#surgery

Honey, I’m hoooome! Got home yesterday actually. Doing pretty good, worst part is finding the perfect position, perfect angle, pillows arranged perfectly…and then never being able to find that sweet spot again after a bathroom break. Plus, my other joints are protesting this much time in bed. But I’m way more alert than I expected to be. And I feel so loved. Not by your outpouring, tho that was nice…but because the cats have been all over me since the second I got home. Hiccup, who never stays more than an hour for a snuggle, slept the whole night through with me, 10 straight hours. Pippin has been right next to me all this morning, everytime I open my eyes he is just staring at me. And Ripley & Kirk, who generally only spend time together if they’re fighting, are currently laying just 6 inches away from each other so that they can both have me. Diggle has frantic happy tail everytime he sees me and remembers that I’m back…sadly we took the ottoman away from the end of the bed so he can’t get up, safer for me that way. He doesn’t understand why he’s been banned from the bed. I have moments of frustration thinking about the slow road ahead of me with recovery. I mean, this sucks. But compared to the left hip surgery a few years ago, my pain & mobility this soon after surgery is hella impressive. Home PT starts on Monday, just to make sure my other joints don’t lock up (worse than they already are) while I’m recovering. And that’s about it from here.

I’ll say it again…if you wanna do something for me, Go Get Vaccinated. I found out 24hrs in that my roommate wasn’t vaccinated. I wore my mask most of the time, but there was one point where I forgot to put it back on after lunch and dosed off for four hours, only to wake to a convo with the nurse trying to talk my roomie into getting her vaccine because no rehab facility was willing to take her otherwise. I was shook up when I heard that. Why in the hell would they put a severely immune compromised person in a room with an unvaccinated person?! Idfk, but I’ll feel better both with my pain level and with my fear that Imma wake up coughing, once I hit that 2 week mark, ya know?

Surgery was yesterday. It all went really well. You can tell I’m good based on fact I’m posting the day *after*. & I’m doing really good w the hip recovery, but my heart rate & blood pressure keep dropping (possibly leftover reaction to anesthesia), so PT doesn’t wanna push me too hard for that reason, so I’m staying one more night. Mostly biggest issue is so sore from being stuck in bed. . Anybody wants to do something for me - Go Get Vaccinated! It’s my new love language. My meds suppress how many antibodies I can even make, but like the more ppl vaccinated, sooner we stamp this out & I ain’t gotta worry. Bc it sucks having to wear a mask 24/7 in here, even when I sleep. It’s required for staff, optional for patients, but last night I heard my roommate coughing, probably a post-surgery post-intubation cough, but I’m not taking any chances. So there’s that. Will try to update again on Saturday or Sunday, when I’ve been home a day or two.

I suppose you’re all wondering how my surgery went? Welp, it didn’t. The tl;dr is that they needed a special part that didn’t arrive in time and they’ve rescheduled me for September 22.

So like, basically they needed a special part for me because I’m a complicated case - it’s a replacement of a 1997 replacement and I have a femur rod in from breaking my femur years back and my original replacement was locked in there with cement, so it’s a complicated situation - & they had to order the special part, but like because of the holiday weekend, it didn’t arrive in time. But they thought it would, so I did the whole no food & drink thing, no pain pills, anxious mess, little sleep, showed up in my pajamas, waited curled up on 2 little chairs that were pushed together because I hurt too much to sit up, in a very cold waiting room, that’s like literally in a hallway, like their pre op waiting room is just a bunch of chairs in the main hallway, three hours before they called me back, where I then changed into a gown, started answering all their questions, had to use a Hoyer lift to get onto the bed because for some reason Ortho Surgery doesn’t have stretchers that drop low enough for wheelchair transfers even though they have all *Ortho* patients, which then the Hoyer lift caught my bad leg and the nurse had to twist it loose and it hurt so much and then another nurse came a minute later, and not having seen what had just happened, also grabbed my leg and started wrenching me around while the first nurse was like, “no, don’t do that!” but too late, and then the dr came and was like, “bad news” but the last time he said those words to me minutes before I was to be wheeled back to surgery it was to cancel so I was like, “WHAT WHY” and then I was like, “ok just go away then, I can’t even right now, I’m so hungry, tired, in pain,” and the nurse ran a off and came back with a big ol plastic bag filled with crackers, chips, pudding, applesauce, sodas like I had just robbed a vending machine. And I came home and ate and slept and cried and slept some more. And drank water, oh god so much delicious water. It’s the worst part about being NPO is the no water part. I’ve been rescheduled for September 22.

So I get to spend 2 more weeks in severe pain. And that’s like, Chronic Pain Sufferer’s *severe pain*, not just any ol pansy level of pain either, cuz my tolerance is high and I’m still over here whining like a pussy. I know they had me come in and everything because they thought it would arrive in the mail that day, but like, if they knew they had to order a special part, on a holiday weekend, like I don’t care how bad off my hip is that they felt they had to rush my surgery, they shoulda never tried to fit me in when they knew they had to special order a part on a holiday weekend. I can’t believe I have to go through all that pre op shit and the psychological prep in my head like all over again. If this is how the U of M - one of the top hospitals in the whole country, that people come from all over, from like other countries even, to have surgeries there - if this is how completely non-professional they act, what the fuck are other hospitals like?

Welp, here we go. ‍⚕️ Headed out my front door in 5 minutes.

Just asked my niece (8) if she had any questions re my surgery. She had 2.

How long will it take?

And who will be taking care of our pets during it? She asks the important stuff.

Welp, 24 years after they first replaced my right hip, it’s time to do it again. Saw the surgeon today & he said, “Looks like it’s time. I got an opening on Tuesday, you want it?” So I said Yes. It’s been popping & rolling worse as the summer has gone on. He said he thinks the joint is gonna fall right out once he opens me up, lol. But I’ll say, 24 years is nothing to scoff at! But, of course, no one likes having surgery. For me, the IV, the anesthesia, the glaring overhead lights in the operating room - that shits all traumatizing AF. TBH tho - as long as there’s no post-surgery nerve pain like with my left one a few years ago (please let’s not have that again) - the surgery day & the day-after will be the worst of it. After that it’ll just be rest, reruns of Bob’s Burgers, the Hogwarts Mystery video game my nephew turned me on to, and recovery exercises for a month or so. Sadly I’ll be missing my baby cousin’s wedding because of this, le sigh. Anyway, I’ll post on here when I feel up to it. With surgery on Tuesday, it may be Saturday before I remember to let you guys know how it went. I’m hoping I’ll be on the good drugs until then…though don’t get me started on how they told me to reduce my pain meds *now*, so I can raise them up again post-surgery. I was like, “But…I’m in pain *now*. That’s why I need the surgery.” Where’s the logic in this? I’m on 4 Norco a day currently. That’s the max and even that, my liver dr is not thrilled about because of the Tylenol in it. Idk what they’re plan is for pain control post-surgery, but I don’t wanna have to beg & plead for pain control that does the trick & doesn’t overload my liver. I do not want to be on Oxy a single day longer than I have to, but I also want proper pain control when I need it. Being in extreme pain is only going to hinder my recovery, after all. So cross your fingers the surgery goes well, there is no nerve damage, & they aren’t picky with my pain control. ✌