Uber Surgery Post

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Disclaimer- may contain foul language, gross medical stuff.

So begins the belated but, in my eyes, necessary chronicle of my surgery and hospital stay thereafter. A whimsical yet hopefully relevant journey through the emotional and psycho-social trials and tribulations of my past few weeks, if for nothing else but to tell everybody else about my extra 4 or 5 inches and my cool scar. I wanted to wait so that this wouldn't be a bitchfest, but we'll see how that works out.

I guess we'll start on Wednesday, January 14th. Before all of that was just numerous blood donations, tests, lack of concentration at school, nervousness, worrying, ect., which I'm pretty sure I covered in previous blog posts. This particular Wednesday was my first day that I wasn't at school. I arrived at the hospital at 10:00 for pre-op stuff. More tests, more blood work, and a general tour of the hospital so I would know what was going on later. It was here I was first introduced to the vomit-inducing "Stryker Bed" (more on that later). Jessie, a particularly cute nurse, tells me to get well so she can take care of me on Friday :::blush:::
The pre-op was unsettling, but ultimately helpful, since my most urgent doctor's experience prior to this was......... let's see here.......... no broken bones........... ah! chicken pox. I ate my last solid food meal that night before my surgery, and got 2 hours of sleep.

The Big Day- Thursday, January 15th. (here's where Mom starts crying)
Awoken from sweet dreams of sterile operating rooms and white sheets, I got up at fuggin' 5 am to be driven downtown to Children's Medical Hospital. I was the first major surgery of the day, scheduled for 7:30ish (right when AP English is starting) and we had to wait 2 hours in a packed waiting room with 2 dozen other people. My blood ran cold when the nurse called me back and I followed her like a prisoner on death row. For an hour, I was measured, interrogated, stripped of all my possessions and clothes- and was given a paper gown in return. They tried to take away my jacket with my wings on it and put it in a locker, but my mom took them and told me she would hold on to them (big sigh of relief). They laid me on a rolly-hospital bed and I said goodbye/ I love you to my mom and dad (cue waterworks here from mom). I was taken down a labyrinth of hallways, freezing all the while (they do keep it colder in there, I asked). I got into the operating room, and confronted my morbid fear of all medical devices. The room was half sterling silver, half sterile white. I tried to keep my cool, pretend like I wasn't scared and whatnot, and for a while, it worked. The team of nurses (yes, a team of about 6) were setting up the equipment, when it suddenly hit me. I held it in (the nervousness, stark terror, ect.)...........except for my right arm. My right arm started shaking uncontrollably, and I ignored it. For a while, the nurse humored the "tough guy" and pretended like it wasn't happening. Then it was time to start. I got a shot of medicine to "calm me down" and I started to feel colder, my eyes watered. Then they gave me the gas mask, but I tried to breathe slowly, holding my breath/breathing out the side. I started to get really scared, and my arm was shaking so bad, I had to clamp the mask over my face. Then they inserted the IV into the back of my left hand (what?? paperclip? thumbtack?? bee sting??? who knows............). Then my doctor walked in, but by this point I'm freezing, my eyes are watery, and I'm starting to taste the gas (sort of a dry metallic taste). The doctor is starting asking me questions, and I could tell that I was taking forever to answer.

Dr. Crawford: Are you feeling ok?
Nurse: His arm is shaking pretty bad.
Me: Whoa...........Doc.............I can, like, THINK,............but it's all....... like, .....coming out...........slow.............n'stuff.
Crawford: 3.........2............1...........

Bickety-bam!
::::Fade to black::::::

>A 2 foot incision was made from the base of my neck to my hips. The muscle layers and nerves were peeled back to expose my spine. Electrodes were attached to all my nerves and limbs to monitor my body, lest the surgeron slip and cut off a nerve and paralyze me. My rib cage was rotated back into place, having been shifted by the scoliosis. The double curve, 60 degrees up top and 50 degrees lower were corrected. A steel rod was screwed into my vertebrae and bolted into place. One of my ribs was removed and the bone was used to help fuse the rod to my spine. I received all 3 of my pre-donated units of blood (damn, that's good stuff!). I also used 2 others. Thanks, mysterious donor! The wound was closed, and it's on to the ICU.<

[At this point, I'd like to point out that I did NOT have the cool "pearly white gates" dream that most hospital patients have that convinces them of their faith..........I was secretly hoping for some divine intervention or something, but, alas..........the atheist gets no dreams. None. Maybe that's a sign.
Mom and dad wait for hourly updates from the nurses, the surgery is 8 hours (till about 3). They have to keep running inside and out because cellphones aren't allowed inside.
A family friend, Tricia, that works at the hospital consoles the nervous parents and explains what's going on, and even helps my parents find me after the surgery, when I'm transferred a blue-billion times.
I'm unaware, but after the surgery, I'm taken to the Intensive Care Unit, ICU. Tricia tells us that the standard procedure is to have the chapel say a prayer for all new ICU patients. My mom tells the nurses not to.
For the next day or so I lay in ICU, completely shut down and loaded up with heavy heavy painkillers and drugs, machines measuring all vital statistics, stuck like a pincushion and with more wires and tubes coming out of me than I have toes and fingers. My eyes and feet are swollen beyond recognition.]

Friday, January 16th. (No, I'm not on Ecstasy)
Out of the ICU and into the recovery room. The recovery room has about 1 less machine in it to monitor things, and in it's place is a small couch where nervous and frazzled parents who haven't showered or left the hospital in days are expected to eke out a living and catch frightful bursts of bloodshot-eyed sleep.

::::Not quite back yet.........something like Pink Floyd here:::::

[My parents told me that I first spoke Friday afternoon, having made it to my recovery room in time to say hi to Jessie, but that's their word.]

::::First conscious thought:::::

I love you, mom and dad............

:::MORPHINE'D::::::

[More gumbling, mumbling, and otherwise saying incoherent and ultimately irrelevant facts about my life to anybody that would listen. Also, my parents insist that, throughout the entire ordeal, I would flirt with all the attractive nurses that took care of me in their 8 hour shifts, but I only uphold that claim for the last few days.]

Saturday, January 17th. (when did I eat that?)
This day marks the first day I was actually awake in the recovery room for any significant amount of time. It also marks the first day, despite a morphine IV drip and a patient-control button for even MORE morphine, I was in any pain. Pain. Lots of pain. PAIN. Buckets of pain. The pain in Spain stays mainly on the plain. I complain about my swollen feet and eyes, and my mom is terrified (blindness and paralysis of the lower limbs are the most dangerous risks of back surgery). I'm not allowed to sit in a "real" bed at this point in time. Any undue movement or stress could be catastrophic to the spine. This is where the Stryker Bed comes in.

>Stryker Bed. Imagine a surfboard, with a thin beach blanket as padding. Now lay on that, moving as little as possible, for 4 days. The unique feature of the Stryker Bed, however, is the fact that you can attach an identical one to the top, strap it down, get 4 nurses, and flip it over. Bickety-bam! You're on your stomach.<

Unfortunately, having not eaten anything solid for 3 days, having my spine pwned, a rod in my back, and under heavy morphine, I didn't take well to the Stryker bed. I puked my guts out every time they flipped me. I did this for 3 straight days. I was miserable. Not to mention the way throwing up wracked my spine.

However, laying in one position on the Stryker bed gave me pressure sores. Sores and pain on my ass, shoulder blades, elbows, feet, and the back of my head one way. The other way, and my knees, toes, chest, and face started to hurt. So, despite my pain, I insist on being flipped every few hours. Damn, I'm stubborn. I was so dehydrated at this time, I was begging for water, and all they would let me do is swab a wet sponge in my mouth. They were afraid that any liquids would make me sick to my stomach.

[Sleep was a real issue here. I wasn't getting more than 4 hours at a time, because that's about how long my medicine lasted. Add on to that the effects of the medicine, and I was awake the vast majority of the day. I also have a breathing problem, so much that when I sleep, my breathing drops to low oxygen levels, levels that the nurses were afraid of. Every time I would drift off, the nurses would wake me up to tell me to breathe, thinking I was in danger. Many hours I laid on the Stryker bed and stared, bloodshot-eyed at the breath monitor, willing it to break or shut down. Mom told me that she kept wondering when the little boy full of tubes and wires would be "Ryan" again. She said that point was when I flipped off the machine.]

Sunday, January 18th. (eye to eye..........with who??)
Nobody but my parents really seemed to acknowledge I was in constant pain. I guess everybody there was used to it. I tried to sleep it away, but I never got more than 3 hours at a time. My mom said she could tell when the medicine worked, that I started shifting before my medicine kicked in, and about 15 minutes after, I took a deep sigh and calmed down. I had medicine every few hours- iron pills, calcium pills, vitamin C pills, antibiotics, other..........pills. I was "fed" via IV (let's not do that again. EVER.). Speaking of IVs, I had 3. I also had 2 holes from the pumps in my shoulder blades, a hemovac, a port (for rapid medicine delivery), a catheter, an oxygen tube halfway up my nose, and a stomach pump running down it (if I wasn't sick already.......). They switched medicine at one point, only to discover that I have an allergic reaction to codeine. Benadryl helped, but that's more medicine, so they switched me back (ahhh, sweet sweet morphine). I must've really been sweet-talkin' somebody here, because every nurse said I was the nicest patient to work with. Must've been the drugs.

I got my first post-surgery X-Ray this day. Dad had to help hold me, and for the first time in my life, I was eye to eye with my father. We both did a double take.
I also got plastered (with plaster of paris) to make a mold of the brace.

Monday, January 19th (ready the armor, smithee)
The brace was ready today.

>Back Brace. Similar to stormtrooper armor (thanks, David!), this fashionable two-piece lobster shell brace was designed with minimum mobility in mind. With uber velcro in that hard-to-reach spot and zip ties elsewhere, you won't be getting this little guy off anytime soon. And you can forget about your breathing troubles, too. An exact mold of your chest was used, so we'll tighten this brace until you have virtually no room to breathe! For your convenience, small holes were drilled in inconvenient places so you can scratch 1% of the surface area of your covered-up torso. Bonus Feature- with this brace model, you can't take a shower!

Tuesday, January 20th (thank you, Adam Sandler)
I actually starting feeling better today. All I really remember about this day was watching Happy Gilmore and The Waterboy on my TV. I couldn't sit up though, so I got to use a special set of glasses that had prisms built into the lenses so I could watch TV laying down. Nobody can understand the sacrifices my parents made this whole time. I was never, for a whole week, without at least one of my parents. From reading to me when I'm drugged and sleeping, or holding my arm so I can walk, they were there for me, 24/7. I also got my first food when I was able to prove my stomach was growling (a sign that my digestive system had returned to normal). I ate 6 popsicles, 2 puddings, and drank a gallon of Gatorade. No joke.

I usually passed the painful hours by drawing in the shades, pulling up my blankets, and cranking up the classic rock. Most of the nurses came in and gave me the "What? A mere teenager listening to GOOD music?"

My "Get Well" array included 6 ballooons, including a Bert (from Sesame Street) balloon from Brad, several cards, and some flowers. Thanks to all my friends and family (especially Mom, Dad, Brad, Sis, JJ, Jason, Amber, the Mongomerys, the Brandts, Suzi and Marilyn, and the gang at work).

Wednesday, January 21st. (Say goodbye everybody!)
This was my last day in the hospital. The resident doctor came in at 6 am and asked how I was feeling. One of the side effects of the morphine was really odd dreams. I woke up and told my doctor I wasn't feeling well at all, and he just about rushed out of the room to get a specialist when I told him that it was nightmare about my AP teachers visiting me. He gave me a smirk and a "why don't you tell your bad dreams to mommy and let me deal with REAL medical stuff" look.

The brace was designed to not be removed for 6 weeks. That meant I was somehow expected to change my t-shirt that was underneath.......without removing the brace. The nurses were very confident, reassured us that it was easy. They gave us a video to watch, demonstrating the process. Basically, holes were cut in the t-shirt, and shoestrings were tied in. The shirt was removed so the shoestrings were halfway in, halfway out. Then the new, clean t-shirt (with holes) was tied to the ends of the shoestrings sticking out the top, and pulled down. The video showed us how to do this, but it had a baby girl, who HAD NOT GONE THROUGH THE PROCEDURE, rolling and flopping around (as was needed to get to all the holes), without medication, without a brace. I made the nurses show us how, instead.

My last meal in the hospital was cheese coneys and Cherry Coke. I had to be taken out in a wheelchair (coldest day of the year), and I felt every bump on the ride home along my entire spine.