Anticipation

Friday morning, I woke feeling better than I expected, as I had to get up to the bathroom twice during the night, and for an hour in the middle of the night I found the bed unbearably uncomfortable. I even got up, just to stand beside the bed for a few minutes. But the pain med button got me through the wee small hours well enough. And I knew change was coming.

Fairly early that morning, I was visited by Dr. Paddy's fellow, Dr. Singh. He was a pleasant young doctor, enthusiastic about life, it seemed, and very energetic. He made me want to get up and, well, not dance exactly, as I knew that wasn't advisable in my condition, but maybe walk a little faster than I had been.

He asked me about how things were going. I told him about my successes at various elimination processes, and my three walks the day before.

"Good," he said. "Excellent. We should think about getting you home tomorrow. Or maybe even late today if there is any reason to."

Wow.

I was still on a clear liquid diet, because my first BM was after the doctors' visits on Thursday, but Dr. Singh wrote the orders to advance my diet to full liquids, and then, assuming I tolerated those, to a regular diet. He also ordered the stopping of IV pain meds, and other IV meds, switching everything to po (by mouth). If I could eat real food and get by on pain pills, I could leave the hospital.

My breakfast was brought right after Dr. Singh left, so it was still clear liquids. I ate most of it. Then, just after I finished, another breakfast tray was brought, this time full liquids. I really wasn't that hungry, having eaten most of the clear liquid breakfast, but I ate the blended oatmeal, just to prove I could.

Soon after that, the nurse for the day came in, and told me about the change in pain meds. I was being switched to Percocet. This was Taylor, the same nurse I had on Thursday. That mattered, I think, in events later in the day.

I had been given Percocet once before, a long time ago. It was after I had my wisdom teeth removed, I think. This is how I remember that. I was living in Indian Springs, Nevada, which is an hour away from Las Vegas, and I started having pain on the drive home, as the anesthesia wore off. I took a Percocet. A few minutes later, I got dizzy, and then nauseous. I was so sick, I couldn't stand it. I blamed the Percocet, so I never took another.

And now I was going to be taking Percocet for my post-op pain. I almost spoke up, but I decided it might be wise to try a pill, and see how I did. An hour or so later, when Taylor brought me my first Percocet, I took it.

After fifteen or twenty minutes, I was getting a little drowsy, and I was certainly feeling no pain. I did not, however, feel any nausea. So for thirty years, I had been blaming my episode of nausea after my oral surgery on Percocet when it was probably caused by the withdrawal of the anesthesia. After all, on this occasion, I also had nausea some hours after withdrawal from anesthesia, which it never occurred to me to blame on the pain meds. Good thing, too, because I needed those pain meds. They got me through three days of misery. Percocet, it turns out, is my friend.

So for the most part, I was just biding time, and doing what I could to prove I was ready to leave the hospital. I felt so much better that day than I had even the day before, it was hard to remember how miserable I had been on Tuesday and Wednesday. Maybe we need to invent a dissociative drug that will let the nurses and other hospital professionals lead patients through the first few days of post-op recovery without conscious awareness on the part of the patients. It would make recovery much less miserable if we didn't have to actually experience it.

At lunch, I ate almost all of the my full-liquid food tray. Hospital food sucks, but one can choke it down if the incentive is right. Getting the hell out of there was enough for me. No reflection on the nurses and PCA's, who were wonderful, and helped me get through all that misery, but I was longing for the comfort of the couch at home by then.

After lunch, I made a trip to the bathroom. The IV had been disconnected. I was not getting IV fluids anymore. I noticed the tape around the IV was a bit loose, and I pressed it all back down in place as well as I could, but when I got up, I pressed my hands over the sorest spots on my tummy. Than meant I turned my hand up sideways. And the whole IV fell off, onto the floor.

The PCA noticed, and picked it up. He placed it on the bedside cart. I made it to the bathroom, completed my elimination processes, and went back to bed. The PCA said he would tell the nurse about the IV.

Taylor came in a few minutes later, and looked at my hand.

"Well, we knew it wouldn't last forever," she said, philosophically. She just sort of looked at my hand for a minute or two, thinking. "Maybe I can get the doctor to write an order letting us leave it out, since you're leaving soon anyway."

I don't know if another nurse, one who hadn't gone through the struggle to get that IV in place the day before, would have taken that route. I was a little afraid she would try to place another new IV. But we were both hoping I wouldn't need one. I was not on IV fluids, and had no IV meds, so the IV was only there in case of unexpected changes. In an emergency, and new IV could be put in. Only, let's not have an emergency.

Friday afternoon, feeling like I had been given license to behave like a patient about to be released, I started getting myself up to the chair, and going to the bathroom to pee on my own. I didn't have any problems with it, and I didn't get caught by the nurse or PCA. I spent half an hour or so in the chair. I tried to read my book at one point, but I still found I was concentrating on my abdominal wall, and couldn't focus on the words. But I was ready to go home.

I had expected a regular food tray for dinner, but I got full liquids. Potato soup, which turned out to be very tasty, along with chocolate pudding and some sherbet. I didn't drink the carton of milk.

I noticed Friday afternoon that my tummy wasn't rumbling like it had been the previous day or two. I had a BM that morning, but now my tummy seemed rather quiet. My kidneys were still working, though my fluid intake was all oral now. I can say I felt, not normal, but at least human again.

One nice thing about the switch to oral meds was that the pulse ox was removed from the right index finger. The skin on that finger was all swollen and wrinkled, like it had been in the bathtub for much too long. Three days. My left had was still a bit swollen from the IV problem the day before. So neither of my hands looked or felt at all normal. But I could tell they were going to recover.

Liz stopped by briefly on Friday. She was dealing with Dress Rehearsal for Pleasure with Payne, a fundraising dance recital by Columbus Dance Theatre, for which she had provided the costumes. And there was a lot to deal with. One of the company dancers got hurt the day before, so she had to outfit his replacement, who was a good six inches taller, at least. And Ms. Payne, the cabaret singer providing the music, fell of the edge of the stage, hitting her head and braking an ankle, perhaps changing the whole meaning, and spelling, of the title of the show. But show biz is show biz, and the show would go on. So Liz got there a little later than planned, and stayed long enough to hear my progress report. She immediately began planning for my transport home. Then she read me a chapter of Shadows as I settled in for the evening.

I told Liz to plan to come around mid day on Saturday, as I didn't expect things to happen too quickly in the morning. I welcomed the drowsiness of the Percocet, and dreamed of relaxing on the couch with a flannel quilt and the remote for NetFlix, and other heavenly visions. I was going to survive the hospital ordeal.