T-plus three days

 It feels really surreal. Maybe that's the drugs?

I struggled with "what if I'm doing the wrong thing" all the way up until I was signing the final consent to treatment, gowned and IV'd. Some part of me is still wondering that, but I realize that's because I'm in a new and different kind of pain so my instinct is to mentally downgrade the devil you know, so to speak. (Also say hello to the high res versions of my bone spurs. It looks like they’d been shopping at hot topic for punk spikes.)

Yeah, I'm in pain. It's to be expected really. I have six screws, a titanium plate, and two chunks of cadaver femur embedded in my neck now. (And a bunch of absorbable sutures)

It took three tries for them to seat the first IV, and once I had signed my consent to treatment, I asked for something for the anxiety. I'd been crying behind my mask on and off since arriving two hours early (as directed) and I was exhausted. My last memory was around 1pm, when of a member of the anaesthesia team holding a large slightly yellowed cylinder and tapping it into the hard-won IV port on top of my right hand. The surgery was scheduled for 12:23pm, to last for about 3.5 hours. 

I have some vague recollections of coming out of anaesthesia and talking to one of the surgical team about 18th century gelatin, and carnivorous plants, while they tried to stick a bedpan under me. I was lucid enough to know that wasn't going to work and ask for a catheter, which they were surprised by but assented to ("huh, she didn't even flinch"). I know I called Martin on a phone at some point but I can't remember a word of what I said to him. I woke up a second time in a recovery bed, some time around 9:45pm, visiting hours already over. 

Covid has been surging around the world recently, so it wasn't surprising to me that the promised orthopedic ICU bed didn't materialize immediately as I exited surgery. But hours passed, and more gurney beds with highly-drugged individuals started to collect in that room as no new beds became available. Around 12:30am the nurses came to shut down the recovery ward, so those of us still waiting were rolled back to the capacious pre-op ward, where we'd donned the gowns and IVs and done final signatures before our surgeries.  

So we waited. And waited. And had some jello and crackers, and water, and waited more. And some time around 4am, I started to feel nauseated. I had just undergone a blood draw (because I guess they have to do those every 6 hours or something for monitoring?) in my foot (because, as I found out later, literally every other part of my body that had accessible veins had been tapped) when I started to get tunnel vision and cold sweats. I woke up with a nurse screaming "help help" out into the ward, my toes curled over the bar at the end of my bed, another nurse holding me down as I arched, and a third working a suction tube into my mouth as I vomited and coughed. "Do you know where you are?!" "The hospital?" I coughed and choked as they sat me up, an expelled another liter of fluid (?!?!) before the nausea disappeared. I collapsed into bed as they stripped me and wiped me down, tucked me into a fresh gown and fresh socks and fresh blankets and put an anti-nausea patch behind my left ear. I slept under their watchful eyes, exhausted. 

And that's where I woke up again, about 11am, still not in my ICU bed, but in good spirits. I sat up, I got more blood drawn, they took my vitals, I started to eat again. My surgeon came around to look at me, and over the protests of the nurses got me up out of bed and into a chair to eat. A few minutes after he'd left, satisfied that I was mobile and on the mend, the tunnel vision came back. I had enough time to gasp "I'm blacking out" before it was on me again. I apparently had a vagal seizure that lasted about 8 seconds, scared the crap out of the nurses and the other patient still waiting for a bed, and knocked me off the chair. I got to use this super interesting device called a "Sara Stedy" to get from the floor back onto my bed, and the nurse who'd been looking after me the whole time sent a stream of almost-profanity into my surgeon's voicemail box. A few specialists visited while I was exhaustedly snoozing again, but after some tests we decided it wasn't an epileptic episode, but it could've been due to some of the many drugs they had me on. (My guess was gabapentin, and they said that was possible.) 

After those two episodes I guess I got a priority bump, because around 3pm an ICU bed came free for me and I left the pre-op corner with thanks for the nurse who'd been watching me like a hawk, and the other lady who was rooting for me.  The room was private, which surprised me, and had a great view of the trees of Mount Sutro. And after the loud, dim, busy corner of the pre-op ward, it was heavenly. After that I progressed fairly quickly - able to get out of bed, get to the restroom, and walk a bit with minimal assistance. Martin came to visit me, and I ordered dinner and snoozed a bit, then drifted off to sleep. Two more blood tests later, and an unknown number of shift changes and resident visits, I was ready to go home.

This is only day one home, but I can see this is going to be a long road. I already don't like this cervical collar, and I'm worried that it's also possibly too short for me. My hands, arms, and feet are covered in bruises from failed IV attempts, and I'm still picking ECG pad adhesive off my torso. My neck is bruised and slightly swollen, and I'm afraid to look at what's under the dressings. But I got to have a shower, and I put in my contact lenses, and that makes a huge difference to help me feel human again. I can't brush my own hair yet, and the drugs make me too woozy to walk far on my own, and swallowing is difficult and doesn't feel natural again yet. I'm still coughing up aspirated apple juice phlegm, apparently sleeping in the cervical collar makes me snore, and I've got some allergy/post-nasal drip/sinus infection thing cooking on top of it all. 

But here's to hoping that this pain subsides quickly, and I'm quickly back on my feet and better than I was before. I have a four week LOA from work, so it feels like most of what I need to do is sleep and drink water, and stay away from the surging coronavirus.

Oh, and alllllllll my Christmas shopping. x_x