The life,times, troubles, toils, and tribulations of Raymond.

 
"Poor & More Ouching"

Okay so my leg still hurts, my right elbow is hurting from using the crutches all day, and I have been looking over my finances and it appears that I am going to be very very poor this month. Gotta love broken ankles.

So, back to my broken ankle saga. I am waking up in the recovery room after coming out of surgery. I am as drowsy as hell, I have a simple oxygen mask on my face and I notice that my leg hurts a lot. The only person there is a post-op nurse who is sitting to my right and reading a magazine.

As I start to wake up I begin comment on the pain, which is pretty bad at this point, however this is to be expected, no reason to give pain medicine to someone who is unconcious. Shortly after my comments, she begins to start hooking me up to the drugs to get the edge off. It is here that I get to meat my new best friend "Morphine". Morphine was very nice. The nurse gave me a few big shot to get rid of the pain at first , then I would be allowed to self administer morphine for when my leg would start to hurt again, however I would only be able to do so, every 10 minutes. Sad. But I figured I would be okay. After we got the morphine going, it was time to check my vital signs. And for a while I was actually a bit hypertensive. We kept waiting and waiting, but it took a while for my blood pressure to go down. And after we got my blood pressure to an acceptable level, we had to wait for the shift change to occour in the hospital. At this time it was aorund 7:oopm when ll the nursing staff changes over, and they figured might as well wait unitl the night staff is in to bring me up.

Finally, I have woken up from the anesthesia, and the pain has dulled in my leg, and the new shift is upsatirs. So it is time to wheel me in my assless gown upstairs. Up to room 313 we go. So we head upstairs. And my room isn't quite ready, and I don't even get to have my own room, I have to share with an a large elderly Armenian man who just had hip replacement. So no only do I not get my own room, but I don't even get a TV. What a rippoff. I paid $250, I want a tv! But to no avail, I will just have to live with my walkman, and my morphine. I figure if I can find some Doors music and KLOS, and I can up my morphine dosage, I could have a really good time anyway.

The night staff was really nice on the floor. I had a very pleasant, and a really great nursing assistant taking care of me. They got me settled, got me my radio, double checked to make sure I had enough morphine, and then just let me be. They just made sure to come in and check my vital sign every few hours. So it is getting to be night time, although I had a nice medically induced sleep, I can use a good nap since I didn't sleep much the previous few nights. Oh, but this was not to be my destiny. For I was roomed with the loudest snoring man I have ever slept with. Now ming you I have my experiences sleeping in rooms with guyswho snore, but this man, he was old school. I guess this is how they did it in the old country. Whenever he was asleep, he was snoring, and when he snored, it was loud. I could swear that the window in our room shook some. And there was nothing I could do. I was fairly sure, there were no empty beds to move me to. I could bury my head under a pillow and expect to snooze. And even though the morphine gave me a nice little high, I think it may of actually increased the sensitivity of my hearing.

Me listening to my radio, ignoring the snoring. Me starting to nod off. Giant snore roar from guy next to me. Me jolted wide awake. Me going back to listeningo to my radio.

Rinse and repeat until moring. Now come morning, I am tired, hungry, and a little sick. You see, the morhine make you feel good, but it gives you an upset stomach. So seeing as how I probably had enough in me to sedate a small grey whale, I was a little sick to my stomach, and all I could really do was just sip ice water.

Thankfully however, old snory, eventually wakes up, and I can start fitting in a few catnaps. Well this all goes well, until people start showing up and checking on me like nurses ans asistants and the such. But I was out of it, trying to sleep some. Heck they even delivered a breakfast to me and I didn't even know it.

Eventually a Doctor whom I had never met before (But refered to himself as a colleague of my Dr. Tabet), cam ein and asked me how I was doing. I said, gee I seem fine but I have a little pain in my right ankle, any idea what it could be. Bastard, didn't even laugh. So we talked for a little bit, I got him to write me up a prescription for some different drugs I wanted to get. My pal Erin had suggest Darvocet. She said it was good stuff, but then again she gets faint and starts to pass out if she doesn't eat every 4 hours, so I don't know about that. The Doctor also asked if I wanted to stay an extra day, I pretty much said, hello no. And he cleared me to go home. I just need to see a physical therapist and I was good to go.

Why I needed to see a physical therapist I had no idea. Eventually she shows up, and I learn that she is there for the sole purpose of checking me out on crtuches. Hello. Does anybody realize that I was walking on crutches for almost tow freaking weeks before today. Thanks to the wonderful Kaiser HMO system, I was going around with a broken ankle for 13 days before I got this surgery. I guess that didn't make it into my file. So now they send a physical therapist to check me out on them, when, I haven't eaten in over 24 hours, have no slept for my then 60 minutes straight, have been in a bed for 18 hours, and am so drugged up, that I could smell colors, (Maybe that was just because I hadn't showered). So I finally get to put some underwear on (Ah back to giving the proper support ot my boys) and I sit up in the bed. Wow. That just changes my perspective on everything. I have to sit there for about 5 minutes and gather myself. Then I finally get up on the crutches. I then have to tip toe through the Armenian family reunion that is happening next to me and get into the the hallway. Then she has has me walk down the hallway and back. Suffice to say I pulled it offvery well. In fact she said I was one of the best poeple she had ever seen on crutches. If she only knew I was always about 2 seconds away from vomiting, and then falling over.

So after that is done, I am finally cleared to go home and then it is just a matter of Ryan showing up. And it seems to take a while before he shows. Well it turns out that he arrived and then waited downstairs for about an hour. Finally they allow him to come up and help me get out of the room. They put me in a wheel chair and take me downstairs. The new splint on my leg barely fits in the truck, but I squeeze in sit down and we are out of there. I have a massive headache, I feel weak, I just want to get home. And eventually I do.

More on how I am doing later.
posted by Raymond at 12:04 AM