My surgery was successful and all went as predicted. I was in ICU from Monday PM until Fri AM. They kept me asleep until Wednesday. Someone must have told me but I was too doped up to understand how to call the nurse or press the morphine button. Some time Wed I found out that I had been pressing the Oygen monitor on my finger thinking that it was for pain relief. I was finally coherent enough to ask for the nurse's call button. That is when I found out that the pain pump was right there in the sheets and the call button was on the pillow above my head. My daughter-in-law told me they had to lightly restrian my hands because I was trying to get to my face. I remember a nurse telling me that I was going to get infected if I kept trying to hurt myself. From the fog I remember thinking that he was being mean and yelling but now I realize that I was too doped up and in pain to communicate that I needed something for the pain. I let the doctors know that I could not find the pain pump until the third day and they agree that there should be a large legible poster on the wall showing how to use it.
Adding to my distress and confusion was the non-functioning clock on the wall. It took a while for me to realize that time really was passing and I was not completly hallucinating.
Funny moment: The 5 year old grandson tried to follow his mother from the waiting area into ICU down the hall. When a nurse told him he could not come into the area, he told her he was 16. I guess he knew that you had to be 14 to visit patients so he exagerated a little to be safe.
The nursing care was excellent and I am now home recovering. Home health nurse came out today and will be back Friday. She said that I will be visited be an occupational therapist and a physical therapist. Before I left the hospital a physical therapist told me how to get up and down the stairs on my backside. I remembered what she said about starting to go down the stairs but when I got up the stairs easily, I forgot how she said to stand up and turn aroud to go in the hall. Somehow my dear one was able to help me but it was not easy for him. I had thought that I could stay downstairs for part of the day but found out that the walker is too wide to get into the powder room. The equipment company is sending out a narrower one tomorrow.
I had a wonderful visit Sunday evening from another OCF member. "Splenda" who lives on the North Shore came with her husband.
Malka