crutches? I don't need no stinking crutches!

Arriving at Sheridan Hospital for surgery

Don’t tell Dr. Quinn, Medicine Boy that he’s a major miracle worker, or it will go to his head. Yesterday’s surgery went wonderful except for the wait to get into the OR.  I was scheduled for 1 p.m. and we got a call as we were already driving to Sheridan that they had bumped me to 2 p.m.  So, we found a few things to do like picking up my car graphic panels for our photo business and of course, stopping in to see the elk.

Thistle in the back with her  toy, snoozing, waiting for Mommy

We arrived right on time at the hospital, checked in and went back to my temporary home for the afternoon. They must have really run into some complications on the patient before me because they didn’t come for me until almost 3 p.m. Rob and I watched a repeat of Criminal Minds and dozed intermittently while waiting. They had given me some wonderful, warmed blankies and I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. When Dr Quinn finally came in around 3, he looked like he’d been put through the wringer! I made him blush when we were talking about Thistle’s surgery, he’s so cute.  Well, darn it, he asked me what procedure she had and I just blurted out “Vulva reconstruction”. I don’t think that’s what he was expecting.  At least I got some color back in his face after a long day, right? I was his last surgery of the day and as a nurse, that is always a little unnerving.

He did his usual magic, however, and after my groggy return from anesthesia, I already felt better than before we went into surgery!  The nurse gave me some crackers and juice to pad my stomach and then a nice pain pill.  Within ½  an hour, she had me walking around and putting weight on my knee.  It was amazing because that’s the first time since the beginning of February that it didn’t hurt ridiculously to do so!  My RN was quite impressed with my quick return to sanity and we were out of the hospital by 5 pm!

my little "world" for the moment!

I have a really nice set-up by my recliner and now I’m not sure I really need all of it!  Dr. Quinn says it’s going to hurt more later today though, as the anesthetist injected pain meds right into my surgical site. It’s supposed to wear off sometime soon.  I’ve been keeping to a strict schedule on my pain meds, though, and hope it will be an easy transition.

My bandaged knee, can't remove it for lookies til Wed. evening

I always tell people not to be afraid to take their pain medications after a surgery. It truly helps speed the healing process if your body is not fighting pain and stress in addition to the incisional repair going on.  You can’t get addicted if it is being used properly. It’s only when you continue to take things after you don’t really need them anymore that you run into problems. I usually have a 2 day rule on pain meds, myself.  After that, I try to switch over to something like ibuprofen to avoid the pitfalls of getting dependent.  Of course, I hate that fuzzy feeling I get anyway, so …I think I commented before that this stuff makes my hearing really acute and it sounds like everyone is yelling at me, yuck!

Sherry is coming over as Rob leaves for work this morning.  That will be a lot of fun. She’ll stay until Rob comes home for lunch.  She has to get her butt back home and take a nap this afternoon as she works night shift at the Senior Center here (6 pm-2am). No snickering that someone who works at the “senior” center is helping me out, I ain’t THAT old yet. I’m so glad she’s coming as she’s just awesome with Thistle.  She has an adolescent dog of her own, Kola, an awesome male Chocolate Lab, so she’s fresh off dealing with perky puppies! I’ve had a dog toy for him I picked up and need to give it to her.  Sherry lives out south of town toward Kaycee and I just love going to her place.  She has an amazing view of the mountain range from her backyard and a panoramic view of the plains in front. Add to that all her neighbors horses who hang out by her fence line and you know I’m always happy to go out to her house!  At this rate of recovery, I might get out there pretty quick!

I have a stream of other girlfriends coming by in the afternoon and at the rate I’m going and the way I’m feeling, I see no problem making the State of the County address by the Commissioners tomorrow at Colonel Bozeman’s at lunchtime!

Well, all in all, not a bad deal!  Hope your day and week turn out to pleasantly surprise you, too! I’m going to go back to my recliner and try to catch another nap now.  I’m hoping all the sleeping I get done will re-set my inner sleep clock.  I’m a little tired of waking up every morning between 3-4 a.m. and hopefully, this will jog it back to my normal 6 a.m. waking! Fingers crossed!

The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love.
~Hubert H. Humphrey