A lovely pre-surgery shot.

I'm finally feeling well enough to sit at the laptop for a little while, so I thought I'd kill some time with a blog post. Mom and Dad came up to Spokane Tuesday night, and took Ted and me out for my last pre-surgery meal at the Downriver Grill. I was called Wednesday morning and told that my surgery had been postponed to 1:30 or 2, which meant that I could not eat or drink anything for most of Wednesday. I found myself looking at the dog's water bowl with envy.

I had an anesthesiologist who looked like the second-coming of Doogie Howser. I remember being wheeled into the OR, which was filled with lots of bright colors (Dad said maybe they gave me mushrooms by mistake), and that was all.

Apparently, I'm a slow "waker-upper" from anesthesia, as it took over 1.5 hours for me to wake up. I remember seeing that my heart rate was 42 and asking what pain medication I was receiving (Dilaudid).

Post-surgery, my left leg pain was immediately gone, but my back was severely hurting. I took hydrocodone for the first day, but I was incredibly queasy, and decided I'd rather have more pain than be unable to eat/drink, so I switched to Tylenol. I was finally able to stomach some snacks Thursday night, which were desperately needed since I was pretty weak.



Little walks have been a critical part of the recovery process. I started with a walk to the neighbor's yard, where I proceeded to dry heave on my knees in front of our nice neighbor and her granddaughters. I have since progressed to 25 minute, very slow walks... with no dry heaving.

Mom and Dad stayed with us until yesterday afternoon, which was a huge help. You can't ask for much better home care than a retired nurse and a retired doctor, especially when they are Mom and Dad. They shopped, cleaned, cooked, got me things, walked with me, helped me with wound care/changing clothes, and watched TV with me. It was great because Ted didn't have to take any more time off from work after losing all of his vacation time with his accident.

I'm desperately bored and may try to spin on the trainer for 1 or 2 miles in the next couple days (the doc said it's okay), but we'll see how I feel. Time to switch positions now - my back is telling me so.