Filed under: Taking Medication slowly, post surgery | Tags: adding food, surviving the hospital, taking meds
Thursday was stage one of the actual eating program after surgery. My meal plan consisted of thimble sized cups of water, period. I still had the iv until the evening and the delightful foley catheter. The took that out mid day on Thursday.
The thing was I was not hungry at all. The water filled me up, and I really didn’t miss food. I was also still pretty groggy from the pain meds. By the end of the day I was off the pain pump and on percocet. Since I could not swallow a whole pill the percocet and all of my meds had to be cut into small pieces or crushed and mixed with water.
The taste of crushed meds in water is ghastly. I had to chug them and that filled up my pouch immediately.
The other strange question of day two was “have you passed any gas”. The reason is that they want to make sure that what you are taking in is making it to the bowels. Well most of Thursday went by and no gas. That would change big time.
I also tried to walk as much as possible. Most of all I hate being in a hospital bed and the couch in the room was very uncomfortable. There is pain and I was exhausted, but a couple of circuits around the floor were helpful. Jody was a great task master on Thursday and got me moving.
By the end of Thursday I was off my intravenous fluids and on to stage two. Chicken broth and Sugar Free Jello. Fortunately green sugar free Jello is one of my favorite foods and combined with a serving of warm broth it seemed like a gourmet meal.
My Thursday dinner was the first meal on stage two. It was great, but I soon learned that I certainly was passing gas. Also after finishing the broth and Jello, I was finished for the day. No hunger.
My other meds were cut up in fine pieces and served with ice water, and it took some time to get them down. Not much sleep on Thursday night. I had a weird feeling that my bi pap machine was a odds with the machine I was hooked up to for my oxygen level. Also more blood tests, blood draws, blood pressure and just poking and prodding took up a fair amount of the night. When they woke me up from my first deep sleep it was only 11:30am. Also they had me up at 12:30am and were worried about my oxygen level, so I was walking around until 1:30am and was not back in bed until close to 2am.
At 5am I had had it with trying to sleep and I was up for the day. Friday made me miss the poking and prodding of Thursday.
Friday was a day of being ignored. My surgeon had gone on to a conference in Florida and the resident and staff folks were dealing with patients who had more problems after their surgery than I was having.
TV at hospitals is terrible. The screens are small and the remotes make you go through all of the channels if you want a channel you have already passed. Also the selection of channels is not very good. Fortunately Jody came to visit and we did a fair amount of walking. By 3pm on Firday I was peeing on my own and had passed a lot of gas. I was also exhausted and bored and decided to take a nap.
I told Jody to go home and put on my bi pap and tried to take a nap. The biggest difference between Thursday and Friday was my ability to get in and out of the hospital bed without significant pain. On Friday I could swing my legs and pull myself up on the bed. I was exhausted but I could do it.
My wonderful day nurse Kelli allowed me to rest. By 6:30pm it was up for blood sugar, blood pressure, oxygen level. Then a meal of broth and jello. Unfotunately the jello must have been at least a decade old and did not melt in the mouth but oh well. I also had to take a number of pills cut up into small pieces. It was a task.
Friday night was a trip since my blood oxygen level dropped every time I was on my bi pap machine. After about an hour of consultation with the respitory therapist, oxygen was added to to my bi pap and I was off to sleep for about 4 hours. Unfortunately I had terrible nightmares but sleep is sleep.
Adding the oxygen got my oxygen blood level up near 100% for the rest of the night. No percocets were offered all night and when I woke up in the morning I was very very sore and needed to search out Kelli and get some help.
Kelli also informed me that I ws going home Saturday as soon as they could find a doctor to remove my drain. More on that later. I was ready for my release. I missed not seeing the dogs and the hospital certainly is not a good placce to get any rest.
Well more on my release and my very interesting room mate in the next post.
