Bed-Side Blog

Coloured in the hospital while I waited for my Gummy Drop lives to regenerate.

I'm home now - Sunday, August 20. Have been since about noon yesterday. 

They sent me home with, among other things, 100 opiate-derived pain pills, but, thanks, I'm done with those. There are worse things than pain. Like the weapons grade laxatives you need to take if you're on opiate-derived pain pills. 

Tylenol is doing a good job of keeping the soreness down to a dull roar. 

Now I just have to focus on physio, not falling, staying positive and healing. 

On the physio front, you get points just for sitting in a chair, which is what I am doing now. Other highlights of the day: I climbed up a flight of stairs. I took a shower (Bruce helped). I stood for five minutes. I walked (with my rented walker) back and forth along the length of the master bedroom ten times. I climbed down a flight of stairs.

Nowadays, these are major accomplishments.

Here's something I wrote when I was in the hospital:

I've written before about the miracle of pain relief. Now I'd like to say a few words about the raw surprise of anaesthesia. 

I sat in an almost comfortable chair for a couple of hours after checking into Toronto Western hospital the morning of Wednesday, August 17, 2016. Then I was accosted by a friendly stranger - who introduced himself as an anesthesiologist. He had a name, too, but what I remember is his job. We had a pleasant chat about all the stuff I already knew about my surgery but I had one question for him, "when will I go in for the spinal?"

"Right now," he said.

I left my bag of stuff and my cane behind and walked with him through some anonymous hospital corridors, into an incredibly bright room jam cram full of people.

A team of seven women hooked me up to monitors, installed  an intravenous shunt into a large vein on the back of my left hand (a moment in my life I will be happy to forget; I almost started to cry) and gave me the shot to my spine that would make me numb from the waist down. 

The oddest moment in that unfamiliar arrangement was when  they asked me to tuck my chin and slump forward (I was seated on the bed with my legs over the side). I did as I was told and was not expecting oohs and aahs, but that's what I got. One of them said I should come back and give demonstrations. On the planet almost sixty years and I did not know my special talent was to tuck and slump. 

I was numb almost instantly. Then I was wheeled into the operating room. Then there was a flurry of activity the likes of which I'd never in my life been the centre of. They had me on my side and were rearranging my gown and taping it in place and moving me down the table and then immobilizing my arms and I was chilly - especially the hand receiving the intravenous feed - I heard one of them say look she's shivering. 

Then I wandered off somewhere and woke up, still on the operating table. Someone said "hello" and explained they were just putting in the last of the staples.

I felt them putting the staples in. Just the pressure. No pain.

And that was it. I was wheeled into recovery to stay until I could show them I could move my legs even a tiny little bit. That took about twenty minutes. Then they wheeled me, on my bed, to my room. I'd asked for a private but none were available. [More about my roommates later.]

The surgeon dropped by later that day with a couple of residents in tow. He had nothing to tell me except that it went fine. His job was finished, he said. My job was just beginning. Tasks one and two were to breathe deeply and wiggle my toes.

Yes sir.

Thanks for reading!

Karen