operation success...

Last night's sunset!

Good Wednesday morning to all! Hope your Tuesday was as much fun and entertaining as mine was.  I haven’t decided if we should call what Rob had as anesthesia “joy juice” or “jerk juice” just yet.  I have a feeling the nurses might go with the latter definition.

We arrived at Sheridan Hospital a little early yesterday and found a nice parking spot that would provide shade for Thistle when the sun got hotter.  Since we were early, I got her out and took her for a spin around the nice grassy area in front of the hospital, where she was, of course, adored by all who were walking by.  Thanks to great training by Barb and tons of follow-up by me, she didn’t even jump on anyone.  Good thing, as the grass was still really full of moisture and she would have had her wet paw prints all over some nurses! I was really impressed how well she contained her enthusiasm.

We got Rob all checked in and went back into the surgical area where he was given a lovely lavender disposable gown with a cute little bear on it.  Rob started his grumbling at that point, because I’d been given running shorts when I had my operation.  Apparently, a new salesman has been through the OR since my surgery and now everyone is wearing these gowns, instead.  Dr. Quinn was running a little behind, I swear, if you aren’t the first surgery in the morning, there’s a delay.  Anyway, we ended up having him go into surgery at noon instead of 11:30 and I thought Rob was going to have another little meltdown as he was really complaining about the lack of food in his poor widdle tummy. 

I only had time to go out and take Thistle for a little walk and grab something from the deli before I returned to the waiting area and there was Dr Quinn already, telling me everything went just fine.  Rob did have a rather large tear in his meniscus on the right side and it turned out he also had two smaller tears in it on the other side, which the doc repaired. He also had a frayed area hanging off his patella and Quinn cleaned that up, too.  All in all, though, the surgery itself only took about 55 minutes.  I just love that they give you pictures of what they did during the procedure, I’m such a geek.  The photos show what it looked like before the doctor repaired the area and then what it looks like now.  I just find that stuff fascinating!

So, I get back to recovery to see how Rob’s doing and he’s already got a cup of coffee in his hand and the nurses are already giving me strange looks.  Apparently, the drugs removed all barriers from Rob’s thoughts to his mouth….  Let me explain here, Rob is usually pretty quiet and polite when he’s around people he doesn’t know very well.  Well, evidently, being under drugs removes all those stops for him.  He was bossing the nurses around when I came in, telling them he’d drank the darn coffee and what the heck did he need to do next to get outta here so he could go fill his starving stomach.  I think that he believed he was being clever but mostly it came off as pretty rude.  Being a nurse and knowing how many lovely patients these poor women have to deal with in a day, I went right into apology mode, of course. They were trying to get his paperwork done as fast as possible so they could get Mr Hungry the heck outta their recovery.  Our nurse explained that the next step was for him to walk with the walker and show that he was stable enough and then he could get dressed.  Well, Mr. Hungry did more than that! He grabbed the walker and started walking, lifting the walker off the ground and swinging it around! “Is this good enough for you?”  Oh my! I’ve never seen so many nurses converge on an unruly patient so quickly!  Again, I go into apology mode!  They are trying their best to laugh but Rob is definitely being a handful. I laughingly explain that he seems to have turned into Mr Hyde and I’m sorry, he’s not usually like this at all. 

So, we finally get the paperwork done and all that’s left is pulling Rob’s IV.  Right as the nurse is pulling it out of Rob’s hand, he decides to start gesturing and the next thing we know there’s blood all over the floor and on his TEDS they’ve put on him, well, it was just everywhere and the nurse was having a heck of a time getting the bleeding to stop out of his site.  It was so bad that several more nurses had to come in and help.  It took several minutes to finally get everything back under control.  They drilled him about whether or not he had truly stopped taking his daily aspirin (which I know he did) because of the amount of gushing blood.  I really think he just turned funny when they were removing the catheter and made a bigger hole.  The blood that fell to the floor looked like it was mostly mixed with saline and not just coming from him.

So, after getting that all under control and all the blood cleaned up, we were finally ready to leave.  One of the great things Sheridan Hospital does is give everyone a huge frozen bowl of chicken soup to take home for later.  I had sampled that very soup after my surgery and it was yummy.  Rob tried to insist that he was going to a “damn buffet and I don’t need that crap”  I meekly accepted it and began the apology tour again.

Finally, it was time for me to go get the truck and meet them around front.  I bet those nurses were really happy to see my husband leave.  We got him poured into the truck with no problem and I made mention to Rob as we’re leaving that he’d been a little rude and he totally didn’t see it.  Let’s hope it’s a while before he needs anesthesia again.

He was much better alone with me and by the time we got to the Dragon Wall, he was pretty much back to his old self.  It helped that he was focusing most of his energy on Thistle on the ride to the restaurant.  He had a nice, huge helping of lots of yummy Chinese and we made it back to Buffalo by 3 p.m., after stopping to pick up his pain meds.

Now, while he had his surgery, they injected his knee directly with pain meds so his knee was numb and probably will be until sometime today.  I remember when I had my surgery, I thought it was going to be a dream because of it and overdid some walking myself right after surgery.  So, I tried to coax Rob into sitting quietly and putting on his cryocuff when we got home.  Not happening!  He decided he needed to get some web work done and all kinds of other things.  About every half hour or so, I came in to the office and told him how long it had been since he’d elevated his leg and that I really didn’t want to be a nag, but he really needed to get that sucker up.  He finally acquiesced after about two hours and settled into his chair….whew!

Today, he’ll calm down, I’m sure.  Last night, he was already talking about going into work today but I have a feeling as soon as those meds in his knee wear off, it will be a different story. There’s no place for him to elevate his leg at work and I’m hoping he realizes that and at least gives himself today to get some rest.

My day today will depend on what Rob is up to, of course.  We’ll see whether he lets me “nurse” him or not.  It is already looking like it’s going to be just gorgeous out today.  The sun is coming up so pretty and warm!  I hope all of you have a fabulous day in store for you, as well! It’s hump day and we’re half way through the week, folks!

...countdown to surgery!

Just a really cool wagon I found to photograph

“The best laid plans of mice and men…”  One of those things I’m always saying, has bitten me rarely squarely on the tuchas (butt). I mentioned briefly yesterday that I tore my knee. Well, I really did a number on it, apparently. One of those silly moments where nothing actually “happened”, I just turned wrong! My knee was already weak. I had gone to see Dr Quinn, Medicine Boy (I call him that because he looks really young to me for a surgeon!) about this same time last year after doing something rather similar.  At the time, he said there was a small tear in my meniscus in the back of my knee but that we could probably do some physical therapy and strengthen the muscles around it and I’d be okay for a bit.  I am thankful that it waited til winter to do this, actually.  You gotta find your gratefulness where you can!

I asked him if I’d be back to normal by the time we are supposed to do a photo shoot vacation in Monument Valley and the deserts of AZ in mid-April.  He assures me that it should be walkable and strong by then.  He did my last ortho surgery…shoulder… that time.  For such a young looking surgeon, he’s really great. When did doctors get so young?  I swear when I was Nursing and trolling for a mate, they were all old curmudgeons! My shoulder surgery was a blessing. I had an entrapped AC space and lots of bone spurs in my shoulder. He took out about half an inch of my collar bone so things wouldn’t rub anymore and I feel like I have the shoulders of a teen now! I’m hoping this is the case with my knee.

He’s a little nervous because I’m not on any HIV meds at the moment. I tried to explain that those pills to keep the virus under control really have no bearing on my ability to heal.  Quinn and I have an unusual relationship, anyway.  He really doesn’t have much of a sense of humor and it just drives me batty! Yesterday, when he was torturing me by putting my knee in angles that knees weren’t meant to assume in the first place, I was trying to joke between my sobbing in pain. I actually did make him crack a smile a time or two. Hey, doctors, it’s okay to appear human to your patients!!

Going in for procedures is always weird when you have AIDS.  I worry a lot about someone accidently sticking themselves. I still hear from the RN who accidently stuck me with that HIV infected needle.  The poor woman still can’t forgive herself, almost 21 years later, although I did when it happened. Every time she contacts me, I spend a lot of time assuring her that it was not her fault, it was the hospital’s for where they had the needle boxes located.  Sometimes, I think I stay alive, just for her.

The weirdness comes because there are two kinds of medical professionals when it comes to dealing with HIV.  Some are so worried that they are going to show fear around my body fluids that they endanger themselves in their attempts to “act nonchalant” about being so close to an incurable disease. I have to chastise them to put on gloves and am constantly pushing heads away from needle sites (you never know when something’s gonna squirt in the eye).  I really appreciate them trying to make me feel normal but hey, I AM a diseased pariah that can change your life forever.

The other sort never came out of the dark ages.  I’m an empath, there I said it… I am very, very sensitive to other people’s feeling..good or bad.  They come at me in waves and sometimes colors and shapes emanate from people. I used to think I was crazy until I found other empaths to talk to.  Anyway, that’s another story.  These dark age medical professionals of which I speak just ooze contempt and loathing when they see me.  There was a nurse at our local hospital like that. I had gone in for a very serious lipid based infusion that must either be done in the ER or the Cancer room because it could have caused me to have a heart attack or stroke during its administration.  All this was to get rid of a rather nasty case of thrush (yeast) in my esophagus. This nurse treated me like total garbage.  She constantly made insinuations that I must be a druggie or a whore.  She almost killed me because of her prejudice! She never even took my blood pressure before the procedure or my temp.  After the infusion and more of her ridiculous snide, demeaning remarks, she let me go with a 105 temp and blood pressure of 190/120.  I freaking drove myself home, shivering with fever. I had to call my friends Sheryl and Reba to come stay with me until everything went back down, them taking my vitals about every 15 minutes. It took over 14 hours for me to stabilize. Rob was away on a hunting trip at the time. As soon as I arrived home from the hospital, I called my infectious disease doc, who was in Casper at the time.  He says…go back in… I said, not on your freaking life.  So once again, thanks to Sheryl Sowers and Reba Foster for getting me through that nightmare! I am a nice person and will not tell you who that nurse is, as she still works there. Karma will get her ass.

You’d think in this day and age, with HIV being around for over 25 years…at least the medical profession would have their facts straight! I used to get so pissed (still do, actually) when I would run into people who said they felt sorry for me because I didn’t “deserve” AIDS.  Excuse me, who does? Why do we condemn folks who get a virus from the very act that perpetuates the human race (sex)? Do you feel any less sorry for someone with colon cancer or stomach cancer?  Do you chastise them and tell then it’s their fault because they ate badly and brought the cancer on themselves?  Of course, you don’t! But people do it with AIDS patients all the time.  They BLAME the victim. I have run into so many women over the course of my lecturing that were infected by supposed faithful husbands, it makes my head spin. Is it their fault their husbands cheated? Gah!!

Anyway, so these things run around in my head every time I have to get any major surgery. I also really have to worry about infection because, hey, I have no immune system, right? Last bloodwork check a few weeks ago, I was sitting on 72 t-cells.  (I've been down to Manny, Moe and Jack - 3, before) The normal person has around 1100 (this is what they count in a mm of blood, by the way).  So, I’m a little nervous. So is Dr Quinn, for that matter.  He even joked (he joked!) that if some miracle occurred and my knee felt better, we should call the whole thing off. One little infection post-op could mean the beginning of the end. But, I’ve been careful over the years. I don’t let docs give me antibiotics unless absolutely necessary so I can save their strength just for times like these. All of my other bloodwork is pretty excellent for a half dead chick. I am blessed with low blood pressure and low cholesterol, through no fault of my own.

Today, I’m working on arranging stuff in the great room on the main level of the house so that I can be comfortable after surgery .  Don’t think I’ll be hitting those 16 steps up to the bedrooms any time soon! Thankfully, years ago when I was really sick, Rob bought me a great recliner. It even has heat and massage! I call it my shake and bake chair.  It is my dear friend and I will be spending quite a few nights now in its comfy goodness, near the crackling woodstove. Friend Pam just gave me a whole sack of books to read, I'll be just fine...

Best laid plans of mice and men…..