Thursday, April 30, 2009

wham Bam Thank You Mam-I Have a Fixed Port

My doctor exhibited his speedy prowess today by getting my port fixed in a record two hours flat (from initial drugs to walking out of the hospital). I went prepared to sit around for endless hours. In August when I had the band fitted I arrived at the hospital at 6 am and didn't even see the surgeon until 5 pm. This time as I was scheduled first in his day I went in, shucked my carefully selected loose fitting clothing and was in a backless gown in record speed.

As I sat in my bed editing the paper I am working on (due tonight at midnight). One nurse, anesthetist, and whoever else needs to see my wrist band before I was allowed under the knife paraded through my room. Each commented on and asked about the illustrious paper. When I told them it was for a conference in September in Dresden they all started offering help. The anesthesiologist even carefully selected my drug cocktail so that I could get maximum loopy during surgery with the quickest offload afterwards so I would be able to concentrate in the afternoon. As I recovered he post op nurse kept bringing the paper up-almost as if she wanted me to start working on it right away (geeeeeeeez i was in no condition to read or write at that point!)

They were really a nice bunch. I find at my hospital (Oregon Health Sciences University hospital) that the departments are vyer hit and miss. They seem either to be excellent in terms of patient interaction, cheerfullness, and apparent competency or sheer inability to do their job and then lie about it. As much of my illustreous paper is about school trust Viewing the phenomenon in another field is interesting (yes I am a super nerd about learning!!!).

Well I am currently extremely loopy and need to sleep it off...so nighty night. I will writ emore later about the catual port itself. No one really said much about it other than the surgery was a success. My port had indeed twisted around.

nighty night-for now.

update
-wow i was loopy. I am leaving that last bit because it is exactly how i sounded :) smooshy words and typos. The fast acting quick recover drugs were exactly that. I slept from 11:30 to 1:30 and I am fresh as a daisy now :) My side hurts a little but not nearly as much as it did after my full on lapband surgery. I can carefully bend down and pick things up from the floor and sleep on my non-port side just fine. I had my suggested liquid lunch of split pea soup and I am going to back to the (*)*(&*&% paper. I just found out I need to put it to 6 pages including references and I am currently at 10!!! I think I have my work cut out for me.

Update 2

Well the paper was due on April 30-I sent it on May 1 at 1:19 AM pacific time. Hopefully my lateness by 1 hour and 19 minutes will be excused. My husband suggested i put in a line about how the surgery put me back on my timeline. I decided to skip that to avoid any awkward questions when i meet these people!

The surgeon suggested that I might tighten up because of water gain from the IV and I think he was right. I am not as tight as I was last week but I am definitely tigher than i was yesterday. I got on the scale after I got home and had gained 3.2 of IV fluid!! that is just crazy but I am looking forward to eliminating it over the weekend.

I thought I had talked the surgeon into only putting me under lightly and with a local near the port revision. I assumed that had happened by my throat is irritated tonight so I am guessing i was tubed in some way..The nurse anesthetist said that i might need to be tubed if one of the medications made my tongue relax too much or I needed to go under fully. I am not sure which happened. My guess is the former. My surgery sight and overall body aches tonight. Whoever wrote me a prescription for pain meds screwed up(and I was too loopy to notice that co-tylenol was a morphine product). My husband picked up the prescription but it looks like he will be the benfactor. I am not going to risk hives for pain relief. I took at couple of regular tylenol at 9pm and it has eased the pain but not made it totally tolerable. Staying still works better :)...I have some left over hard drugs from the original surgery and I am going to dose myself up a little tonight before I go to bed.

My 19 year old daughter came home from her university tonight. Apparently they have a suspected case of the new evil flu on campus and have closed the school until Monday. I assume that if the case comes up positive they might extend this closure. I hope she hasn't dragged the flu home to us!

My youngest was sick with fever last week and missed a couple of days of school. She had fever, headache and a stomach ache. Although she did not develop an upper respiratory problem she was pretty darn sick. I had a one day fever a few days before (I have had a flue shot and it seems to have helped it a bit). I did not take her to the doctor so we will never know but at least she came through the thing unscathed.

My son-in-law is threatening to wear a mask at work. The hotel he works at is full this weekend with a ton of out of town visitors for a drama festival. I don't blame him for contemplating it!!

I hope this post finds all of you who read this feeling healthy or at least better!

1 comment:

Lonicera said...

Nice to be able to put it behind you. Hope you recover quickly and can finish your paper with a flourish too.
Caroline