Well, I am finally back and sort of ready to get back into
action, though it is slow going. At the
moment I’m feeling just a little loopy, thanks to the pain meds I’m on
following my surgery, but since I have all this free time, I want to write, and so I begin with my very first experience
with surgery and its aftermath…
Making Moves, Achieving Goals
I wrote in a post once that one of my goals in life was to
get things taken care of, especially in the area of my health. I vowed back then that I was going to make
those phone calls I needed to make and get the ball rolling on some things that
have been a long time coming. During the
April break I made two phone calls to help me accomplish that goal.
First Up - Dental Implants and Bone Grafting
The first phone call I made was to my periodontist. In the past two years or so, he’s been trying
to get me to give the okay on dental implants that I need in the upper right
side of my mouth. In order to get the
ball rolling on that, I’d have to get a tooth pulled and have a procedure known
as “bone grafting’ done. For the longest
time, I was petrified of the doing it, but I finally made that appointment,
which I went to last Thursday, the 10th.
For those of you not familiar with bone grafting, it is
something that is done to people with periodontal disease, of which I am a
sufferer. Over the years, the bones that
hold my teeth in place have been deteriorating, and in order to get implants,
something must be put in place of the bone to hold them in. The procedure involved cutting my gums and
inserting a cement-like substance to the bone, which will eventually act as a
larger bone to hold the implants in.
It’s the first step of a year-long process and I’m glad I finally got
the ball rolling on that.
All in all, that procedure wasn’t bad, and it was really
nothing compared to what I experienced this week as far as pain goes. Numbing drugs are amazing, as I didn’t feel a
thing through the whole extraction and grafting procedure. My periodontist is gentle and patient,
explaining the steps all the way through so I was never surprised with
unexpected pain. So if you happen to
live in the Long Island area and need a good periodontist, hit me up and I’ll
refer you.
Surgery
The nature of my surgery is somewhat personal, so all I will
say about it is that it is something I needed to have done for a long, long
time, and the doctor told me way ahead of time that there was a lot of pain
involved. I promised myself that I’d get
it done before the year was out, and I can finally say it is done. The operation was not any sort of emergency
surgery, no, but it was meant to fix an issue that had been bothering me for
years. When I first made the
appointment, May 16th, it seemed like eons ago, but the time sure went
by fast. I’ve never had such surgery
before where I needed an overnight stay in the hospital, and the prospect left
me short of much sleep for at least the past couple of weeks.
Of course, Wednesday morning came very quickly and I
approached it with as much confidence as I could muster. I had to be at the hospital by 6:30AM and by
7 o’clock I was on a stretcher all decked out in an IV and a really short, really
revealing hospital gown.
The whole experience was surreal, as for the first time I
found myself in the role as patient.
From the receiving area to the holding area I went to wait my turn at
the operating table. That’s where the
doctors came in with those “just in case” papers for me to sign, even though I
wasn’t really concerned about just in case.
I was more worried about the pain.
As anyone who’s ever had surgery can probably attest, the
operation itself involves no pain at all.
Again, numbing drugs are amazing.
I was given a spinal, or an epidural, which freaked me out a little when
they told me about it, but by the time that needle was barely inside of me, I
was already in la la land.
Post-Op
I’m still a little fuzzy about where and when I woke
up. All I know is that I was loopy, very
loopy and my pal Dit and my sister Ann Marie where there not long after I was
in a room. I’m sure my company was
amusing, for it was one of the highest of highs, and I cannot be responsible
for whatever it was I said. I remember
my legs being so heavy I couldn’t budge them and there was absolutely no pain
at all.
That didn’t last for long, as my company left and I was all
alone in the room to live through a surreal kind of experience. I was given a morpheme pump to control the
spasms of pain that would creep in on me throughout the night, which was full
of ½ hour naps rather than a good night’s sleep. My nurses were awesome, if not a little
annoying with their regular visits to change my IV or take my blood pressure,
and they really helped me get through it all.
That night seemed to go on forever as I’d wake up often even
when nurses didn’t come to visit. I
remember the doctor saying that I had to urinate otherwise they’d have to
catheterize me, and boy was that pressure!
Since I wasn’t able to leave the bed on my own, I was given a portable
urinal to use, which didn’t make it any easier.
Oh that was one of the worst parts of my whole hospital
stay! No matter how hard I tried, I
could not pee lying down, so whenever I felt the urge I would carefully stand
at the side of my bed, hoping to all hope that no one would come in and see
me. At least I went!
After a long morning waiting to be discharged, the orders
finally came and my hospital stay ended around 1 in the afternoon. My time since then has been filled with plenty
of uncomfortableness and lots of pain. I
guess the worst is behind me, but I still can’t wait for this to be over with… Thank goodness for the pain meds!
No comments:
Post a Comment