092 SURGERY

Thursday night I was suddenly told that I was going for surgery the next day.  Doctor Baschu came in and had me sign the consent form and my signature was a god-awful mess as my hands were not working well and shaking.  Not from fear, but from the overall ravaging of my body by the infection.  The shaking has all but gone away after 3 months out of hospital, although the left hand is still close to useless.  I cannot close it completely, yet.

I was told I could not have anything to eat after 10:00 PM and nothing to drink after midnight.  I was expecting to go in for surgery sometime early the next morning.  During the night, I started thinking, not a good thing at this point, and I remembered what Doctor Bashu had said about amputation and started to get worried about what I had signed.

The next morning, Doctor Sunshine came in and I told her my concerns and worries about the consent form.  She went and got it and showed me, scrawled across the front of it in red letters were the words “open and clean only”, which made me feel much better.  I was really concerned with Dr. Buzzkill’s attitude that I was going to wakeup minus a foot, and that I had signed the consent form.

The next task or indignity I had to endure was to have a PICC line installed.  This was performed in my room by a team of two surgical nurses.  A PICC line is basically a semi-permanent IV line, which is threaded into your arm and ends up in your chest in the superior vena cava.  It allows for easy disconnection from your IV giving you more freedom.  It also allows for better “distribution” of medications.  A procedure which normally takes 30-40 minutes, with me took 90 minutes due to various complications.  I’ve always said, when they say that less than ½ of 1% of people will suffer complications or side effects, I’m that ½ of 1%.

PICC LINE INSTALLED

Breakfast came and went with me not being able to eat.  Then lunch came and went with no word on when I was going.  Finally, supper and still no word and I was beginning to think it wasn’t happening.  My nurse on this day was a young guy named “Waylon”.  He spent a lot of time visiting with me and trying to find out when I was going.  By the time his shift change came at 6:00 PM there was still no word.  He did find out that I had been bumped down the schedule by someone who had been critically injured in a car accident and needed emergency life saving surgery.

I had told everyone that I do not handle general anesthetic well.  I’m very difficult to wake up afterwards and when I do wake up, I tend to puke my guts out.  Probably a good thing I haven’t eaten in over 24 hours.  Just as I gave up, at 8:00 PM they came for me and loaded me on a stretcher and transported me down to the operating room.  There I met the anesthetist and told him about my problem.  He said to me, “I’m betting you get severely motion sick as well”.  I confirmed that was the case and he told me that’s why my problems with general anesthetic.

As I was waiting, I was introduced to the entire surgical team.  I have a new appreciation for Doctor Baschu’s attitude.  I had seen him up on the ward at 6:00 AM and here he was about to perform surgery on me at 9:00 PM.  The whole team had been working all day and evening.  Nurses and other Doctors had told me that Baschu is the absolute best orthopaedic surgeon but has a shitty bedside manner.

In any case, at 9:00 PM they started to put me under.  The next thing I remember is being semi-awakened at 2:00 AM and as expected I started to puke.  Gut wrenching dry heaves that hurt my whole body.  After a few minutes of this they gave me an injection of Gravol and took me back to my room.  

I spent the entire day sleeping and then slept through the night.  The following day I kept falling asleep as well as the residual anesthetic worked its way out of my system.  Finally, in the evening of the second day post surgery, I started to feel normal.  That’s 5 surgeries I have had, and 5 times had the same reaction.  Three surgeries on my left knee, dental surgery to remove my wisdom teeth and now my foot.