Okay, done! I'm in my room in the recovery center relaxing and feeling pretty good. So now a recap (typed via iPad).
When I got to the surgery center at 2:15 they took me and Jeff back to the little conference room and a guy from the medical equipment company showed me how to use my CryoCuff and the CPM (Continuous Passive Motion) machine. Then we headed back to the waiting room for about 20 minutes until they took me back to my curtain area.
Because of my historyof blood clots, they had me wear a thrombosis stocking on my right leg during surgery, so I put that on, as well as my gown, grippy socks, and sexy surgery cap. I got an IV and they started me on saline and took my vitals. About 15 minutes later I met with the anesthesiologist and he explained how the spinal would work, and we chatted about blood thinners and such.
About 15 minute after that, Dr. Trumper came by and signed my knee, we verified again that I was going to use a donor tendon, and he told me he was going to give me 5 mg of Coumadin tonight, then put me on a lower prophylactic dose for 2-3 weeks. After that the anesthesiologist came back over to administer my spinal.
I was freaked out, not going to lie. They had me sit with my legs over the side of the bed, leant over in a slump. A nurse gave me some roofies (Versed) and then stayed there to spot me in case I fell off the bed. The meds kicked in pretty quickly and I felt a little swimmy. Then the anesthesiologist gave me a lidocaine shot in my back to numb me before administering the epidural. The lidocaine hurt and burned, but it didn't last long. The needle for the epidural hurt too, but in a different way, like really uncomfortable pressure. I didn't like the way it felt at all. However, again, it was over quickly.
As soon as I was back on the bed correctly, they wheeled me into the OR. Like last time, it was freezing, and they immediately gave me warm blankets from the little blanket heater thing. The spinal started working, and my belly felt numb, then it spread down my legs, like they were getting warm and heavy. Pretty soon I couldn't feel anything below my navel. One of the nurses lifted up my leg to test the flexibility and I could see her doing it, could see my leg moving, but couldn't feel it at all. It was like it was detached from my body. Such a crazy feeling, and it totally gave me some insight as to what it might be like to have a spinal cord injury (so strange, Cheryl, I had NO idea how truly strange it must feel for you).
Not long after the out of body experience I just described, they pushed more roofies and I don't remember anything after that until they had me in the curtain area again. It's so weird because I know I was awake, and I remember some things from the last time I was on Versed, but this was completely different. The nice part about this is that I was far more coherent this time than I was when I had general anesthesia for my meniscus surgery (and I didn't have the freaky reaction that I did that time where I started shivering uncontrolably). The nurse asked if I could feel my belly button and I told her I was still pretty numb. Then she asked if it was normal for my pulse to be in the low 40s (it is), because I kept setting off alarms on my heart rate monitor.
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Okay, everything up there was typed on Tuesday night. I tried to finish the whole surgery recap that day, but I had a lot of drugs in my system and was having a hard time focusing (and typing on my iPad). I'm going to try to finish the recap from memory now. :)
As soon as I was awake enough, the nurse gave me some crackers (woohoo, FOOD!) and my first dose of Vicodin, then took me to my room. They had me move from the transport bed to the room bed on my own, which was interesting because at that point I still couldn't feel much below my hips, and my ass was still numb. They got me into my CPM for the first time, covered me up in blankets, and gave me more crackers (yay!) and a nice, powerful anti inflammatory by IV.
Then my mom, sister, and husband came in to see me. My sister thought it was hilarious that I couldn't feel my feet and kept playing with my toes and trying to tickle me. My feeling came back pretty quickly, progressing from my belly down my legs. Strangely, the last three things to come back were my toes, my rear end, and my crotch. It was nice when my toes came back, because they felt cold and swollen when they were coming back from being numb.
About that time my dinner arrived. The OCR caters in their food, so I got cheese ravioli and salad from a yummy local Italian restaurant (Canino's). I think I ate it in less than five minutes, I was so hungry. And it tasted amazing. Best "hospital" food ever.
After dinner my physical therapist, Erica, came in and showed me how to do my exercises, and gave me a packet of paper where I could track my PT and meds over the next five days at home. I was planning to make a blog entry for each day, and I'm still going to do that, though I will be writing days 1-3 today, as well as day 4 (which IS today), rather than on the actual day (which was my original plan).
I think that about covers surgery day, so I'm going to go ahead and end this post and start the posts for the next three days, which should all be substantially shorter, hehe.
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