Today I am one week post op and have been home since Saturday evening, so I managed to only stay in hospital 4 nights this time.
My admission time on the 3rd was 12:20, so we had a morning to waste. We stayed at a nice hotel near the hospital the night of the 2nd, I wasn't allowed any food from 7:30 am and clear fluids only until 11:30 am. So I got croissants and nice jam to eat in our room at 7am. We hung around the hotel room until 10am, relaxing. I had a long, hot shower, probably the last for the next month at least. I did some yoga whilst my husband went for his breakfast. The last yoga involving my left leg for 3 months.
My left hip was really sore that day of the op, I was limping on it and could not have any pain killers due to the amount of drugs I'd be having in a few hours time. We got to the hospital an hour early as we had nothing else to do. My room was ready so we able to go on in and watch tv until things started rolling. I felt really emotional when we first got to the room and had a good 5 minute cry and hug. I think they were a mixture of tears of pain, relief that I made it to this point at last and trepidation at what I was about to do electively. Anyway, a good cry always does me good and I felt better for it, determined to get on get this over with.
The anaesthetist and surgeon came to see me and I signed the papers and had an arrow drawn on my left leg. I got changed into my hospital gown and got into bed where I would be warmer and comfier with my painful hip.
They came to get me at 14:45. I was wheeled down to theatre on the bed which was nice. I then had to get out and hop up on the prep table and lie on my back. They anaesthetist and the technicians were all very nice and it wasn't long until I we talking about horses and cats.. I had a cannula placed in the back of my right hand and an oxygen mask. I was given the first lot of meds and I remember feeling floaty and warm. Then I dont remember anything until I woke up, which I was glad about as I really didn't want to feel the epidural going into my spine.
When I woke up, I was in the recovery room, back in my bed. I felt really Hot and then I felt a bit painful, about a 7 out of 10. I had a load of bubble wrap on me under the blankets and something blowing warm air underneath it, they said I had been cold in theatre. So I got it all that taken off and given some morphine and then I felt pretty comfy. I couldn't feel anything below my waist due to epidural. The nurse kept checking if I could feel her touching my foot or leg. The feeling in my right leg came back before my left leg, which stayed quite numb until after I got back to my room. I had to stay in the recovery a while because we had to wait to for the "blood cleaning machine" to Finnish its stuff. Because I have a blood disorder called Beta Thalassemia trait, my heamoglobin doesn't need much excuse to drop. So they had collected the blood I lost during surgery and it went into the machine to be cleaned and then into a drip bag. This blood of my own was then given back to me through my cannula. Whilst we were waiting for this, the nurse showed me how to use the morphine pump they had set up for me, I had a button that I could press to release some of the morphine into the drip line. It would then not allow any more to be released for 5mins.
I got taken back to my room at about 7pm, and my leg was put into the continual passive motion machine (CPM). This constantly, slowly, flexes the leg backwards and forwards, the idea Bieng that the movement prevents adehesions forming in the hip joint. I also had the flotron cuffs placed on my lower legs, these inflate alternately to compress the leg and help prevent thrombosis. I Had had a urinary catheter placed whilst I was under anaesthetic so at least I didn't need to worry about going to the loo!
I was hooked up to blood pressure machine, Oxygen saturation finger monitor, ECG, the oxygen nasal prongs, and fluid drip with morphine pump attached. That's a whole lot of stuff inflating, going up and down and beeping. I felt pretty uncomfortable with it all going on, so kept on pressing my morphine button. I was allowed a cup of tea at 10pm but unfortunately I vomitted it straight back up. And so began the long night I had been dreading. The nurse kept coming in every hour to do my observations. The machines kept on beeping and things kept inflated and deflating. At 1am my morphine pump ran out. It took over an hour for the nurses to get round to getting it changed and the machine kept on beeping to say it was empty. I felt so hot and tired and uncomfortable. I had the blind up a bit with the window open slightly. I can remember looking out at the darkness and thinking it was never going to get light. But it did at last.
I managed a glimpse of what my leg now looked like. No going back now!!
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