Wednesday, April 29, 2009

After Surgery

It is now 2 weeks after the surgery and I have begun the healing process. First let me go back to when I awoke in the recovery room. At the time I felt great, the numbness was gone from my finger and not a bit of pain shooting down my are. My back was sore when I moved and my hip hurt like heck. They had a soft collar on my neck and drainage tube in my throat to let the excess fluid drain out, which was a bit gross, but not painful at all. The fist day they gave me a morphine drip, so I did’t feel a thing and I was sure everything was going to work out just fine...was feeling no pain. I was able to walk the same day of surgery up and down the hall and sleep okay that night, but was not able to move really at all in bed. I had to just lay as still as possible on my back, and that was the only position I could do. I was able to get up to use the bathroom, but had to have these pumps on my legs removed by the nurses every time, so that was a bit of a pain. The hardest and most painful part was getting back into bed. They also wake you up every couple hours to take your vital signs, so that interferes with the sleep. After the first day, you are taken off Morphine and they put me on Hydrocodone for the pain. These work very good to keep the pain away, but make you pretty tired and mess with your insides. They took out the drainage tube (Which hurt just a tiny bit) and sent me home at noon the next day after surgery. The car ride home is somewhat of an adventure, but was not too bad at all. At home I was made comfortable by the pain pills and felt pretty good and slept most of the next 3 days. After the first week, was off the pain pills altogether and was walking and showering without that much discomfort. I have to have the soft collar on at all times but the shower, but I have already gotten used to it. The pain down my arm had come back a bit and the numbness was also back, but was told this may happen. It is now Monday, 2 weeks after the surgery. I am back to work and I have some pain in my right arm am numbness in my finger, but overall I feel pretty well. Hoping I will get much better in the next few days.

No comments:

Post a Comment