Well, the surgery talked about
here, has come and gone. Yesterday was a long day. As my body is used to eating every 3 hours and drinking well over a gallon of water a day, it was tough to stop eating and drinking the night before. My surgery was scheduled for 1:30 which meant it was going to be over 12 hours of no eating, drinking or pain medications by the time I had to arrive at the hospital at 12:00 noon. It was nice of the nurse checking me in to talk about what she was eating for lunch and then we went back to the waiting room to pull it out for me to see and smell as she ate it.
This week has been an interesting week of firsts, running
my daughter's first race with her,
getting tripped in a race, breaking my first bone, learning to dress with one arm, learning to type and program with one arm, going without eating and drinking for 19 hours, going through surgery, and being put out.
I arrived just before my scheduled time of arrival and they took me back to check me in pretty quickly. I was starting to get nervous as this was my first surgery, and first time I was going to be put out. I have had other small in office surgery's but we will leave it at that. We didn't have to wait too long to be called back to Pre-op, but once they hooked up the IV, and had me change into the stylish hospital garb, that is when the waiting began. The doctor was running behind and so instead of the surgery starting at 1:30, they didn't take me to the operating room until 3:30. I remember them hooking my right (good) arm to the table and remembering thinking it was going to hurt when they did the same to my left arm...... well, that was the last thought I had before waking up in a different room sitting in the recovery chair. It didn't take long before I was drinking a
Powerade and Lisa was again by my side. I drank a couple small bottles of the
Powerade, took some pain medication, and had a couple crackers with peanut butter and I was ready to go. Two stops to pick up two of the three kids later and I was home crawling in bed. Had myself an
Arby's sandwich and a chocolate shake and I was ready for bed.
I slept good, better than the last couple days, and so far have not had any pain. I am sure the block has not worn off yet and I have been taking the pain medication. I am sure the pain will start before too long, but so far everything is going good.
The funny thing is when the Doctor came by to see me before the surgery, my wife asked if I could still run the
Peachtree Road Race. I wouldn't have dreamed of asking that, I had already decided I would be walking it since I had gotten such a good number, but didn't dream of running it. The Doctor told me I could run it if I wanted. He said if I could deal with the pain that there would be no reason for me not to run it. He also said that I could run it with the sling which would make it less painful, or that he could write me an excuse to get out of it completely if that is what I wanted. :) Kinda funny, but I am still leaning towards walking it.
I am going to hold off with any running or other exercises other than walking until I go back to see the doctor next Thursday. At that point I am sure I will have a better idea of recovery time and when I can start adding some of the exercises. One benefit of the surgery is much faster recovery. I am off work the rest of this week so I will have some time to recuperate and get over the initial pain at home.
Tim Wilson - blog.262quest.com
