I'm a newbie. DS surgery on Friday
The day of surgery was pretty much a blur in a morphine induced haze.
It's been no bed of roses, that's for sure. On day two, I had what's called a Vagal episode, which clenched down my neck muscles, and airway. I happened to be on the commode, trying to figure out how to get my rearranged innards to work so I could empty my bladder. Unbeknownst to me, I shouldn't have strained like I did. Such a thing after surgery can trigger the Vagal episode. I had just begun to eliminate a tiny bit when suddenly, I was wracked in a voracious, bone-gripping cold that had me shivering uncontrollably. When Stephen came in to the hospital's tiny lavatory with the requested blankets, my breathing shut off. Two nurses, a respiratory therapist, and Stephen managed to get me back on to the edge of the bed, sans underwear and backdoor flapping in the wind. I didn't care. At that moment, only air mattered to me.
As Stephen kept my eyes locked with his, he watched my lips turn blue, and yawp noiselessly at him in fear. A few seconds later, for whatever reason, the death grip on my throat released, and air flow resumed. Some thought that maybe I'd had a panic attack, but the respiratory therapist, and my surgeon, concurred with each other on it being a Vagal episode. Whatever it was, it scared the hell out of all of us.
I was then ordered to go for a CAT scan; my surgeon wanted to rule out that I may have a clot in the chest or a PE. The contrast they injected into my second IV had the expected effect of flooding warmth throughout my entire vascular system. So ended the shivering. Next was the fever. Over the next few hours, it climbed to 101.4. At the nurse's insistence, I went for a walk around the floor. When I went past the nurses's station, I had a flushed face, running rivulets of sweat that dripped off my chin, jaws, and nose. My fever broke, and the episode was finally over.
On day 3, discharge day, my surgeon told me to get out of there at 11:30 am. It too****il after 5 to finally manage it. I had awakened at 4 am and hadn't slept during the day because Evil hubbinsman had already packed off my CPAP to the car in preparation for our trip home. While waiting for the nurse to get my discharge instructions from the surgeon written up, she came in to give me my heparin shot for the road. I was fitfully dozing, which means my breathing was going through apnea episodes. My blood Oxygen level was 73%, the release was cancelled. I took the oxygen off, left on the meter, and my percentage rose to 99-100%. I spent the next hour and a half trying to stay awake enough to keep my O2 level high so that the nurse would be satisfied that I WASN'T dying. By the time we got in the car, I fell asleep, but managed, somehow, to get in to the house.
The pain level was the highest I'd experienced since the nurse wouldn't allow me to have any pain medications while in process of discharge. Trouble was, by the time we got home, our pharmacy was closed (6 pm on Sunday night). We just found out that Walgreen's is open 24/7.... something that would have been nice to know then. :p
Ah, well. It didn't matter much. I got snuggled into my recliner with blankets piled on, and passed the hell out for an hour and a half. Upon waking, I had some warm broth, painfully made my way upstairs and passed out in my bed again. The Tylenol I took did little to ensure a good night's sleep, and pain is such a RUDE awakening, but as of 11 am on day 4, percocet is my new best friend. I also find the sites where the JP drains were really annoying with the continued seeping, but that's tapering off slowly.
So, on day 4, I had three naps, and switched up to my semi-liquid diet. I had my 4 ounces of cream soup for lunch, chicken gnocchi from Olive garden (sans gnocchies and chicken chunks). I also managed to get in my 10 inhalations p/hr on my spirometer today, and walked my mile on the treadmill as ordered by the surgeon.
Yep, day 4 was a good day.
Day 5? Not so much. Lots of incisional pain. Gas pains. Tired. Uncomfortable. Pain. Pain. Pain.
No treadmill work. The three meals were less than what I could have eaten simply because I was hurting so much. I didn't sleep well, and no naps. By bedtime, I have 4 percocet tablets left and I'm worried that the pain is going to outlast the meds. I did get all my water in, and did my best to move around the house without over-doing it. To bed at 10, up at 12 midnight. To bed at 2 with just tylenol for pain, up at 4:15 feeling remarkably better.
Day 6 is looking good so far by 8 am. My bowels finally moved, twice (a couple hours apart) and all is as normal regarding that function as it was pre-surgery. The pain is nowhere near the level as yesterday. My guess is that the gut was finally starting to kick into gear yesterday and I was feeling every bit of it.
I also took my first head-to-toe shower since the JP drain incision sites had quit leaking finally. Boy, does that do a world of good. Although I was quite shocked at the bruising the heparin shots left me with, baseball size areas of blue-black blotches. Also, under my panniculus (pannus/fatty apron), there seems to have collected a good amount of blood/fluid that is rising up under the skin--eally deep red blotches (or puce, as I've come to discover)--but no soreness or irritation. And, of course, there's the other color of puce... the yellow-green-bug-guts-puce. Lovely shades of that are starting to hilite my belly mound more up towards the smaller incisions just below the breasts. My belly's beginning to resemble an impressionistic painting. Wonder what it will turn out to be? Ha!
I want to thank you all for the kind responses, and wish all that have upcoming surgery dates to remember that this is a marathon, not a sprint. By and by, we'll all get to that finish line.
It's been no bed of roses, that's for sure. On day two, I had what's called a Vagal episode, which clenched down my neck muscles, and airway. I happened to be on the commode, trying to figure out how to get my rearranged innards to work so I could empty my bladder. Unbeknownst to me, I shouldn't have strained like I did. Such a thing after surgery can trigger the Vagal episode. I had just begun to eliminate a tiny bit when suddenly, I was wracked in a voracious, bone-gripping cold that had me shivering uncontrollably. When Stephen came in to the hospital's tiny lavatory with the requested blankets, my breathing shut off. Two nurses, a respiratory therapist, and Stephen managed to get me back on to the edge of the bed, sans underwear and backdoor flapping in the wind. I didn't care. At that moment, only air mattered to me.
As Stephen kept my eyes locked with his, he watched my lips turn blue, and yawp noiselessly at him in fear. A few seconds later, for whatever reason, the death grip on my throat released, and air flow resumed. Some thought that maybe I'd had a panic attack, but the respiratory therapist, and my surgeon, concurred with each other on it being a Vagal episode. Whatever it was, it scared the hell out of all of us.
I was then ordered to go for a CAT scan; my surgeon wanted to rule out that I may have a clot in the chest or a PE. The contrast they injected into my second IV had the expected effect of flooding warmth throughout my entire vascular system. So ended the shivering. Next was the fever. Over the next few hours, it climbed to 101.4. At the nurse's insistence, I went for a walk around the floor. When I went past the nurses's station, I had a flushed face, running rivulets of sweat that dripped off my chin, jaws, and nose. My fever broke, and the episode was finally over.
On day 3, discharge day, my surgeon told me to get out of there at 11:30 am. It too****il after 5 to finally manage it. I had awakened at 4 am and hadn't slept during the day because Evil hubbinsman had already packed off my CPAP to the car in preparation for our trip home. While waiting for the nurse to get my discharge instructions from the surgeon written up, she came in to give me my heparin shot for the road. I was fitfully dozing, which means my breathing was going through apnea episodes. My blood Oxygen level was 73%, the release was cancelled. I took the oxygen off, left on the meter, and my percentage rose to 99-100%. I spent the next hour and a half trying to stay awake enough to keep my O2 level high so that the nurse would be satisfied that I WASN'T dying. By the time we got in the car, I fell asleep, but managed, somehow, to get in to the house.
The pain level was the highest I'd experienced since the nurse wouldn't allow me to have any pain medications while in process of discharge. Trouble was, by the time we got home, our pharmacy was closed (6 pm on Sunday night). We just found out that Walgreen's is open 24/7.... something that would have been nice to know then. :p
Ah, well. It didn't matter much. I got snuggled into my recliner with blankets piled on, and passed the hell out for an hour and a half. Upon waking, I had some warm broth, painfully made my way upstairs and passed out in my bed again. The Tylenol I took did little to ensure a good night's sleep, and pain is such a RUDE awakening, but as of 11 am on day 4, percocet is my new best friend. I also find the sites where the JP drains were really annoying with the continued seeping, but that's tapering off slowly.
So, on day 4, I had three naps, and switched up to my semi-liquid diet. I had my 4 ounces of cream soup for lunch, chicken gnocchi from Olive garden (sans gnocchies and chicken chunks). I also managed to get in my 10 inhalations p/hr on my spirometer today, and walked my mile on the treadmill as ordered by the surgeon.
Yep, day 4 was a good day.
Day 5? Not so much. Lots of incisional pain. Gas pains. Tired. Uncomfortable. Pain. Pain. Pain.
No treadmill work. The three meals were less than what I could have eaten simply because I was hurting so much. I didn't sleep well, and no naps. By bedtime, I have 4 percocet tablets left and I'm worried that the pain is going to outlast the meds. I did get all my water in, and did my best to move around the house without over-doing it. To bed at 10, up at 12 midnight. To bed at 2 with just tylenol for pain, up at 4:15 feeling remarkably better.
Day 6 is looking good so far by 8 am. My bowels finally moved, twice (a couple hours apart) and all is as normal regarding that function as it was pre-surgery. The pain is nowhere near the level as yesterday. My guess is that the gut was finally starting to kick into gear yesterday and I was feeling every bit of it.
I also took my first head-to-toe shower since the JP drain incision sites had quit leaking finally. Boy, does that do a world of good. Although I was quite shocked at the bruising the heparin shots left me with, baseball size areas of blue-black blotches. Also, under my panniculus (pannus/fatty apron), there seems to have collected a good amount of blood/fluid that is rising up under the skin--eally deep red blotches (or puce, as I've come to discover)--but no soreness or irritation. And, of course, there's the other color of puce... the yellow-green-bug-guts-puce. Lovely shades of that are starting to hilite my belly mound more up towards the smaller incisions just below the breasts. My belly's beginning to resemble an impressionistic painting. Wonder what it will turn out to be? Ha!
I want to thank you all for the kind responses, and wish all that have upcoming surgery dates to remember that this is a marathon, not a sprint. By and by, we'll all get to that finish line.
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