10/28/03
5:07 am surprising how many people are out and about this time of day, on a Tuesday. some street traffic, homeless on bus benches (route 55 doesn't run for about an hour yet), folks power walking in the dark, folks heading to hospital, police station and fire dept around the corner for shift, I guess. Uruguay picked me up about 5 min ago... he still smells sort of funky, but not as foul as the other day.
5:30 am arrival at the hospital... patient services haven't quite opened up yet. I'm very thirsty as a result of the pre-op fasting, and mouth breathing when I first woke up. (I set my alarm for 4am, but my body woke me at three...fair enough..gave me Goggle-time to do the fish entry.
5:35 they've arrived... no sandy, but Mary-Louise seems nice. I sign some last minute consent forms, pass some water, and am informed that I wasn't supposed to bring valuables. news to me! cash, palm and cards go to a safe until I'm in my room.
[updated after retrieval
6:00 am fill out a property sheet, much like i expect jail does. i lock up 3 20-dollar bills, 1 five, and 9 singles...they don't tally change. I keep lucky tokens with me as amulets of comfort. a quarter from Maryland, a newt whisker, and a mental image of my sweetheart all give me soothe. the lady is concerned about the palmtop...i assure her that no sounds or lights will go off while I'm gone.
6:05 am I dress for OR. I'm a big boy, but the gown is still good to protect modesty well enough. I've got my hair in a metal-free tie, and they've given me white thigh-high tights to stop blood clots during the operation. over the tights, I have brown slippy-socks with rubber sole-treads for walking traction and warmth (also a blanket..it's supposed to be chilly, but I'm wok either way, so far.) i have a blood draw, and they can't find as good a IV vein in the back of my right hand, so my left (dominant) paw gets it. the IV needle is *huge*. it burns a bit on installation, but not too bad... I hate needles, but watch with morbid fascination as she wiggles what looks like a ten-penny nail into a blood source. I meet with my anesthesiologist, different guy than my initial guy...this fellow's got a voice much like Roddy McDowell's. vitals are taken again. they give me something to calm me for the operation, and it gives me a chill.
7:05 am the doc says a brief hello, and I meet his partner...he seems in good spirits, ready and willing to roll. I'm sleepy...probably from the drugs earlier.
7:30 am drifting in and out of wakefulness, now wheeled to OR. very brightly lit, and cold enough to hang meat for storage. no counting backward from 100...I just shut off mid-thought. last remembered memory was of mi amor's hair.
11:30 am in recovery, wake up, and surgery is over. I wonder how hard it was for them to position my body during the operation...I'm a big guy, and as a dead weight, pretty unwieldy. i wake slowly, takes until about noon for me to be transferred to my room. the lights overhead have some panels painted to look like clouds and blue sky. maybe those panels were en route to OR? memory is jumbled at that point.
12:15 pm in my room... I share it with a guy I had talked to in the doc's office...he had a similar operation yesterday. friendly guy and talkative. my voice is croaky and hoarse from the general. I'm Really thirsty, and have a little box to breathe into hourly, to insure against pneumonia. my throat is a little mucous-y. clear liquids for lunch...water and apple juice. early dinner today though. 430pm. No catheter, so far, but I do have a morphine drip. Drinking a *lot* of liquids to soothe my throat. Requested security to bring my loot. I'm a little nauseous.
2:30pm - I get my loot back, finally. I promptly crash my camera/doodle/books programs by overtaxing resources. memo pad works, but I had to do a hard reset, emptying the volatile ram portion of palm's memory. all my books will have to be on paper and ink, it seems. catheter threat if I don't urinate by 6pm. much nicer room than when I went to Bethesda...free cable and phone. looks like history channel will dominate my viewing. King Kong (70s) on MAC. I call and let folks know I'm out of surgery. bp- 91/50 scary to me, nurse assures me it's only due to morphine.
4:30pm - small portion of veggie lasagna, side salad and garlic toast. ate slow, as my stomach was upset, and surprised the nurse by not upchucking. eating in a sit-up bed was sort of tricky, as I'm more comfy flat or only mildly elevated. plates are heavy, and hot tea doesn't go well with the meal, but the rest is tasty. talked a bit with roommate. He leaves today. 23 years old, wife is 18, and they have a 3-year old child. He had permission to date/marry via the parents, and the kid is cute! Wife & family are from Guatemala. mother calls, and asks if I need anything. I ask for a candy bar, since dinner was small, and I could go for some comfort food. she says that she'll be by at about 7:30 (visiting hours end at 8pm)
5:30pm - bed urinal gets a feeding... timely. hard to train myself to pee in bed into a jar, but necessity of comfort won out. The urinal can be used as a space heater...I wonder if folks used pee in hot water bottles in the old days?
6pm Danny Visits. poor guy has some smart kids that are too lazy to study, and are failing. we make plans to have him take me home midday tomorrow. He wants the day off from school, and I prefer his company to that of Uru. My back itches... probably the drugs and partly due to being mostly in the same position for hours. we chitty chat for an hour, and he's so beat that he;s literally dozing off in his chair.
7pm - mother calls, and skips out on visiting, due to traffic. no Twixt for me!
10pm water finding its way out of my system. I've filled 3x 32oz urinals so far today. I like having a private room. I've been primarily watching TV and tapping my drip
10/29/03
3am - can't sleep... just not comfortable. I can haze out for about 45 min at a time, but that's it. Night nurse checked on me, and I asked for a snack... she brought me a couple of saltine packets, a baby banana pudding cup with two vanilla wafers, and some apple juice. just the right little treat, and easy on my cranky tummy. mtv actually shows music right now vh1 only has 180 min of daily programmin g on rotation. 1983 strikes back has been on every time I flip past. boy george is plain goofy to look at these days.
5am - missing Newt-cuddles. realising that I could be surfiing the net now, if I'd brought lappie. I can recite the alphabet backwards from memory in under 15 seconds on the third try. first try took 28.
11am danny arrives. Physical therapy went well, they showed me how to use a walker while I mend up.
noon - waiting on paperwork to go home.
1pm still waiting
2pm still waiting. Time has come for me to dig into my prescription meds for pain.
2:30, they'll lend me a walker, as long as it is returned to them when I get the paperwork through for my own.
3:30 taking too long to deal with paperwork with walgreens / eckerds. Thankfully, Danny's handling it afer dropping me off. I get cranky after being in the car for 45 minutes when I could be home and in bed, resting off this stuff.
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