Surgery

                Today we got up early and got to the hospital around 6:20 AM.  The nurse took me, my wife, and my mother-in-law to get checked in and ready for surgery.  They told me to change into a gown and put a thigh high compression sock on my left leg.  After I was changed, Dr. Peters’ resident and physician’s assistant came and talked to us about how the procedure was going to work and any possible complications.  The PA told us about possible nerve damage that is usually temporary, but can possibly be permanent.  My nurse, Bonnie, then brought in some medications for me to take; Celebrex for inflammation, as well as Oxycontin for pain.  They put a heating blanket on me, which was supposed to help my body from going into hypothermia from the general anesthesia.  The only problem is that the nurse assistant put it on low temp instead of high so this delayed my surgery because they had to warm my body up first.  One of the guys from the pain management team came and told me that I would be getting an epidural and that he would be back for me right before surgery.  He left and the anesthesiologist came in.  She was really nice; she put in my IV and told me about how the anesthesiology would work during surgery.  She said they would use propofol, fentanyl, and another drug that sounded like fentanyl for the anesthesia.  She then told me to give hugs and kisses to my wife because I wouldn’t be coming back after they gave me the epidural. 

                This is where my story begins.  My name is Tatiana, I’m the wife.  They made me say good bye to Andrew at about 7:45 AM.  It was hard seeing Andrew wheeled away from me, but my mom was there to keep me company, which I really needed.  So the surgery was supposed to start at 8 AM, but it didn’t.  Like we said earlier Andrew’s body hadn’t heated up properly, so after that was done they could start the operation.  He spent about three hours in surgery and then went into the recovery room where he was for about two hours.  The nurse in the waiting room would give me little updates on how he was doing and I soon found out he wasn’t doing well at all in recovery.  They had a very hard time getting his pain under control, but finally they let me go visit him in the recovery room while his real room was getting ready.  The nurse who was giving me updates had told me that Andrew wanted to know if I was having a “sob fest” while I was waiting for him and that he said that he had no pain.  This meant to me that they found a drug that worked and that he was feeling really good.  I went in and didn’t know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised.  He was really excited to see me and immediately went on to tell me that him and the nurse had a really good idea; instead of giving cubed ice they were going to get a snow cone machine and add tigers blood flavoring.  Andrew said he would gladly pay money for that.  He called me dude several times and was really happy to show his scar to anyone who would look, even if it was their third or fourth time seeing it.  The nurse told me about the complications of finding a drug that would control pain, which ended up being Ketamine for pain and Valium for spasms, and that they also had a complication with the epidural.  Unfortunately, the epidural didn’t work too well because it only numbed his left side, which didn’t really help since the surgery was on his right hip.  Andrew got moved to his room and was still feeling good so he wanted to sit up.  This turned out to be a bad idea.  He went from no pain to crying and screaming within 20 seconds.  The nurse had gone to get medicine for Andrew that they put in a pump that he could have administered up to every 10 minutes by him pushing a button, but he needed it now.  It was awful to watch and be helpless.  He said later that he had never felt any pain like that before.  He finally got relief from the pump which contained Dilaudid and was able to get some rest.  The anesthesia, valium, and dilaudid finally caught up to him though and he threw up several times between 5 and 8 PM.  He was given Zofran, but still felt nauseous so they gave him Anzemet and he is doing much better.  They also are having him use a barometer chamber thing, which will help him get some of the anesthesia out of his lungs which will help with the nausea.  He is sleeping well now so hopefully it stays that way.  Bring on day 2 and the beginning of physical therapy.  (We will post pictures tomorrow)