When I came from surgery to recover and then my regular hospital room, I was hooked up to four tethers: Oxygen, and I.V. line, a drainage device (very cool, kind of like a reverse air pump), and the On-Q device that delivered the numbing medicine to the operation site. I was able to lose the oxygen sometime the morning after my operation - it was first to go. The drainage device was next to go, maybe a couple of hours before I left the hospital. The I.V. line came out after a final injection of pain meds just an hour or so before I was discharged, and the On-Q device was supposed to stay in place until Monday - five days after the operation. I wore a small fanny-pack attached to a strap hung around my next draped across my body like a purse. It was empty this morning, so Hettie gently removed the tiny line that went into the incision. So I'm free of the tethers, at least. Still down the road, unknown for how long, are the crutches and the oral pain medicine.
The fever is really a rotten side-effect of the surgery. My temperature usually runs one-degree low, so a 101-degree fever for me is like 102-degrees for someone else. I'm sweating one moment, fighting chills the next moment. But Hettie said the incision site looks good, and - according to the physician's assistant we spoke to the night after I returned home from the hospital - it's too early for an infection. I guess I should admit that's my biggest fear - infection. So we're taking care around the incision.
Anyway, the title of this post said I had some advice to offer - so here it is: Practice getting in and out of bed before your surgery. When you're in a lousy situation is not the time to learn how to do something. After I got my pilot's license a long time ago, I got an Instrument rating, which - among other things - allowed me to fly in weather that greatly reduces visibility... basically, I could fly in fog, rain showers, clouds. But none of my instructors had ever actually taken me into fog, rain showers, or clouds - we just simulated those things by wearing visibility-limiting glasses. So the first time I found myself actually got into weather, I was kind of freaked out. My first time in heavy rainshowers I radioed the airport about my situation and there was an awkward pause on the other end of the conversation like, "Yeah, so what?"Anyway, a couple of hours after surgery is not the time to be learning how to get in and out of bed without dragging your butt, twisting your hip, and stretching your incision. Practice this for days - even weeks - ahead of time. The objective should be just as I stated: Don't drag your rear across the bed, don't twist the operative hip. It's harder than it sounds, especially when you're in pain. I did do a lot of stretching in the weeks before my operation - and I worked on my triceps muscles on my Bowflex - but I'd never practiced (in pilot-speak) ingress or egress from bed. And, trust me, you'll need to perfect that technique. I think that's why I had some bleeding and I know it's contributing to my pain level.
It's now Saturday morning and my surgery was Wednesday morning. Pain-wise, mobility-wise, I think I'm doing OK. I'm not happy about the fever, but maybe I would be more OK with it if I'd been told more to expect it. Oh, there's also a pretty big headache that comes and goes - the post-anesthesia briefing before I left the hospital told me to expect that, and they said it was because the medication to numb me from the waist down during surgery was delivered into the cerebral-spinal fluid. They said I shouldn't expect pain meds to help it much and they recommend lots of fluids, including caffeinated beverages. At last, someone telling my my Diet Coke and Diet Mountain Dew is good for me!
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