was super nervous.
I was led back to a little changing room and told to take it all off. I asked about the underwear, but it was a no go. I asked the nurse if she understood that I was indeed having KNEE surgery and she smiled and said she understood. Mr. BBM started joking about going commando and I just wanted to cry.
I was led over to a prep area, given a gurney, and a nurse practitioner came and asked me a bunch of questions. She was super sweet. She asked me if I had any questions and I told her just one. "Why can’t I wear underwear for KNEE surgery?" She rubbed my arm and gave me a sympathetic look. "I know," she said. She asked who my surgeon was and when I told her she smiled and said, "You have a GREAT doctor." That made me feel reassured. We also discussed his good looks for a couple minutes and Mr. BBM was a good sport as usual.
While I was waiting there, someone came in and called my last name. An older man answered just as I was about to respond and I looked at Mr. BBM with wide eyes. "Oh my GOD!" I said. "I hope they don’t confuse our surgeries! What if he’s having prostate surgery or something?" Mr. BBM almost cried he laughed so hard, and then it really was my turn.
I thought they were going to start my IV there like with everyone else, but the next thing I knew, the transport man came to push my gurney down the hallway with Mr. BBM in tow. Because he was a volunteer, he didn’t follow the "No Admittance" signs and allowed Mr. BBM to accompany me to right outside the OR to what they called the "holding area." He made some comment about being a volunteer and how he should have left my husband back behind the double doors, "but what are they going to do? Fire me? I’m a volunteer. What’s the worst thing they could do? Send me home? And how could that be bad?" He was definitely my kind of guy. He had me laughing and for that I was so grateful.
Mr. BBM said goodbye, and the volunteer left me in the holding area. I still didn’t have an IV and started to wonder if they thought I was going in awake or something. After a couple minutes and several people asking me who I was and what they were doing today (I swear 50 people asked me the same questions and looked at the same "yes" written on my left knee), a young male nurse came to get me. He wheeled me over into the PACU (Post Anesthesia Care Unit) to start my IV. There were tons of crying kids in there. There were lots of adults lined up in a row trying to wake up.
I told my nurse I couldn’t wait until I was in there after the surgery. I just wanted it over with. Jamie, my nurse, reached down my gown and put a bunch of leads on me. When I say bunch, I mean it. I thought I got them all off and actually found one right before I came home from the hospital, more than 24 hours after the surgery.
Then he started checking out my veins. I told him I didn’t want an IV in my hand because I had a bad experience with that before. He tried to find a good vein on me in my arm and thought he did; but he wasn’t confident enough so he called an anesthesiologist to come do it for him. Three pokes later, I had a working IV. They all kept apologizing, but I didn’t really care because when an anesthesiologist does your IV, they use local first so I didn’t feel a thing. Plus, I joked that with all the local I was getting, I’d soon be numb head to toe so it would make the surgery easier on me. They all laughed. I was glad that at least they were at ease.
They called another anesthesiologist to come and get my femoral nerve block started. The anesthesiologist Rob, came in and went right to work. Despite being commando, he kept me pretty much covered up for having to do a procedure on my bikini line. He asked me if I wanted a sedative and I asked him if he could please put a mojito or two in my IV. He laughed and ordered versed and fentanyl. The nurse injected the meds into my IV as I asked how long it was going to take to start working. Rob was injecting local into my bikini line as the meds flowed into my vein. As the words were coming out of my mouth, I felt like I was sinking into my pillow. "Now that’s what I’m talking about," I told him. "Yep, good stuff" he said as he smiled. "On the streets you’d go to jail. In here, it’s perfectly legit."
Before he started the business of finding my nerve, one of the nurses painted my leg green as she sang me "O Christmas Tree." I’m glad they found it amusing that I was turning green, so I lifted up my head and saw that it was a pretty amusing shade of green. That could have been the influence of the IV mojito though. Probably was, now that I think about it. The ceiling was also fairly amusing.
Anesthesiologists are a funny breed. They are extremely excited about the drugs they deliver to patients. Rob started telling me about the nerve block. "These are sweet," he said. "We’re going to find the right spot here and then stick a small catheter in there and you’re not going to feel any pain in the front of your leg or knee for the entire time you’re here." Then he started commenting on my body. "Wow! Awesome!" he said. "You are so skinny. You’re not our typical 300 lb. 70-year old getting a knee replacement. This is going to be a piece of cake." I told him I didn’t realize I’d be getting showered with compliments on my surgery day and thanked him.
He stuck the needle thing in my groin and my leg started twitching uncontrollably. He spent a couple minutes moving the needle around and with each move a different part of my leg would go crazy twitching. It felt weird, but it was kind of funny. That was probably the versed/fentanyl too. After a couple moves, he found the right spot and put it in. He hooked the catheter up to the pump and I was on my way to having a super numb leg.
My surgeon walked in with a big grin on his face and asked how I was feeling. I told him I was nervous, but that the mojito in my IV helped. He patted my leg, told me not to worry, and said "you’re not going to have much pain. It’s really not that bad." He asked me if I had any questions and I told him he answered my 4000 questions the week before. He laughed and went to the OR.
After he walked away I said, "Crap! I did have a question." The nurse asked me what I wanted to ask and said she could go grab him quick. I said, "I wanted to ask him why I can’t wear my underwear!"
Everyone got a nice last laugh, and it was time to go to the OR.
They wheeled me into a icy cold OR and the nurses were buzzing around preparing things. They helped me move over onto the operating table and it was like sliding my bare butt onto a slab of ice. I left out a yell because it was so cold. They strapped my arms gently down and I kept telling them I could still feel my leg. I needed them to know, but they didn’t seem very concerned. They then put this nice inflatable thing around my shoulders and across my chest that they inflated with warm air. They also covered me up with a warmed blanket.
A nice nurse introduced herself and assured me she’d keep me covered up. The anesthesiologist came in and asked me if I felt like going to sleep. He held up my IV with a syringe in his hand. It was all happening so fast now. I heard him say, "I’m putting you to sleep n. . ." and that was that.
I woke up in the OR to a nurse calling my name. I was instantly wide awake.
People were buzzing around the OR much like they had when I first entered. "Honey, why are you crying? Are you in pain?" a nurse asked me nicely.
I reached my hands up to my face and wiped away a tear that was rolling down my face. "No," I mumbled. I didn’t even know I was crying." I blinked a couple times to make sure this was real and then I asked, "So, did you guys all have a nice peek at my ass?" The buzzing OR seemed to stop for an instant and EVERYONE laughed. The nice nurse from the beginning leaned in close to my face and said, "We didn’t see even a peek.
Back in the PACU, I was asked about my level of pain. I felt pain in the back of my calf and the back of my knee, but nothing in the front of my leg. I reached down and felt the top of my thigh. It felt squishy and funny, numb from the nerve block. I had a huge immobilizer brace on my leg (not the one I brought to the hospital and to the OR) and was wrapped in an ace bandage from my thigh to my toes underneath. I also had a drain tube coming out of the bandaging which was attached to a device and bag that collected all the blood.
I said my pain level was a 2. She asked me if I wanted an injection of morphine. "Yes please." It wasn’t horrible, but I had a feeling it would get worse. I was right. Before they gave me the injection, I was easily a 3-4. They gave me the injection. They asked me a few minutes later where I was on the pain scale. I was now a 4. The back of my knee felt tender and my calf felt awful, like a super cramped up muscle, and it was getting worse. The nurse sort of rolled her eyes at me and said that I couldn’t expect not to have any pain. I looked her in the eye, told her I wasn’t stupid and realized I’d have some pain, and that I was told by everyone to stay ahead of the pain.
Another nurse was checking my blood pressure at the time and she sort of pushed the evil nurse away and took over. I later learned that the takeover nurse had undergone an ACL reconstruction herself. She told me that it was killer for the first couple days and that I was right to keep requesting pain medicine.
They kept taking my blood pressure, and watching a monitor above my head. Every once in a while a nurse would stop in front of me, watch my monitor, and tell me to take a deep breath. I didn’t realize that I wasn’t taking deep breaths at regular intervals.
During the time I was in the PACU, I received five shots of morphine. The pain seemed to keep a bit ahead of the injections and I was getting nervous about how bad it was going to get. Eventually they hooked up my morphine pain pump, handed me the magic button, and I was transported to my room.
Once in my room, the nurses used a slide board to transfer me to bed. My leg was so numb and I was hurting, but only on the back of my leg. I didn’t want to even try it myself. I had a roommate who had undergone a spinal fusion. I had a huge window and a view of the helicopter pad. That was pretty cool, right up until Big I waved at the pilot on the night I was being released. He waved back, and I realized that they had probably seen a lot of BBM butt during the night.
My first nurse initially seemed nice. She asked me how I had been injured and seemed like she would be helpful. She told me to stay ahead of my pain, and to let her know if I needed anything. After about an hour of hitting the button, I felt I had sufficiently knocked my pain down enough to deal. Mr. BBM and my parents were visiting, and about an hour later is when things started to get bad.
My pain pump started making funny sounds and I was not getting relief. The pain was ramping up quickly and I was getting more and more uncomfortable. I was trying to breathe through the pain, but unlike contractions, the pain didn’t stop. My nurse eventually came in to check it. It seemed like it took her forever to respond. She then told me that I had maxed it out. I was in so much pain at this point that I was about to lose it. "What do you mean I maxed it out"" I asked her.
It didn’t make sense. If the morphine was set to run in four hour cycles and I was only allowed to hit the button every six minutes, and if the medicine would not be delivered before those six minutes were up, then it makes no sense that I could "max out." The evil nurse started lecturing me that I needed to "just relax" and "calm down" and "control my pain with positive thinking" and "with your karate training you should be able to handle this." If she had been close enough, I think I would have taken a swing at her. I have never in my life, experienced such terrible pain.
With tears streaming down my face from the pain, I calmly and coldly told her that I had been through two lengthy natural child births, and that I do not have a problem tolerating pain. This however, was intolerable and I needed something NOW. She left the room and a nurse’s assistant told me that I was allowed to have up to two additional injections of morphine. I hadn’t had a single one.
My dinner sat on my tray getting cold, because it was impossible for me to do anything but sit there very still and try to will myself to not hurt so much. My entire body was tensing up and anything that took attention away from me trying to mentally control my pain was unthinkable. I could hardly speak; I could hardly breathe.
After what seemed like an eternity, she came into my room with the morphine injection and attitude. Later I was told by the assistants that she was being read the riot act in the hallway by both of my nurse assistants. She was being a total jerk and I am so thankful that those assistants said something, which resulted in her doing something. Needless to say, I was very happy when that first nurse left.
I’ll spare you most of the details on the other "issue," but I was unable to get out of bed at all the first night which meant I had to use a bedpan. I can’t use bedpans. When I was in a car accident years ago, they tried to make me use one and I couldn’t. When I was in labor with Big I, they tried to make me use one, and I couldn’t. I just can’t do it. I did, however, have to pee really badly. I sat there on that bedpan for almost an hour. I tried relaxing, visualizing, concentrating, putting my hand in a cup of warm water. Mr. BBM ran water for me; he left the room; he came back in the room, and still nothing. It’s very hard to go when you have a roommate and her husband is visiting too. I turned my TV up louder and still couldn’t go.
Mr. BBM was feeling really sorry for me at this point. I had survived surgery, a brawl with an evil nurse, and was still in pain and now my bladder was threatening to burst. He sat on the side of my bed and massaged my hand. I poured some water down there and the combination of the two worked. It felt fabulous to finally go. I thought I had broken the seal but my night was going to get much worse.
After Mr. BBM and my parents had gone, I tried to rest. One of the nurse’s assistants was such a doll. She brought me a washcloth and a basin so I could wash up a bit. She also brought me some cookies and kept an icy drink on my tray within reach at all times. She also helped me brush my teeth. We trash talked the nurse a bit, which made me feel better. The assistant assured me that I wasn’t being whiny; "evil incarnate"(the evil nurse) had just been ridiculous and that it was her standard modus operandi.
After a couple hours, I had to pee again and couldn’t go. I tried the previous routine, but it wouldn’t work. Nothing would. The nurse’s assistants even brought me a portable potty that looked like it was a bucket on a walker. They set it right beside my bed and helped me get over there. I was in excruciating pain. My leg was just throbbing and I couldn’t even begin to imagine how awful it would feel if I didn’t have the nerve block. Despite being upright, I still couldn’t go.
I’ll spare you the details but the nurse’s assistant talked me into being straight cathed. At this point, I had enough pain in my leg. I didn’t need to be dealing with any in my abdomen so I let them just do it. It wasn’t really that awful. After you have kids, I guess you just don’t care who sees and is in your business. My night nurse was fabulous. Before her shift was over, I would need to be straight cathed one more time. I just couldn’t go and at this point, I just didn’t care anymore who saw my business. What was more humiliating? A couple minutes of straight cathing with 100% relief or sitting on an uncomfortable bedpan for an hour. I’ll take the former.
Every time I went they used an ultrasound machine to scan my bladder. When I was able to go on my own, I still wasn’t emptying completely. The anesthesia/morphine combo had really done a number on my bladder. My bladder was very sleepy and just didn’t want to wake up.
For the entire night, I was strapped into a CPM (Continuous Passive Motion) machine that bent my knee to 30 degrees and back. It was slow and actually comforting. It was like a fuzzy hammock for my leg and felt great compared to the rigid immobilizer they had me strapped into.
I was beginning to think that I was just going to have to get used to having pain. It seemed endless. I would follow the nurses instructions by hitting the button several times so that I would get a blast of it and would be able to sleep. I fell asleep for almost three hours, but woke up to a horrible firey pain. The nurses thought that my continuous nerve block must have moved inside so it wasn’t providing relief like it should. I was given another bolus of morphine, followed by a bump up in the amount I was getting through my pain pump and an increase in how often I could hit the magic button. Despite a significant bump up in the amount of morphine I was getting, it was still barely taking the edge off of the pain. I was officially "behind" my pain and that is a very bad place to be. It was excruciating, but I was increasingly feeling more out of it. I felt like this day would never end.
If I had only known how much worse Tuesday would get. . .
This is the first of a three part series which will be posted over the next three consecutive days.
The Dreaded Christmas Letter
Hello, BBM Readers! I am delighted to be writing my first blog entry ever while BBM recovers. I have to be honest and tell you that I think this whole "ACL" thing is just a ploy by BBM to get me to start blogging. She’s been harrassing me suggesting to me to write for awhile now. Because she knows I will help her in any way I can, she conveniently "tore her ACL" and needed "surgery." Then, she begged me to help fill the blog void while she was gone. Good one, BBM! You finally got your way! Seriously, though, I’m excited to be writing here. Be gentle with me, dear reader; it is, after all, my first time.
The Dreaded Christmas Letter
by Tkddaughter
It is that time of year when you finally are excited to go to the mailbox. In between the thousands of credit card offers, magazines and bills, you actually get fun mail. You know the kind with cute stamps and little snowmen on the envelopes. It is the time of year where you can reconnect with friends you haven’t seen in years and years. But along with that fun mail comes much controversy…da da DA!!!!! THE DREADED CHRISTMAS LETTER!
You know how it goes…Little Susie started preschool this year and she is already working on quantum phsyics. Johnny Jr. is the starting quarterback for his peewee football team and we hear the Steelers are looking to sign him. Our dog, Snickers, just landed his 10th doggie commercial! Blah blah blah. By the time Christmas finally gets here, you feel incompetent, unworthy, and simple. I’ve already felt the stress of it myself. It’s annoying. At times it’s painful. And you know what? I’m glad they sent the letter.
I’m glad they sent the letter because what I dislike even more than the dreaded Christmas letter is the beautiful Christmas card showing no signs of a human’s touch. Or one that only bears the inscription, "Merry Christmas from the Smiths." I haven’t seen you in 17 years and the best you can come up with is, "Merry Christmas from the Smiths???" Are you kidding me?! I want to hear the growing your family has done during this past year. I want to know a little bit of what you do each day and how you’ve changed. Who is this person you’ve become? I can’t get that from a photo card printed out for you.
So while so many people dread the family Christmas letter, I say do it. Send it out. Tell your Christmas card list what you are up to, what the last year has shown you, and how you’ve grown. Send less cards if you have to, but write a little hello to each person. And a little advice: be honest. Don’t exaggerate to make your family sound like the perfect family. Tell it like it is because let’s face it…we’re all in the trenches here and it’s nice to know we are not alone.
That being said…well, I didn’t send a Christmas letter this year, but I did hand-make all 75 of our Christmas cards. While I didn’t write about our past year, I did put my own personal touch on it. But I bet there are still a few people out there who got my card and thought, "Gee, that’s nice, but what have they been up to this past year?"
I’m Alive
I just wanted to pop in and say hi. I came home from the hospital around dinner time last night. They almost kept me another night, but I fought to go home. Monday and Tuesday were easily the two worst and most painful days of my life, but today I felt a little better.
When I’m feeling up to it, I’m going to write it all up for you. Since I know you’re dying to know, I went "commando" for 36 miserable hours, and I couldn’t have cared less who saw my butt. Plenty did; few will live to tell about it. (O.k. that last part’s not true. I’m on heavy pain meds so cut me a break.)
Keep up the great work guest posters! I’ll be back to my blathering self next Monday. Thanks for all your well wishes and emails. They mean the world to me.
Before I Go
The time is now. After all the contemplation, physical therapy, relating to Cold Play, stressing about underwear, and decision-making, it’s time to go. I’m just hoping they don’t send me right home because of having a stuffy nose this morning. It takes much mental preparation to say "Yeah, go ahead. Drill holes in my leg bones" so I really need to have it done and now before I lose my nerve. After all, my stuffy nose is only slightly worse than my usual allergy self every morning which has been a problem for me since I had kids. I think I’m allergic to my children. That’s what I’ll tell them if they give me any problems today.
I have lined up some excellent guest posters for your enjoyment while I’m on the mend. They include: my best friend from graduate school (who has been sworn to secrecy regarding anything potentially inflammatory or embarrassing about me), a former teacher/training partner who’s sure to pique your interest with something martial arts related, not one but two martial arts "blogebrities," a good buddy/blogger from across the giant pond, a technological and Daddy wizard, and last but not least, a humorous daddy that I’m sure you’ll all love.
Mr. BBM will also pop in to let you know that I’m alive and stuff, probably sometime on Monday. Maybe I’ll say "hi" as well, depending on how I’m feeling. I may just relax though, in order to come storming back with some tales of underwear, nurses, surgeons, anesthesia, pain pumps, and what will surely be a fun first PT appointment post-surgery. Yes, I jest.
I just want to thank all of my awesome readers, commenters and friends who have been so supportive, encouraging and all around sweet. You don’t know how much your cyber-support has helped me since this injury first happened. I know you’ll be right there, virtually holding my hand until I’m asleep, and shouting words of encouragement as I come storming back too, pushing me at PT and through those moments where I’m sure to be discouraged. You are all gems, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
I’m off to the hospital now. Say a little prayer for me if you’re so inclined. Please include the words "goes quickly," "pain controlled," "no side effects from anesthesia," and "tray of food soon" because I am so hungry.
(Yells to Mr. BBM: "You put that key to my underpants in the safe right? And, what do you mean I can’t take my laptop!?!?!).
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