Holy cow, that was something. The hubby finally comes home today, five days after getting his knee replaced. His doctor is an atypical surgeon, that is, gentle, kind, understated. After the surgery, which took longer than expected, he came out to say, "The x-rays didn't project how bad his knee was. I had to bear down and dig in. But he had a bad knee before and he has a good one now." The doc had to spend time getting rid of a lot of bone spurs and realigning the leg from the severe arthritis that had developed around the knee.
Needless to say, the patient was in a lot of pain and to top things off, the self-administered IV machine of morphine-like dope shut down for an 90 minutes the day after surgery so it took the staff about five hours to get back on top of things. As they say on the ward, "You gotta stay ahead of the pain." And they hadn't. At one low point, as my husband is fighting the pain, one of the charge nurses leaned over and said something about why men don't have children and that he needed to breathe through the pain as women do during labor. The look on his face was something, "Oh no you di-int throw the labor card at me."
I have the walker, the transfer bench for the shower/tub, the cane (which I must return for a different one, apparently), the raised toilet seat, the perpetual motion machine, the game ready ice maker, the new pillows and bed rest, and a gift certificate for some meals to be prepared by Sociale in Highland. Friends are bringing by a "meat-and-potatoes" dinner tonight. We'll bring it upstairs where he'll have to camp out for the first week, since our only bathroom is up the 23 steps to our second floor. All I wish go well right now is him getting up those 23 steps today!
While he was in the hospital, he got notice for federal jury duty. I'll have to figure out how to get him out of that one. No driving for three weeks.
Man, I don't know how people cope with serious illness and disability. I have the upmost respect for their will and strength.
Monday, January 21, 2008
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4 comments:
Oh, I've been thinking about you guys. I'm glad he's coming home. Please let me know if I can do ANYthing.
Also? You shoulda gone all Shirley McLaine in Terms of Endearment on that nurse!
Having used both the self-administered morphine IV following a C-section and recently "breathed through" hard labor pains in a different go, I'd say that both you and the patient exhibited fantastic control in the moment with Nurse Cratchet.
Thanks, Sass. Oh yeah! That Shirley McLaine scene. I'd have to dig out my false eyelashes to recreate that one!
Hey Elbee! Sweet pictures you've been posting on Flickr. And I agree, we did show fantastic control. And then just as I was about to bring the big guy home he let loose on me with a heap full of crabbies but I figured he'd been holding it in for the spell.
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