Angela's Blog

Hi.

Well, home from the hospital now and great overall news to share. Some not-so-great news to share about the adventure too.

Went in at 6am Friday. Whew, that's early! Checked in for surgery and had the unfortunate same-time experience (probably from being nervous) of also having the cha-chas. Not fun! Speaking of being nervous, reality finally hit me Thursday night and I got SCARED! I got really nervous about the surgery. I was worried that the surgeons would get in there and find something unexpected and not be able to do the surgery, I was worried about how much it was going to hurt, I was worried about never being able to use my arm again, etc., etc.. Not very much fun! But all night I just camped on Joshua 1:9 that says "...be strong and courageous...for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go" The LORD, as in the maker of heaven and earth, king of all kings, ruler of everything, was going to be with me. If that's not comforting just sit on it for a minute.

So once I got checked in and my name was called, me, Mom, and Josh went back to the pre-op area. We met all the doctors and nurses and the anesthesiologists that were going to be working on me. It took 5 tries for the nurses to get an IV in that everyone liked so my right arm is covered in bruises from wrist to elbow on both the inside and outside of my arm. Once they finally all agreed on an IV, I finally got wheeled into the OR and got the "sleepy juice", which is the last thing I remember. But when I woke up I found out that my working IV was in my foot and that one took 2 tries too. So 7 tries total.

Next thing I knew it was around 11 and I was in the recovery room. And the docs were telling me that they had been able to take it all out of my elbow. Good news! 3 plates and 14 screws of varying sizes were now just in a ziploc for me to take home. Awesome! Happy - oh yeah! That's also when they started me on my post-op drugs. You guessed it, morphine. Boy oh boy! And we all just had to sit and wait in the recovery room for almost 6 hours for a hospital room to open up. When that FINALLY happened up I went to 6th floor Maleng. Didn't get my own hospital room this time but that's okay.

Next 24 hours were spent in the hospital room where I found out about my reaction to morphine - I got really itchy, broke out in a rash, my heart rate went through the roof, my blood pressure increased, and I got ridiculously dizzy. I was so dizzy I couldn't read the whiteboard on the wall 10 feet away with big writing on it. Scary!

I finally got to get off the morphine around 5 and, thank God, I felt okay. Everything still hurt, but not bad enough to take anything for it. Oh, and there was one other super-fun side effect from the morphine - I couldn't pee. I had to go but I just couldn't do it. I just had to keep getting catheters. Bummer! There was one nurse who turned out to be my knight in shining armor when he gave me a catheter when I was super uncomfortable. He said he got almost two liters of pee out of me! Yowza!

By 7 yesterday night I was peeing on my own and I wasn't dizzy any more, so they let me go home. Nice! Then I got to come home and sleep in my bed and snuggle with my husband. Aaaaah, right where I belong.

In case you're wondering what was in my arm, check it out...

Can you believe the long screw?!?! And can you believe that only 1 plate was thin. The other 2 were like this...

Holy smokes! That's no joke! But at least they're gone now.

And Katie, heck yeah, you and Andrew can come wash your hands anytime. And Janell, it would be great to see you and Nation. Just drop either me or mom an email and we'll figure out a good time.

And for a little summary, I'm now home and me and mom will pick up where we left off laughing at everything all day tomorrow. I go back to therapy starting Tuesday. And I'm finally just controlling (or at least trying to control) my pain with Tylenol. Super happy about that last one. I didn't feel like myself AT ALL on the morphine. And now I feel like I'm back. Gives me a whole new appreciation for what it must have been like for Josh and Mom early on and when I was coming out of my coma. Big kudos to both of them. Not easy!

Hope you're well,

Ang