Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Surgery and Beyond

Well, they wheeled me off to surgery at approximately 9:15 a.m. on the morning of the 20th - the next thing I remember is seeing a clock (I think it was in recovery) that said 3:10 p.m.  After four hours of surgery and approximately two hours in recovery I ended up in Room 631 bed 2 at Methodist Hospital.  Everyone associated with racing wanted to know how I ended up with a room number with John's car number in it (31) - pure luck is my guess!  Methodist has 2 bed rooms (hence the bed 2) - so I had four roommates during my 10 day stay - let's just say, some were more interesting than others!  The first night there was a high wind warning - and so all of the patients were put out into the hallway because of it - luckily they let me stay in bed and just rolled me out into the hall.  (That was the same night that Fremont had a lot of tree and wind damage.)  John and all of the kids were there during my surgery - John also had Tuesday off work, so he spent both days with me.  My sister Denise came and spent Wednesday & Thursday with me.  On Wednesday they were concerned about some pneumonia - so they took me down for a chest x-ray, they also were concerned about my high heart rate, so I had an EKG done and then wore a heart monitor throughout my stay.  I was having trouble with some nausea too (that was a sign that the organs weren't waking up).  Friday was kind of a bad day - I was still feeling nauseous - they took the catheter out, did a bladder scan, and ended up putting a catheter back in (the bladder was not quite ready to start working on its own yet).  I knew they were going to access my port to put the iv in - that was good timing, as where they had placed the iv in my arm had started to infiltrate.  At this point Dr. B took any sort of food or water away - all I'd really had up to that point was jello and apple juice.  On Sunday, the 26th I had another chest x-ray to see what the pneumonia was doing - there was still a little bit there, and also I was running a fever, so they did some lab work.  (I was on an antibiotic via iv during my whole hospital stay.)  Whenever I had started running a temp, the nurses prompted me to blow into the spirometer and that usually took it right down.  This was my second experience with a spirometer - they sent me home with one after my hysterectomy surgery too.  On Monday, Dr. B wanted me to try some food again - so I worked almost all day on an instant breakfast - then I ordered an Ensure to try.  Well, by that evening I was feeling nauseous again - and had lost all of the instant breakfast and the Ensure.  On Wednesday they took the catheter out and I also had a CT scan (Dr. B wanted to make sure it looked like everything was working like it should be) and yes I had to drink that awful tasting stuff.  For the first time since I'd come into the hospital I could order up some real food - scrambled eggs & toast & apple juice for breakfast and a tuna croissant for lunch - can't remember what I got for supper.  I also got the IV out then.  Each day that I was in the hospital, they wanted me to walk at least three times a day and get up and sit in the chair at least three times a day.  There was a flurry of activity Thursday afternoon - they were planning to discharge me, because they weren't sure that insurance would pay for another day's stay.  So I made a call to Carrie to see if she could come and pick up me - which she did - I took a percocet for the ride home and about 5:45 p.m. we headed for Fremont.  It was great to be home!
Thanks to everyone for the cards, flowers, calls & visits - these people stopped by to see me or called me:  John, Jeff & Jill, Brody & Brant, Carrie & Justin, Dr. Bill, Tracy Kindler, Marianne Simmons, Joy Jensen, Lyle & Ginny Nelson, Denise Miller, Tim & Odetta Wacker, Carol Stohlmann, Joe Gasper, Mollie Brown, Peggy Iverson.

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