A week without a tumor.
*WARNING* Very long post. Read at your own convenience. You may want to skim through
. Some like details, others just the talking points. Sorry!**
Day 1 - Arrived 5:15 at TGH. Everything went very quickly. It was one room to another until the pre-op area. Pre-op IV nightmare (both my arms are bruised and sore, long story, another time). Asthesiologist arrived on time and checked everything over. He was bright and cheery. That's just wrong so early.
Wheeled down a hall to "get into position". Nothing happening yet, but this will calm your nerves a little. My next vision was very blurred, and I felt like I got run over by a truck.
Post-op Recovery. I'm feeling a bit sick. Wife has just walked in, said everthing went well. I put my hand to my head, scratched on the bandage, "I can't hear". She said "No. They cut the nerve. The tumor was very sticky on the hearing nerve. Where's the call bell? I have to throw up? They don't have them here. <details deleted in case you are eating>. Nurse comes running from across the room. Why didn't you call me? I was RIGHT THERE! (Remember, I had a tube recently yanked out of my throat, there is no call button, and I'm pretty sure getting up and tapping her on the shoulder was out of the question. My wife told me I was mean to her. I'm not normally like that. But come to me yelling at me? Geesh. Ok, I told her she was incompetent, and maybe some other things too. If she reads this, I am sorry for that, but understand we can't talk loud, we can't jump and whistle, and we don't have a call button. There was nothing nearby to throw.
ICU. How do people live through it? They gave me ice chips and morphine. Both are very nice. I had severe pain with the morphine in the IV, so they used the IV in the other hand after that. Less pain, but pain nonetheless. They said they would have to check on me every couple of hours and ask my name, surgery date, todays date, etc. They tried to trick me by not changing the date on the board
. Night one in ICU was mostly a blur. I'ts day 2 before I know it.
Day 2. It's morning. Day nurse on duty now. Tries using right arm IV again for morphine. My eyes pop out of my head. He says it looks ok, shouldn't burn that much. Right. Nurse says he's working on getting me a room (it's 9 AM). One is lined up, but it's a shared room, and female has to be fully discharged first. Had to prove I could walk the halls first so off we went. He said I did amazingly well for that type of patient. Wife was there for a while, then had to run errands. I'm fine, go ahead. Starting to have pain again a few hours later. Where's that call button? Crap. I can't find it. Oh well. This isn't a vacation you know. Suck it up.
It's about 4 PM now, wife is back. Call button was left on some table or something way out of sight and reach. An honest mistake I'm sure since really, the nurse was a good nurse and knew his stuff. Not looking good for a room. ICU another night? All those horrific beeping noises. Please, no.
It's about 6 PM, maybe 530. Doctor Danners is there. I told him they couldn't get me a room and I didn't want to stay here. I said I wanted to go home. He said I would do perfectly fine at home. I had been eating regular food all day. They even brought me a subway tuna salad sub for lunch because I don't eat meat on Fridays during lent. Dinner was a good looking fish and broccoli dish, but you know the taste deal. Doctor said, I'm writing your discharge papers now. There was an hour delay due to last dose of IV antibiotics required. I'm feeling good now! We got up and walked. I posted my first message on the forum, took some pictures, etc.
9 PM - I'm on my way home! Surgery Thursday, home on Friday. One night stay! Woohoo! (I hate hospitals).
Day 3 - Nights are horrible. Sleeping elevated doesn't work for me. I think I'm using 5 pillows to make a ramp. Backaches, neckaches, yuck. That's my night routine through day 7. Yuck. I don't look forward to bed. But day 3, Saturday, was a day of rest. I felt slow, sluggish. Tinnitus to the max, lots of new stuff too. Wooshing, ringing. We have this eagle wall clock that has a unique tone at the top of each hour. We haven't been using it for at least 6 years. My ear was giving me the EXACT tone, length, tail off, everything. Cool. Lots of naps today. Finally, got myself up and said, I need to walk. We went on a 30 minute walk outside and I felt much much better!
Day 4 - Sunday - Bandage off! It looks good. Picture time! I'm concerned about some moisture in the nose, sleeping arrangements, and some oilyness in my AN ear. Put a call into Dr. Bartels nurse (24 hour number to call no matter what). Dr. Danners calls us back in good time, and says unless I lean forward and have a watery liquid actually drip from my nose, then don't worry about it. He also says, I must sleep with my head above my heart, no exceptions. bah.
Day 5 - Monday - A good day altogether, but I'm noticing that the pain meds are not working like they were, and I feel like my head is full and tight. 2 walks today, but I didn't get that great feeling after either one.
Day 6 - Tuesday - Trainwreck! All I want to do is sit and sulk, but we push on for our morning walk. I'm miserable by mid day. When can I take my pain medicine again? Are you serious? 3 more hours!?! I'm going to die today. We put a call into the nurse at 3PM and leave a message. 4 PM comes and I can take my meds. Nurse calls to ask details, then Dr. Danners calls about 6 PM. I described my pains which are now largely uniform on the right side, just all over pain. There is a new headache that encompases the entire head and thobs with each pulse. He mentions I may have a bit of checmical meningitus. He asked if I remembered him saying that the steriods from the IV would wear off in about 5 days. I said yes. He said swelling is likely the culprit, and told me to go ahead and take my first does of Decadron, then continue it as instructed. He also asked me my normal med routine. 1 percocet every 6 hours. He said I can take 2. I mentioned that pain relief wasn't the real issue but rather duration, so he said take 1 every 3 hours then, same thing as far as amount in the body.
Guys - within 3 hours of my first decadron dose it was like I had been saved! I took my normal pain med at 10 PM just in case, but didn't have any pain. Just took it because I was going to bed. Wow - Thank goodness.
Day 7 - Today! - Great day today. No pain. No pain meds. Continuing my decadron as instructed. We walked outside twice today and went to the mall in the afternoon. Here it is, 9:45 PM and I'm still doing great, nearly 24 hours with no pain meds. I'm not fatigued, I'm just feeling good. Not 100 percent. Dizzy still especially when turning my head. I'm not looking forward to the end of my decadron, but hopefully the post-operative swelling will be done with.
That's it. My one week update! I know, a book, but hey,
Ernie, how are you today?
Marci
You asked
Ernie
