I spoke with Amanda, Dr. McMath's physicians assistant (PA), the anesthesiologist, probably a few nurses in there (the primary one being Jen), and finally Dr. McMath arrived. What nice people, all of them! Dr. McMath initialed my hip, literally, with blue permanent marker...so they all knew for certain where to make the first cut!
My dad had another prayer over me with Mark and Jessie. What a blessing it is to have so much prayer covering me. It is very humbling! After this prayer, Jessie took my dad back home to Primrose Retirement Community. Pop had to pick up Mama and take her to an eye doctor appointment, since I was sort of busy and couldn't take her.
Steve came to take me to the operating room. I said good-bye to Pop, Jessie, and Mark (or maybe Pop and Jessie were already gone...anesthesia does that to you) and went away with Steve. I met Tasha outside of the operating room. I can't remember what her part was, but she helped prep me.
They helped me get onto the operating table and I remember them talking about something, but my eyes started to have a hard time focusing and I knew there was no turning back at that point. The next thing I knew, Jen was saying hello to me in the recovery room. They have some new name for it now, PACU, and all of those letters stand for something, but I can't remember what, but it still means recovery. I had a very hard time getting my eyes to focus, but eventually Steve rolled me away to my room, 6168, on the Ortho-Neuro floor.
Suffice it to say, everyone here at Blanchard Valley Hospital has been fabulous to me. I have had fun joking with the staff, and so has my dad and my husband. It really has been a blessing to be here, close to family and friends, and not be an hour away, like I was at St. Luke's in Toledo all those many years ago.
I did not have any therapy (maybe I had respiratory therapy?) the day of surgery as we all expected. Jessie was NOT amused, so she gave me some bed therapy to do. I was ok with not having therapy the first day. Jessie's workout (a portion of what I would be doing later) was good enough. I was pretty tired and still woozy from the anesthetics, so I was sort of glad it didn't happen as we all expected.
During a rather sleepless first night in my room, I was awake for awhile between 2 and 3 AM, doing some of the isometric exercises that Jessie had given me (which I might add were very easy to do, but very painful as well, pre-surgery). As I was doing one that had been particularly painful, I realized that I was having no pain. I mean, No Pain. No, really, I mean, NO PAIN! I laid there and did them a couple of times just to see if I was right...and I was! I laid there thinking, "It was all worth it. It was really all worth it." And I slept...a little in spite of all of the interruptions.
So, I'll end this rather lengthy post and let you wonder what my first day of therapy was like...
Thanks for reading.
Cindy
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