Well I survived my surgery and after a miserable stay in the hospital I’m staying at my parent’s house so they can help with my post-op care. I’m pretty helpless at the moment but it’s getting better everyday. My parents set up a bench in their walk in shower, along with the hand-held shower attachment so I can shower, and I have handlebars on the toilet in my bathroom since I can’t lower myself very well (we call it my “throne” lol) and a walker to help me get around.
I have to take more pills than I can count per day which is kind of annoying, and irritates my stomach but I need them to help with pain and to increase my iron since I left the hospital very anemic.
My hospital stay was less than pleasant, and my mom is planning on writing a formal letter of complaint to the hospital board. To say the quality of care at the hospital is poor is an understatement. The nursing staff was MIA all day, the only time they seemed to be around was when I DIDN’T want them there (usually from midnight to 5am when they came in to take my vitals every 30 minutes or so). An example of their poor care, the morphine made me nauseous and I threw up twice during my stay, both times my parents were there (thankfully) my mom was able to clean me up with a wet cloth and paged a nurse for new gowns, both times the nurse never came and my parents had to go and track someone down. Thank god they were there, god knows how long I would have been laying there in my own vomit. Another thing that was horrible was the physical therapy. A Physical Therapist was supposed to come help me with basic things after my surgery, like helping me sit up, move my legs, and eventually stand and walk with the assistance of a walker. The first time she came was the day after my surgery, she was supposed to come by in the morning but she never showed, instead she came to my room at about 8pm while my parents were visiting. She rudely told them to leave because they wouldn’t want to see me cry and once they were gone instead of gently guiding me into a sitting position she yanked me up, let me sit for a couple of seconds and then with the help of an orderly yanked me to my feet. I was bawling at this point as my legs were too weak to support my weight and the jerky motions had hurt the areas I had tubes attached to (i.e. my IV, my catheter and the drain from my surgical incision). After that she had the nurse come give me my pain killers and left. She came back the next day in the morning saying the goal for that day was to get me to sit up for a while and then take me for a walk around the floor. I told her I was still very sore from before and asked if we could go slow and I also told her that my boyfriend and his family would be stopping by at any time. She said she wanted to get me in the chair and make me presentable for my visitors and that she would come back after to get me walking. The visit came and went, although the entire time I felt nauseous and had the start of a bad headache. She didn’t come back. Hours passed and my sister came and visited me during her lunch break, by that point I could barely keep my eyes open I was in so much pain. We paged the nurse and they never came. Finally my parents came during their lunch break (about 3.5 hours after I’d been put in the chair) and she had still not come back. My parents paged the nurse and demanded that someone came down and helped get me out of the chair and back into bed. I told them about the nausea and the headaches. They determined that I was suffering from Spinal Headaches. These headaches lasted the next several days, anytime I was vertical (sitting or standing), and the physical therapist NEVER came back during the rest of my hospital stay. Thankfully my mother was patient enough with me to carefully help me out of bed and get me up and walking around the hospital floor.
Now, my mom and I haven’t always seen eye to eye. We have had some legendary arguments, however I can honestly say that my mom is taking such incredible care of me. She is a saint. She helps me with such tenderness, she doesn’t leave fingerprint shaped bruises like the hospital orderlies did, she doesn’t rush me, she doesn’t push or pull, she lets me go at my own pace and I can honestly say that that’s how I’m healing faster than I thought that I would. And not only is she taking care of me, but she’s working a full-time job (working on a stressful project nonetheless) and managing to cook and clean and do the laundry. When I wake up in the middle of the night, whether I’m in pain or just need to go to the bathroom she’s there. I can be totally silent and somehow she still knows that I need her. I don’t think I can ever thank her enough for everything that she’s doing for me.
I can’t promise that I will be updating this regularly. It takes a lot out of me to sit this long and try to be coherent, but I will try. Until then you can check out some of the other blogs I love:
www.toplessrobot.com
www.heartlessdolls.com
www.greatwhitesnark.com
