...Post-Op Day 2
I remember very little about the first night in the hospital. I remember a nurse coming in at some point in the middle of the night and asking me how the nausea was – it was fine right in that moment, but when I moved my head in order to look at the nurse, that started it up again. I remember saying, “It’s better,” and then throwing up about 30 seconds later. Gross. I have zero memory of anything related to sleeping, trying to get comfortable, pain, or anything of that nature, though. I know that a nurse came in and removed the arterial line from my left arm at some point in the ICU and I think it was either really late at night the first day or really early in the morning the second day, but I’m not entirely sure. I do remember being thrilled that it was finally out because it was quite painful. It left a very impressive and huge bruise down my wrist/forearm that didn’t go away for nearly three weeks.
The next clear thing I remember is being woken up by two physical therapists in my room early the next morning. I figured that for the first physical therapy experience, they’d have me sit at the edge of the bed and maybe stand (not moving!) for a little bit. Inaccurate! They had me up and walking immediately which, for the record, made me feel so f-ing ridiculous. They had me sit up, very slowly, to begin with and then just hang out on the edge of the bed for a few minutes while my body adjusted to being upright and my brain adjusted to allowing me to move my eyes around without getting all kinds of dizzy and such. It took a freakishly long time, but with one physical therapist holding onto either side of me, I finally was able to stand up – again, they had me just stand there and get my bearings for a few seconds (while they held onto me the entire time) before actually going anywhere. My marathon walk for that morning consisted of walking around my bed and out of the room and then probably about 10 feet down the hallway, back into my room, and back into bed. It was exhausting. They were holding onto both of my hands the entire time and I still felt incredibly unsteady – I was taking small, short steps, shuffling my feet, and generally just feeling very weak and unsure. It really wasn’t until I walked that first time that I realized how ridiculously, amazingly sore my neck was. I couldn’t move my head from side to side or up and down at ALL – you don’t realize how much you move your head around until you can’t do it! To feel both unsteady while walking and not be able to look down at all while walking? Shockingly challenging. And I felt like my peripheral vision was really limited because, while I didn’t have the double vision that was a possibility post-op (thank GOD), my vision was definitely pretty blurry when I looked any direction but straight on. All in all, my ~5 minute walking adventure that first morning after surgery was quite humbling… and maddening (to say the least).
After getting back into bed, the pain really started to kick in again. My nurse came in shortly after and said that I should be headed down to have an MRI within the half hour (i.e., by about 9:30am) and if that was clear, they’d likely start the process of moving me out of the Neuro Critical Care Unit and into the Neuro Acute Care Unit. She offered me pain medication at that point, and I told her that I’d like to delay the heavy meds, given the nauseating ~16 hours I had just crawled through. Given that my MRIs are typically pretty long (about an hour), I was really distressed about the idea of getting in the MRI tube and then getting really nauseated again. She said that that sounded reasonable, so we agreed to do a couple doses of the non-hardcore pain meds in order to keep control until after the MRI (do note that in this instance, fentanyl was considered my “non-hardcore pain med” of choice… it worked well for about 20 minutes after they injected it, but then was pretty worthless. That said, that shit is 100 times as potent as morphine!). The goals of the morning became resting, getting through the MRI, and getting out of the ICU. Easy enough, yes? Not so, friends. My 9:30am MRI was pushed back approximately 17 different times. Unfortunately they were having a rather busy day in the ER in regard to head injuries and since I was doing so well (no major concerning signs that there was excessive swelling, and that sort of thing), I kept getting bumped further down the list. That’s fine and totally understandable of course, but it also meant that my decision to delay the good stuff pain meds went from not a big deal to a really, really, really big deal. In retrospect, I’m a little irritated that the nurses didn’t just tell me that I needed the pain meds and we’d deal with any nausea consequences when and if they happened, though in all fairness, I have no memory of how sassy I was (as in, I’m not sure if they highly recommended that I just take them and I refused, which is a distinct possibility), and we were also being told throughout the entire day that I’d be taken down to radiology in 15 minutes, in half an hour, within the next hour, and so on. Long story short, I ended up sans sufficient pain control for a good 4-5 hours. I spent the vast majority of the afternoon in, hands down, the most significant pain I’ve ever experienced in my entire life – it was absolutely unreal. I’ve never experienced the kind of pain that literally takes over your entire body and leaves you unable to speak. That’s what this was, absolutely. My dad and stepmom were amazing about just standing next to me and holding my hands, rubbing my forehead, and keeping the cold washcloth fresh (the washcloth became my BFF the entire time I was in the hospital – I had a LOT of pressure around and behind my eyes and was also seriously bothered by light, so having the wet washcloth over my eyes and pressing down was one of the best non-narcotic remedies I found for pain management). Of course, given the insanely intense pain, the nausea was also constant, though I didn’t actually get sick again. I remember my dad saying at one point that it literally looked like I had two black eyes – my skin was dark all around my eyes, as well as sporting the lovely sunken-in eye look, because of the pain. Needless to say, it wasn’t my favorite afternoon in my past 26 years of living.
Around 3 or so that afternoon, I still hadn’t been taken down for the MRI. Despite the severe pain issues, I was doing well otherwise – motor coordination and vision were perfectly intact, I was speaking clearly and coherently, understanding and responding to commands, and not receiving any truly “critical” care at that point (I wasn’t even getting oxygen) – so they decided to move me over to the Neuro Acute Care Unit. The nurses were super sweet and made a big deal about “graduating” out of the ICU. I was certainly happy to know that I wasn’t in need of intensive care at that point, but was also in so much pain that, ultimately, I really didn’t give a shit about anything. We were moved over into a huge, spacious room (with a view of the U on the foothills!)… and though I thought I was experiencing the “worst pain ever” earlier that day, my body was quick to let me know that it’s an overachiever and, when challenged, can top whatever was deemed “worst” before. Twenty minutes or so after being moved to the NACU, I finally broke the fuck down, purely out of pain and frustration (given how reactive I am generally, I’m actually kind of impressed that it took like 26 hours after waking up before I truly lost it!). There was crying, there was panicking, there was the thought that there was no chance of getting through this because the pain itself was literally going to kill me. Nearly six weeks later, I still vividly remember a very tense hour or so in this new room of honestly not knowing how I was going to get through this. My entire head and neck felt like they were being ripped apart at the slowest possible pace. There was this intense, intense pressure that enveloped my head and just throbbed constantly, and my neck was not only aching, but also incredibly weak. I couldn’t lift my head using those muscles at that point – if I wanted to attempt to turn at all or even simply readjust my head position, I had to physically put my hand under my skull, lift it up, and gently move it wherever I wanted it… I literally could not use those muscles (which makes sense, given that they had been cut apart by a scalpel the day before). What became the most unbearable in that hour or so was the intense pressure at the back of my head. I remember realizing, in an almost incredulous way, that I couldn’t believe I had spent the last ~26 hours lying flat on my back when I had a fucking fresh five inch incision running directly down the back of my head. Oh hey, not so smart. A super sweet nurse came in to check on me mid-breakdown and it finally dawned on me to ask if I could be moved to my side. Given my lack of ability to move my head on my own, you can imagine the effort it took to move my body as a whole! There were at least two nurses who had to come in and use my sheets to reposition my body… and then prop me up in a rather creative manner using, I’d guess, 6 or so pillows. Being on my side was immensely relieving – the pain was still absolutely insane, but just getting the pressure of the back off my head made a huge difference. I finally gave in at that point and begged for real pain meds, which were delivered rapidly and in large doses (yay). On my side, pain meds in belly, and washcloth pressed tightly against my eyes, I finally managed to doze off for an hour or so, and felt a million times better once I woke up.
Shortly after I woke up (around 5 or so), Emilie came for a visit and my dad and Celia took a much-needed hospital break. Naturally, not more than half an hour after Em got there, they finally came in to take me down for my MRI. The ridiculous day continued…… first of all, when your muscle have been cut and your body is that tense, rolling over even the tiniest cracks and creases in hospital floors in your massive bed hurts like motherf-ing hell. Who would’ve thought?! Second of all, realizing the helpfulness of being on your side and then, not two hours later, being faced with a hard slab of plastic in a ginormous machine that you have to be in for (you think) ~45-60 minutes and, of course, flat on your back, is cruel, dammit. When we got down to the radiology area, my epic mobility limits struck again – I couldn’t, of course, just hop out of bed, walk over to the machine, and lie down (per normal). Instead, with the help of what are apparently the thickest sheets ever created, I had to be lifted hammock-style by several nurses from my room bed onto the MRI bed. That thing, for the record, is seriously not comfortable. When you’re just going in for a scan, it doesn’t matter. When you’re on it the day after epic surgery, it sucks. For head MRIs, you lay your head directly on the hard plastic and then your head is covered with this contraption (http://www.healthcare.philips.com/pwc_hc/es_es/products/mri/options_upgrades/coils/achieva3T/Images/oa_neuro_03_en.jpg) which, for obvious reasons, makes you both look and feel like a sexy beast. You have huge pieces of foam tucked in around your neck to make absolutely sure that you don’t move and, often, huge headphones that have the double-perk of ensuring this lack of movement and also giving you a little music of your choice to pass the time and kinda sorta drown out the freakish loudness of the machine (I chose Mumford & Sons for this particular scan). Anyway… so they got me positioned and started the scan. I deep breathed my way through most of it and, while uncomfortable, I was okay up until (what I thought was) the last five minutes or so, when I really started to feel shaky and awful from the pressure on my incision. They told me we were on the last scan, I got through it, the machine stopped making rocketship-preparing-to-take-off sounds, and then there was silence. And more silence. And nothing happening. For a long goddamn time. Finally, probably 10-15 minutes later (seriously), one of the techs came in and said that they needed to get another entire set of scans… which was going to take upwards of another 30 minutes. Given that I had no choice, I just fought back tears and resumed my deep breathing, partially freaking out about not being able to get through the rest of the scan without losing it, and partially really worried about why they needed more scans (my first thought, of course, was that they were seeing excessive swelling, bleeding, or something else horrible awful that they were concerned about). When it was finally over, they nonchalantly mentioned that the machine and/or computer had done something wonky and they didn’t do additional scans, but rather had just redone a set. Hokay, good.
I was moved (awkwardly!) back into my bed and asked immediately to be moved onto my side… and sweet, sweet relief followed. I knew that the MRI had taken way f-ing longer than anticipated, but I had no sense of what time it might actually be. I had been taken down around 5:30 and, on the way back up, caught a glimpse of a clock: 7:20, dammit!!! My first thought, of course, was that this stupid scan had wasted the majority of my visit from Emilie and I was quite irritated about that. I finally got back up to my room, and sweet Em was still there waiting for me. I think my parents came back a short time later (I think; that could be total confabulation) and my super sweet nurse came in to check on my pain rating (what had been a 9.5 out of 10 earlier was now a very manageable 4 out of 10; for the record, I said 9.5 when they asked just because I was terrified that it could potentially get worse than what it was). Soon after, my night nurse came in and said that they needed to put me in a different room. So they moved me, which was a little chaotic. Emilie took off a short time later, and within the next hour or so, I told my exhausted parents to go home and rest. By 8:30 or so, my pain level was creeping up again (the Lortab they were giving me, as epically freaking amazing as it was, was only truly effective for about 4 ½ of the allotted 6 hours), so I had my parents redo my washcloth and turn off the lights before they left. At exactly 9pm, when I was due for my next dose of Lortab, I pressed the nurse call button, determined not to let the pain get out of control again. A sweetly awkward HCA came in and said she’d go grab my nurse. By 9:30, the pain was intensifying and I still hadn’t gotten the meds. I called again and, same as before, the HCA said she’d find my nurse. Repeat this exact scenario at 10pm, but with an increased amount of pain. Repeat once again at 10:30pm, but with a pain level that was dangerously close to being back at the 9.5/10 from earlier in the day. My nurse (the SOLE nurse I didn’t like throughout my entire 4 ½ day hospital stay… overall these folks were amazing; this chick, not so much) finally came in, didn’t say anything at all, handed me the little cup of pills and a cup of water, stuck me in the arm with anti-nausea meds (with no warning of like, “oh hey, I’m going to jab a needle in your arm now, FYI!”), and then walked out without a single word. I was a frustrated, pathetic-feeling, super-in-pain wreck at that point, so I managed to very slowly get myself comfortably back on my side… and then (ready for the pitifulness?!), had my own sweet little sob-fest until the meds kicked in and I finally fell asleep.
During a visit a couple days later, my friend Stacia mentioned that seriously, next time I was in a hospital, I really needed to end up walking out with a baby. Indeed, when I think about what this day – Friday the f-ing 13th, in case you were keeping track – was like, I feel quite strongly that the next time I experience insanely agonizing, take-over-your-body-so-you-can’t-think-speak-or-breathe pain like that, I better fucking end up with an infant.
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