April 9, 2011
Saturday
Home Report: It is early Saturday morning and I am up by myself... couldn't sleep any longer so I got up to post on my hydrocelectomy yesterday. Since I got home from the hospital at about 6 yesterday I have been off and on sleeping off the anesthesia. Throughout the early evening, after snacks of bean and cheese nachos, I mostly slept, according to Liz. Then I was up for awhile to eat dinner an dozed through some TV shows and a movie (Toy Story III) and finally went up to bed before ten. This pattern of returning from anesthesia-land seems like my norm and is really a quite enjoyable way to return to reality. Now I am up at 5:45 am.
Pain? Yes, there has been some pain through last night and right now as I sit at the computer. By about 8:45 or so last night I was having some localized pain and took two Tylenol. Describing the pain is easy to do for any men reading this post. It is like someone squeezing your balls ever so slightly harder after you feel that pain, but not to the point where you must scream out. I can't think of a way to compare it to any pain I know women might have.
I never like taking the druggy pain pills they allow me to take unless I get to really suffering. Shuffling around on the couch watching TV wasn't really that helpful for the pain so that is when I went up to the cool bed sheets where I could spread out and lay there in the evening breezes coming through the house's second level. When I lay there quietly and still as a mouse, I feel no pain and drift off to la la land again and again, only waking up when Liz comes to bed or at the end of a dream, etc.
So, back to the beginning of This Kidney Adventure: Ever since my transplant, my scrotum had been fairly swollen and never really quite went down to it's normal "hanging around and down" self. Over time, in fact it started growing... first like a tennis ball... then like a softball... and then the Doc and I started planning for yesterday's operation.
Liz took me to NAMC at 8 in the morning for my 9 o'clock check-in time cause she had a workshop to administer early. I had thought I would sit and grade students' group observation papers until 9 but the guy I complained about back in Post #413 (¶ 7) was checking folks in and was bound and determined to get me checked in expeditiously this time. So he got Andrea right out there to rush me down to the prep room to do my paperwork. The nurse down there said, "He's an hour early. We don't even have the room ready!". So Andrea took me back to her office to complete the paperwork. That took about 20 minutes and then we are off and back down the hall for the second time... the room is ready and I slip into something more comfortable and meet my nurse, Crystal of the fast talking variety. I can tell she is competently going thru all her spiel efficiently in a way that they explain the 'rules' when you rent a car. However she is nice and playful and we get along quite nicely. She explains that it will be some time before we actually do any prep so I can grade my papers or take a nap. Somewhere along in this time frame, Dr. Lewis stops by to say "Hi" and I ask him how many he is doing today and he replies that it is only me. As he leaves I encourage him by saying, "Do good" and he replies, "Always" and smiles his way out.
I grade about 5 papers... they are written better than I anticipate and actually have some interesting reflections that tell me the students are actually learning the materials... or, at least referring back to the readings and text to sound like they know the materials. This makes me happy and contented enough to lay back after reviewing them, and snooze away the time til Crystal returns with Liz, an attractive nursing student from ACC with beautiful sparkly grey-blue eyes. Crystal asks if Liz can set my cannula for the saline drip. What can I say but "Sure" to this request for this youngster who wants to learn. I inform them both that I don't use lignocaine cause the pain doesn't bother me anymore. Crystal is very happy about my letting Liz experiment on me and Liz and I talk about her classes and what I teach and how nice it is to do practice learning at NAMC. Throughout the little cannulation, Crystal hovers over Liz, walking her through and sharing with her little tips that make it easier, like holding the cannula, removing the tourniquet, and flushing with saline. Liz does a good job and we all congratulate her and she is happy and I go back to grading and snoozing until this Asian Ansethesia nurse whose name I cannot remember (and I think of as AnesthesiAsia) comes in to explain they will be knocking me out and do I have questions. She and the Anesthesiologist (who came in earlier) both look back into my throat and are pleased with whatever they see. I know this because they NOD agreeably.
So, pretty soon Crystal and the surgical nurse (name forgotten) come to get me and we rush down the halls careening around the corners (I always LOVE this part) and thru double doors that magically open to accept my gurney... and into the bright white operating room, parallel parking beside the operating table. I'm thinking, "How am I going to successfully and gracefully shuffle my fat ass over there..." as AnesthesiAsia says to me: "I'm going to start giving you something to relax... do you feel it......" and then her words are drifting away and everything is okay.
My next recollection is waking up groggily with my Liz coming in the door, saying something, and I happily drift back off... all is hazy but I do remember her reading her book and me waking once in awhile and her giving me sips of water and telling me Lewis said it all went fine and that comforts me back into dream-land. During one of my visits back into waking reality Liz says we are going home and I don't have to stay overnight. During another one she tells me something of her workshop and how it went. The best thing about "recovery" room is that one doesn't have to feel bad about drifting off to sleep in the middle of a conversation with one's wife. There is permission, due to the circumstances, to just nod your head and close your eyes and drift off. How nice.
So, this goes on for some unknown period of time until Lilabeth the nurse comes in to say we can prepare to leave. I can get up and put my clothes on, Liz can get the car and we will meet her out front. My Liz takes off to call Shayna and get the car and I stumble around and somehow make myself put on my pants and shirt and stuff my flannel shirt into my brief case and decide it is too much trouble to bend over to put on my shoes... simultaneously deciding to keep my bright yellow hospital socks and give them to Shayna as my home-coming gift.
Lilabeth comes back with the release forms I sign and a wheelchair and wheels me out to my waiting carriage to drive me home through the Friday Five O'clock Traffic. I am glad that I can put the seat back and drift off to sleep again while Lizzie drive us home. "What a day", I think. Sigh. "And I am still alive" I add. And I am so happy that I'm still on the planet and I've got my Lizzie as my driver... and helper... and partner.
