Home

Thanks for the postive comments and good wishes.  I've been home since Sunday afternoon.  The surgical stuff seems to be healing, i.e. no bleeding, fever, unexpected pain.  I can't do much other than lie or sit aound.  Sleep still doesn't come easy and I have to get up a couple of times each night to take a Percocet.  I'm pretty much awake during the day.  So here's how it unfolded.

Saturday, January 2.  I knew that Saturday's dinner would be the last one I would enjoy for a long time.  So the family went out and I had a Caesar salad, a rib-eye (medium) with a loaded baked potato, and a Sam Adams.  I enjoyed all of it.

Sunday, January 3.  This was prep day and I couldn't eat or drink anything that wasn't prescribed.  Because I had to be admitted at 5 AM, we decided to spend the night at a hotel-like facility in the hospital complex rather than wake up really early and hope for no accidents on 270 or the beltway.  So, after dropping off the kids at their grandparents' house in the afternoon, we headed down to Washington Hospital Center.

Monday, January 4.  We arrived at the admissions office at 5 AM, about 20 minutes before any of the staff did.  When things settled down, they asked me a few standard questions to verify my name, DOB, address, and any drug allergies.  A short while later, I and a few other patients were escorted downstairs to a surgical waiting area.  After about two minutes, I was escorted to another surgical waiting area where they asked me a few standard questions to verify my name, DOB, address, and any drug allergies.  After that, they took me to the surgical prep area, when I dressed for surgery, had an IV inserted, and where they asked me a few standard questions to verify my name, DOB, address, and any drug allergies.  My surgeon came by to see how I was doing (or maybe to make sure I showed up).  We had a nice chat and then he left.  The anesthesiologist then came by and asked me a few standard questions to verify my name, DOB, address, and any drug allergies.  Then the OR nurse came by and, well you know what she asked.  They wheeled me into surgery and I really don't remember what happened after I got on the table.  The surgery lasted five hours and I woke up sometime after that.  I mean, I must have woken up because I'm writing this, but I don't remember much of anything from that day.

Tuesday January 4.  This and the next few days were OK.  I didn't feel much pain because of the morphine drip and the push-button boluses that I could self-administer every 10 minutes.  I didn't have much of an appetite during my hospital stay, which was to my benefit because the food - clear liquids, then full liquids, then solids - didn't taste at all like food.  I didn't sleep very soundly while in the hospital, and whenever I did seem to fall asleep, a nurse awakened me to administer drugs or check my vitals.

Wednesday January 5. Pretty much the same.  The excitement came that night when, along with the pain medication, I requested Ativan to help me sleep. It's what the chief resident suggested.  Well, Ativan - by itself or with other meds - can lead to some pretty interesting side effects. At some point that night I began to hallucinate and pulled out my IV and catheter.  Somehow, the nurse managed to subdue me, re-insert the tubes, and calm Mrs. 270.  I thought it would be like something on TV, where the patient gets really aggressive and six orderlies hold him down while the nurses kick him unconscious, but I was just stubborn and uncooperative.  Mrs. 270 would say that it's normal behavior.  After that, nothing exciting or interesting happened until I was discharged on Sunday, January 10.