It's GO Time!

 

It’s 4:30 a.m.  My bedroom is pitch black, my dogs are snoozing something fierce, and my alarm clock is making an infernally loud noise.  I didn’t spring out of bed because let’s face, I’m 40 and am down to 1.5 legs at this point, but I did drag myself out of a bed a little quicker than normal.  Impressive too given that it was a good two hours before my normal wake-up call.  I had one hour to feed the dogs, shower, and get to the hospital where my date with my new ACL was scheduled to commence.  It was time for surgery.

Finally. 

Finally, I was going to be well onto a healing path after tearing my ACL, MCL, and PCL and after severely spraining my LCL after a bad decision on January 28^th that you can read about here.

I was also fortunate to have both my husband and my mother there because the hospital now allowed two visitors since the COVID numbers are declining in my area.  

Smiling Pre-Op.  Nervous but ready!

We were at the hospital by 5:25 a.m.  Chris dropped me off and parked the car while I got all checked in inside the lobby.  We were then directed where to go to wait for the nurses to get me and prep me for surgery.  I didn’t wait long and was taken back almost immediately.  After confirming I was not pregnant, I got to strip and put on the ever comfortable backless hospital gown.  Some sticky monitors were put on my chest and the IV was in with minimal cursing from me.  Side note: I HATE needles! Then Chris and my mom were able to come back and sit with me.

I was nervous, but in good spirits with both of them by my side.  Several different nurses and the anesthesiologist dropped by introducing themselves.  I signed my left knee with a nurse to confirm surgery on that one - something I have to say I did stress about for some odd reason.  I also told the nurses that one and only thing I wanted post-op was a damn Diet Coke.  I hate Sprite and refuse to drink that (and yes, I know that Diet Cokes are essentially poison, and no I do not care).  I kept my mom and husband laughing, and before I knew it, it was time.  Chris and Mom were asked to leave. 

I watched them leave when the anesthesiologist came over to me and said, “I’m administering the anesthesia now.  You might start to feel a little drunk.”

Not even five seconds went by, and I felt my vision slightly blur and started straining to focus.  I know people were talking to me, but for the life of me, I have no concept of what was said.  I have a recollection of being wheeled out of the prep room, but there’s no substance to the memory.

Apparently the doctor did talk to me about my surgery after I was in recovery and "awake."  I'm not going to say "alert" because how alert was I really if I can't remember this at all?!  Chris and my mom were there so they remember everything.  He told me that the ACL reconstruction went well and that he was happy with my PCL and MCL were healing - that they didn't require anything.  He did clean up my meniscus a little bit as well. 

There’s no substance to many memories, if I’m going to be brutally honest until close 11 a.m. when my surgery had been over for close to 90 minutes.  My mom and Chris were there, and I just wanted to get home.  I remember being queasy, and I perceived the nurse as giving me a hard time about going home because of the nausea.

Definitely looking green around the gills, but still managing to flip Chris off!

Chris liked to laugh about my time in post-op because apparently, I complained about feeling queasy, and the nurse said okay and gave me some meds.  A bit later she asked if I was still queasy and I said yes, but that I wanted to go home.  She told me I couldn’t leave until I was no longer queasy.  Some more time went by and she again asked if I was queasy.  Chris says this time I got a really sly smile on my face and said, “no.”  Neither the nurse not Chris believed me.  I was kept me there for another 30 minutes.

I knew my sister in Denmark would be worried about me and I called her on FaceTime, but I have no idea what I said to her.  I remember being in the McD’s drive-thru line for Chris to finally get something to eat and a Diet Coke for me, but I don’t remember him going to CVS to pick up my pain meds.

Getting home was a bit of shit show.  Maris gets free run of the house because she’s a good princess who doesn’t do anything wrong.  She’s also been conditioned, by us, to give hugs when we get home.  This started by us picking her up when she was puppy and actually hugging her against her chest and kissing her.  She soon outgrew that and was able to stand, put her paws on our shoulders, and give us kisses and hugs.  She’s very sweet and loving.  However, this afternoon, I needed less sweet and loving.  It took a bit of maneuvering, but Chris was finally able to keep her off of me.  He deposited me into our bed and then shut the door.  Only then did he free our crazy, little young sir, Yogi Bear Bryant.  Still very much a 9-month-old puppy, he had to run off his energy before getting access to me.

While the dogs were outside doing their business, Chris came into the room and got me to eat a few club crackers, then quickly left.  I passed the fuck out.  That anesthesia did a number on me!   A couple of hours later, I awoke.  There was some crying and paw tapping outside the door, and I also decided I needed to pee.  I called Chris and he helped me to the bathroom.  Back in bed, I told him to go ahead and let the dogs in.  They both ran in and jumped on the bed, but after that, they were cautious and just cuddled up to their momma.  Neither one of them left my side until the morning with the exception of dinner and to go back outside to do more business.

My babes immediately posted up with me

I slept basically all day and night from the anesthesia.  The first 12 hours, I didn’t have much pain in my knee because of the anesthesia, but my hamstring was sore as fuck.  I had a hamstring graph for my new ACL, so that wasn’t too surprising, it was more surprising how little pain I felt in my knee (Be careful what you wish for).  Chris was on call and helped me into and out of bed.  I was able to maneuver well on the crutches, and he made sure I had a clear path to wherever I was heading.

Someone did point out that as a ginger, anesthesiologists have to use more anesthesia.  We also have higher pain tolerance as well.  So, yeah, we are truly subhuman!

I had a whole list of people to text to let them know how things went, but I virtually ignored that list, I was so out of it.  I did relay some names to Chris for him to text - if I missed I'm so sorry - but my brain was basically on hiatus.  I know I made sure to tell him to text my some of my closest friends because I knew he and my mom would make sure my family knew what was going on.  I also had him text my manager because I wanted her to know how things went as well.

And then they refused to leave my side!

It might not have been quite how I saw the rest of the day playing out, but I do know how sleep plays a major role in recovery.  After all of this rest, I was finally on the road to recovery!