Post-surgery Week 1

My very first "uh oh" happened as we got home on Friday night and I couldn't remember how to do our three back stairs with crutches.  They had showed me how when they gave me the crutches but I didn't actually do it.

Lesson:  practice getting in and out of the house with your crutches BEFORE the surgery.

I already mentioned the nausea...oh my was it bad.  I really ate nothing after my dinner on Thursday night until Wednesday late morning.  By then I had downgraded from Oxycodone to Hydrocodone and was still sick.  I ended up doubling the anti-nausea medication on Tuesday night and only taking regular Tylenol.  I woke up Wednesday thinking I might be okay...I was but it took me a few hours to convince myself that I could also eat.

That first week also left me with the odd problem on not really being able to urinate normally.  While still in recovery, I felt the urge to go but when they got my groggy, nauseous butt to the bathroom, I couldn't go.  They turned the water on.  I couldn't go.  The nurse even left the room thinking I might just be shy (ha!) but that didn't work either.  Mostly I just wanted to doze off and figured my bladder wanted to do the same.  However, I wasn't allowed to leave until I "made water".  They brought in an ultrasound for a quick scan and sure enough, my bladder was very full.  They told me a catheter was in order to "jump start" my bladder for me.  Ooookay.  I wasn't thrilled but the nurse did a great job and I was still woozy enough that I neither cared all that much or felt much.

This little urination problem continued after I got home but I found if I sort of pressed/rubbed my bladder with my fist, it would get going okay.  Sometimes I'd stop and know I couldn't possibly be empty and have to start up again.  Very weird but I'm told it's not all that uncommon by a neighbor who is a long time surgical nurse.  

Because of the nausea I was only up for very short periods of time that first 4 days.  The first day I had my son and hubby waiting on me hand and foot.  They had mastered the ice machine and using frozen bottles of water instead of ice cubes (which was good since our ice maker has been broken for months), and knew how to set me up in the Continuous Motion Machine that had been prescribed for post surgery. All went pretty good.

Second day I got up and crutched around the house a bit but nausea sent me back to bed pretty quickly each time.  I really didn't have much of any pain but I was still on the heavy narcotics at this point.  Or as much of them as was actually staying in my stomach and absorbing before I'd puke them up.

Third day was Monday.  Hubby got up and left for work early.  That was fine, son was home but still sleeping when I woke up.  My first dilemma was how to get ice in the icing machine.  I couldn't carry it to the kitchen because I needed my hands on my crutches.  I had found one of those reusable cloth grocery bags to keep with my crutches but the bottles were dripping wet coming out of the machine... I ended up getting a plastic garbage bag, putting the now unfrozen water bottles in that and then in the grocery bag that I could sling over my shoulder.  Hobbled the bag out to the kitchen to unload into the freezer and restocked with new frozen ones.  This process took a ridiculously long time and wore me out.  I was getting weak from lack of nutrition!

Lesson:  Plan in advance for how you will handle your icing machine and CMM if prescribed.  Freeze some water bottles or those reusable ice packs.

Another little situation that I could have planned in advance for was all the electronics that I was going to need to have plugged in at bedside. I had the ice machine, the CMM, my iPad, iPhone, and lamp all fighting for electrical real estate space.  A power strip with USB ports solved the problem after the first day. 

The other half to this problem were the cords.  We had the ice machine set up near the bottom of the bed so that meant the cord was running from near my head to the foot of my bed.  This also meant I was stepping over that cord getting out of bed.  Same for the CMM's cord...

Lesson:  Plan in advance for bedside electronics and clearing the way for your crutches.