One of the best things that I like about blogging is that my husband’s life is now an open book. I somehow find that fulfilling and rewarding. My husband is completing a weeklong bike ride across Iowa, called RAGBRAI. Before he left, he told our youngest daughter that in his ideal RAGBRAI, I would drive an RV from town to town so he could sleep in it at night. I of course, would have my laptop and all my “leisure time” for writing.
I thought about this for about a minute and a half, or maybe like 3 seconds. First of all, my idea of an RV and his idea of an RV are at opposite ends of the spectrum. I’m thinking plush, leather seats, bump out sides, luxurious and roomy – very very roomy. He’s thinking room for a bike and a mattress with minimum rust.
I have a low tolerance for noise. Loudly ticking clocks keep me awake at night and I remove them. I don’t open windows, not only because the pollen etc from the outside makes me sick, but because the frogs and insect noise outside keeps me awake. In short, I don’t have a hearing problem.
My husband, on the other hand, has increasingly decreased hearing in addition to his selective hearing. To say that he sleeps like a rock would be an understatement. One evening, our fireplace was going but the flu wasn’t properly open. So, the fire alarm system in our house was activated. There’s an extremely loud alarm on every one of our three floors – including one right outside of the bedroom. Joy boy slept through the entire 15 minute ordeal while our youngest daughter and I worked on ventilation and got the alarm to shut off.
That screeching ear blasting alarm pales in comparison to the noise my husband makes while snoring. His snoring gets worse with activity – like riding a bike 100 miles a day. Therefore, the thought of spending several nights in a tin can with a sweaty snoring Sasquatch with sinus problems gave me night mares for a few days. I enjoy sleep deprivation even less than I enjoy anything that makes me get sweaty – like bike riding.
I’m off the hook for this year, of course. I recently had knee replacement surgery. Recently enough that driving anything across Iowa is completely out of the question at the moment. This might be why they say “timing is everything”.
But each day with the new tin lizzie knee is a little better. I am able to get up and down stairs relatively well and yesterday I ventured out in our back yard. This is quite a big deal for me. We have a walk out basement and our back yard slopes down. It’s just enough of a slope that it has always been tricky for me to walk down it. The alternate route is the basement steps, but those are wooden, go straight down, and are narrow and a bit scary.
But I managed an expedition into the back yard yesterday. We have a bird feeder back there which was sadly in need of filling. I packed some bird seed in a plastic container, slung it into a light weight back pack and blazed a trail to the back yard.
We used to have dogs that blazed the trail. They had certain set paths. They beat a path from the garage door to their favorite sleeping spots, then around the perimeter of the fence. We couldn’t get grass to grow on their doggy path, so I put in stepping stones.
We had basset hounds and basset hounds are funny creatures of habit. Normally, once they develop a habit, they will not change their habit for anything. Therefore, I thought putting in the stepping stones was a clever idea and would reduce muddy dog feet.
For some reason, our dogs did not like the stepping stones and actually moved their dog path. There must be something permanent about certain dog trails. Although we are currently ‘petless’ and have been so for a year and a half, we are still trying to get grass to grow on the doggy trail that now runs right along side of the stepping stones. Go figure.
In addition to filling my bird feeder, my expedition led me to the discovery of two nearly ripe tomatoes in my garden. Nature’s wonders never cease. Pat will return shortly and I am sure that I will have plenty of “Pat stories” to add to future blogs, including this week’s adventures on RAGBRAI – spent in a tent and not in an RV.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Cycling Through Solutions
Normally I mow our lawn. I do this because my husband doesn’t do a very meticulous job. He also does things like lifting the lawnmower up into my flower beds to mow them, which results in hundreds of dollars of perennials being sucked out of the soil and ground into lifeless shreds.
But, I just had knee replacement surgery a few days ago. I cannot walk without crutches and I am taking narcotics for pain. Therefore, using a machine with sharp blades that can cut off appendages is unwise. Further, right now I am not physically capable of pushing the mower.
Which means my husband, Pat, has to mow the lawn. I got him to mow the grass once before I went to the hospital. He complained like an annoying mouthy attorney the entire time. No grass was mowed during the week that I was in the hospital. No grass was mowed the weekend that I came home from the hospital. No grass was mowed at all during last week. The grass is now up over my ankles and catches my crutches when I try to walk through it to fill my bird feeders and water my flowers. Now, my husband, Pat, has left for a week long bike ride. Therefore the grass continues to grow and he is nowhere to be found.
Of course, there were numerous opportunities to mow the grass. We’ve had lovely rain free weather for days now. Also, like a dutiful and caring spouse, I brought up the subject several thousand times, lest he forget that our grass needed to be mowed.
On each occasion, he conveniently found something else to do, such as add air to his bike tires, pretend to sleep in the recliner, putter around in the garage with bike stuff, go on bike rides and make one or two million phone calls about the weeklong bike ride. I’m betting that other ladies can identify with me as I am sure that I am not the only woman whose spouse puts his time consuming hobby far far above any household husbandly duties.
This bike ride is called RAGBRAI, which stands for the Register’s Annual Bike Ride Across Iowa. The Register is a local newspaper. The ride starts at a city on the western side of the state and riders spend a week pedaling across Iowa through various cities to the eastern part of the state. The launch point ritual is dipping a front bike tire in the Missouri river, which borders the western side of the state. The end point ritual is dipping a rear bike tire in the Mississippi river, which borders the western side of the state.
A minimum of 10,000 people participate in this ride and my husband describes it as “adult spring break.” There are countless stories of beer drinking, wild parties, beer drinking, alcohol consumption, quite a bit of food from various vendors, and beer drinking. Of course, there is pretty scenery in Iowa and lots of hills to pedal as well. However, since he’s Irish through and through, I’m thinking he goes for the parties and the beer drinking.
Personally, I like RAGBRAI. I don’t go. I enjoy it from a distance. It’s a week of peace and quiet for me. No snoring. No stinky bike clothes in the laundry. No daily recounts of every bike ride. No one stealing the TV remote to change the channel to Tour de France. No noise and grumbling in the garage. No one wearing cleated bike shoes across our ceramic tile floor and breaking the tiles. It’s ALL GOOD!
Enormous whining and complaining precipitates RAGBRAI each year. This year’s “sky is falling” catastrophe occurred on Friday when we discovered that my van needs new brakes all the way around, and therefore, would not be available for my husband to take on RAGBRAI. Pat actually rides his bike to the starting point for RAGBRAI. The van, minus all the passenger seats, was needed to haul the gear. That’s gear with a “g” and that rhymes with “b” which stands for beer. Of course, “g” also rhymes with “c” and that stands for a week’s worth of bike clothes. It also rhymes with “t” and that stands for tents. Throw in some sleeping bags, extra tires incase of blow outs, a towel and toiletries, his friend’s tandem bike and other assorted necessities. Of course, the van has a hitch, which is good in case a trailer is needed to haul anything else – like beer.
I’m not driving the van, of course. My husband got one of his friends to get his wife to volunteer to drive it for them. But the word from the mechanic was a set back for them all. Yes, this was avoidable if the van had been taken to the mechanic earlier, but I could not drive until Thursday and my non-lawn mowing husband didn’t take it in. He did, however, borrow it on Thursday to drive to a client appointment 3 hours away. As a result, it was Friday morning before I could take the van in for an oil change and to get the squealing grinding noise checked.
I’m not a “sky is falling” kind of person. I’m more the glass half full, obstacles are only opportunities in disguise kind of optimist – a real Pollyanna. I’m also resourceful. As a result, I offered several suggestions. One of them was to leave the tandem bike behind. This was rejected. Another was to take our Jeep and use the hitch bike carrier plus attach things to the luggage carrier on the roof of the Jeep. This also was rejected. My third brilliant idea was to use someone else’s van or rent one. Rejected. To be fair, Pat did not reject these ideas by himself. He was in constant consultation with his guy pack on this dilemma. It was a group decision.
Of course, you can’t mow the lawn when talking on a cell phone – unthinkable. In the end, I rejected one of their counter ideas – to let the guy’s wife drive my van with the bad brakes. This was so out of the question that I hid all the van keys! The bottom line is that the day was saved when the guy whose wife was going to drive the van decided to drive his truck to RAGBRAI and haul everything in the truck. I think that was actually like one of my ideas, but since it was actually my idea it was acceptable.
All of this, of course, left Pat way too emotionally exhausted to mow our grass. But, since there are no unsolvable problems and every obstacle is simply an opportunity in disguise, I’ve found the silver lining in this. This is an opportunity for an invention and a brilliant invention at that.
What we need is a pedal powered riding lawn mower. It would look like a regular bike and ride like a regular bike, but the wheels would be about 20 inches wide and would have razor sharp grass cutting blades, like the old hand push mowers did. It’s a win/win and a brilliant solution, if I do say so myself. Pedaling the bike would rotate the grass cutting blades. Pat - and other spouses like him, would get a bike ride in. Our grass would be cut whenever I can’t mow. It’s eco friendly and helpful in reducing our carbon footprint and overall in a positive step in saving the planet. Not to mention it would be quiet – far more quiet than our gas powered self propelled mower that I use now.
Of course, the bicycle mower could be decked out with bike ‘stuff’. Pannier bags could be attached to carry necessities like granola bars. A water bottle would still fit on the bike – and the water bottle could be filled with Gatorade, a necessity for any bike ride. Our yard is traffic free so an IPod can be worn and listened to with complete safety. And then there’s beer. A cooler with some beer could be carted out to the yard ahead of time because lawn mowing and drinking beer go hand in hand like RAGBRAI and beer drinking or like little boys and wet cement.
So, now that I have a brilliant ultimate solution to my dilemma, there are a few more things to resolve – like a design, a patient and the actual invention itself. In the meantime, I shall have to locate a starving college student and hire that person to mow our grass this week. In the meantime, I shall sit on our deck, enjoy the nice weather and watch the birdies looking for food in my empty bird feeders.
But, I just had knee replacement surgery a few days ago. I cannot walk without crutches and I am taking narcotics for pain. Therefore, using a machine with sharp blades that can cut off appendages is unwise. Further, right now I am not physically capable of pushing the mower.
Which means my husband, Pat, has to mow the lawn. I got him to mow the grass once before I went to the hospital. He complained like an annoying mouthy attorney the entire time. No grass was mowed during the week that I was in the hospital. No grass was mowed the weekend that I came home from the hospital. No grass was mowed at all during last week. The grass is now up over my ankles and catches my crutches when I try to walk through it to fill my bird feeders and water my flowers. Now, my husband, Pat, has left for a week long bike ride. Therefore the grass continues to grow and he is nowhere to be found.
Of course, there were numerous opportunities to mow the grass. We’ve had lovely rain free weather for days now. Also, like a dutiful and caring spouse, I brought up the subject several thousand times, lest he forget that our grass needed to be mowed.
On each occasion, he conveniently found something else to do, such as add air to his bike tires, pretend to sleep in the recliner, putter around in the garage with bike stuff, go on bike rides and make one or two million phone calls about the weeklong bike ride. I’m betting that other ladies can identify with me as I am sure that I am not the only woman whose spouse puts his time consuming hobby far far above any household husbandly duties.
This bike ride is called RAGBRAI, which stands for the Register’s Annual Bike Ride Across Iowa. The Register is a local newspaper. The ride starts at a city on the western side of the state and riders spend a week pedaling across Iowa through various cities to the eastern part of the state. The launch point ritual is dipping a front bike tire in the Missouri river, which borders the western side of the state. The end point ritual is dipping a rear bike tire in the Mississippi river, which borders the western side of the state.
A minimum of 10,000 people participate in this ride and my husband describes it as “adult spring break.” There are countless stories of beer drinking, wild parties, beer drinking, alcohol consumption, quite a bit of food from various vendors, and beer drinking. Of course, there is pretty scenery in Iowa and lots of hills to pedal as well. However, since he’s Irish through and through, I’m thinking he goes for the parties and the beer drinking.
Personally, I like RAGBRAI. I don’t go. I enjoy it from a distance. It’s a week of peace and quiet for me. No snoring. No stinky bike clothes in the laundry. No daily recounts of every bike ride. No one stealing the TV remote to change the channel to Tour de France. No noise and grumbling in the garage. No one wearing cleated bike shoes across our ceramic tile floor and breaking the tiles. It’s ALL GOOD!
Enormous whining and complaining precipitates RAGBRAI each year. This year’s “sky is falling” catastrophe occurred on Friday when we discovered that my van needs new brakes all the way around, and therefore, would not be available for my husband to take on RAGBRAI. Pat actually rides his bike to the starting point for RAGBRAI. The van, minus all the passenger seats, was needed to haul the gear. That’s gear with a “g” and that rhymes with “b” which stands for beer. Of course, “g” also rhymes with “c” and that stands for a week’s worth of bike clothes. It also rhymes with “t” and that stands for tents. Throw in some sleeping bags, extra tires incase of blow outs, a towel and toiletries, his friend’s tandem bike and other assorted necessities. Of course, the van has a hitch, which is good in case a trailer is needed to haul anything else – like beer.
I’m not driving the van, of course. My husband got one of his friends to get his wife to volunteer to drive it for them. But the word from the mechanic was a set back for them all. Yes, this was avoidable if the van had been taken to the mechanic earlier, but I could not drive until Thursday and my non-lawn mowing husband didn’t take it in. He did, however, borrow it on Thursday to drive to a client appointment 3 hours away. As a result, it was Friday morning before I could take the van in for an oil change and to get the squealing grinding noise checked.
I’m not a “sky is falling” kind of person. I’m more the glass half full, obstacles are only opportunities in disguise kind of optimist – a real Pollyanna. I’m also resourceful. As a result, I offered several suggestions. One of them was to leave the tandem bike behind. This was rejected. Another was to take our Jeep and use the hitch bike carrier plus attach things to the luggage carrier on the roof of the Jeep. This also was rejected. My third brilliant idea was to use someone else’s van or rent one. Rejected. To be fair, Pat did not reject these ideas by himself. He was in constant consultation with his guy pack on this dilemma. It was a group decision.
Of course, you can’t mow the lawn when talking on a cell phone – unthinkable. In the end, I rejected one of their counter ideas – to let the guy’s wife drive my van with the bad brakes. This was so out of the question that I hid all the van keys! The bottom line is that the day was saved when the guy whose wife was going to drive the van decided to drive his truck to RAGBRAI and haul everything in the truck. I think that was actually like one of my ideas, but since it was actually my idea it was acceptable.
All of this, of course, left Pat way too emotionally exhausted to mow our grass. But, since there are no unsolvable problems and every obstacle is simply an opportunity in disguise, I’ve found the silver lining in this. This is an opportunity for an invention and a brilliant invention at that.
What we need is a pedal powered riding lawn mower. It would look like a regular bike and ride like a regular bike, but the wheels would be about 20 inches wide and would have razor sharp grass cutting blades, like the old hand push mowers did. It’s a win/win and a brilliant solution, if I do say so myself. Pedaling the bike would rotate the grass cutting blades. Pat - and other spouses like him, would get a bike ride in. Our grass would be cut whenever I can’t mow. It’s eco friendly and helpful in reducing our carbon footprint and overall in a positive step in saving the planet. Not to mention it would be quiet – far more quiet than our gas powered self propelled mower that I use now.
Of course, the bicycle mower could be decked out with bike ‘stuff’. Pannier bags could be attached to carry necessities like granola bars. A water bottle would still fit on the bike – and the water bottle could be filled with Gatorade, a necessity for any bike ride. Our yard is traffic free so an IPod can be worn and listened to with complete safety. And then there’s beer. A cooler with some beer could be carted out to the yard ahead of time because lawn mowing and drinking beer go hand in hand like RAGBRAI and beer drinking or like little boys and wet cement.
So, now that I have a brilliant ultimate solution to my dilemma, there are a few more things to resolve – like a design, a patient and the actual invention itself. In the meantime, I shall have to locate a starving college student and hire that person to mow our grass this week. In the meantime, I shall sit on our deck, enjoy the nice weather and watch the birdies looking for food in my empty bird feeders.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Another New Tin Lizzie Knee
Today is my daughter and son-in-law’s first wedding anniversary. They went to Chicago for the weekend and went to see a Chicago Cubs baseball game. Hope the Cubs won. Don’t want them in a bad mood on their special trip.
I now have my second tin lizzie knee. It’s been just a couple months since my right knee replacement surgery and my doc changed how he does things. The pain control protocol changed. Now he gives 3 pain meds before the anesthesiologist gives you the spinal block and sleepy stuff. The more numb the better in my book.
After the trip through the chop shop and a short tour through the recovery room, you wind up in your hospital room. Staying in a hospital room now is like a visit to the spa and hospitals are borrowing some concepts and terms from the land of hotels. First, you get a private room – at least in orthopedics. This is great – better rest and recovery and fewer germs. The hospital has WIFI and encourages you to bring your laptop and Blackberry. There are no defined visitor hours and the room has a couch that doubles as a bed, allowing for overnight guests.
On day one, my leg was immobilized. I had lots of padding from my toes to mid-thigh and was wrapped in an athletic wrap that might have been able to stretch to Cincinnati if unwound. Hey, who knows - the world’s biggest rubber band ball might have been started by an orthopedic surgeon. My new titanium parts and padding were in a big blue immobilizing sling held in place with lots of Velcro. I think back in the doctor’s lounge that orthopedic surgeons compare notes on how much Velcro and athletic wrap is used in a day, reminiscent of fishermen telling fish stories, or any kind of guy fest where power tools are discussed.
I wonder if the athletic wrap for the hospital is delivered in 18 wheeler trucks and comes on large rolls like carpeting. It’s possible that it comes on spools the size of water towers for small towns. Of course, another option is that it is delivered on flat bed trucks and comes in a giant ball that would fill the Hoover Dam Reservoir. All of these options would require several burly guys, a crane, or possibly a forklift to haul it in.
Day one is great. You are slightly groggy and very numb. The spinal block evaporates your memory of your body from the waist down. It’s a bit like being half invisible. Invisible is good since you are also wearing a hospital gown with a peek show in back.
On day two, the Velcro sling comes off and they put you on a continuous motion machine twice a day. This is to keep your leg moving and the new knee bending. This is the day that the spinal block wears off. As sensation returns, it’s a bit like landing on an alien planet with a familiar landscape. “Houston, we are being contacted by hostile forces. We are under siege by a tribe of nerve endings on Planet Knee Cap. Our shields are failing.” Body parts, it turns out have a long memory and hold a grudge.
During this stay, however, I had a couple of melt downs. My husband, Pat, came to visit after work and was sleeping on a couch. It was irritating. Don’t know why – just was. Also, I had zero appetitive and some well meaning tray toter from “host services” (which is basically a cart pushed by a worker who fills your water pitcher) would not shut up. She asked me if I had ordered dinner. I hadn’t. You see, they have ‘room service” in hospital rooms now and you can order food from 6:30 AM to 7 PM. It was only 5 and I wasn’t hungry. I also wasn’t feeling talkative.
So, rather than just leave me alone, the wonder woman of the water cart decided she had to convince me to order dinner. She did this by saying inane things like “I’m a good mom’ and “I love my job”. For my part, I thought I was pretty clear. I used body language. I put my hand over my eyes and said “I am not hungry and I don’t want to talk.” Simple yet to the point. When this didn’t work, I finally lost it. Since I couldn’t heave a bed pan or crutch at her I burst into tears and ordered her and Pat out of my room. This apparently led both of them to find my nurse and suggest that I was in too much pain. Yah think?
Knee surgery is followed by a whole regimen for controlling blood clots. First, they take you off all medication that thins your blood – like my hormone patch, the lack of which may have contributed to the melt downs, and one of my arthritis meds that really helps control the arthritis and pain.
After eliminating things that might thin your blood, they give you blood thinners. If this is making sense to anyone, you might be a great candidate for medical school. Start making a rubber band ball and save Velcro now. Blood thinners come in pill form but I was fortunate enough to get liquid stuff injected though wicked little needles into my stomach twice a day. The first shot left a palm size black and blue bruise on the left side of my tummy that is still looking mighty angry and very sensitive to touch.
Back to the melt down. When the nurse came in to see me, her first line of interrogation was about ordering dinner. I tell you. These people are evil. I realized how helpless I was against them. About the only thing I could do was push the nurse call button. I wasn’t mobile. I couldn’t reach the walker or the crutches and I couldn’t get out of bed by myself. I decided that if I did order food, I would have something to throw. So I went through the menu and ordered stuff that was hot and liquid and would spatter, or came in large heavy bowls that would be good for discus throwing.
When the food came – what luck – the same tray toter brought it in, the pitcher pourer who pedals information about being a good mom and loving her job. I decided the next best thing was to fake sleep until their shift was over. After all, they all had to leave sometime. The next day was better although my doc did come in my room with a very serious look on his face – so who knows what they wrote in my chart. Good thing they didn’t know what I was thinking and that I never acted out any of my evil plans.
Another blood clot prevention thing they do is to slap your feet in the puffer booties. These things fit on your feet like Velcro sandals. They are hooked to a machine that fills them up with air every minute. The concept is a bit like a boa constrictor wrapped around its prey. As the air goes in, the puffer booties squeeze your feet. It helps keep blood circulating through your legs. It also makes it a little hard to sleep with a wheezing thing going off and squeezing your feet every minute. It does tend to push you up in the bed so it’s a bit like being rocked by an asthmatic robot.
I did have an IV in my hand. They put antibiotics in my IV and saline in my IV. I also got my shots in my IV, except for the ones in the stomach. The problem with IVs in your hand, when you need to use a walker or crutches, is that your hand bends and “compromises” the IV. The end result is that your hand swells up like a football. So, I had to have my IV changed. I started out with it in my left hand, since I’m right handed and I planned on doing some writing while in the hospital. But, they had to move the IV to my right hand. But no luck, the first poke went through my vein. I had Nurse very nice and I have pretty decent veins. But she wasn’t having success in the second spot. So, Nurse very nice called in another nurse. I was surrounded by women in white with needles. They went for a third unsuccessful spot in my right arm and then called in Nurse Janet.
Nurse Janet is Queen Mother of IVs. She still wears a nurse hat, which I thought was pretty cool. Nurse Janet went back to my left arm, talked to me and voila! The IV was placed. She put it half way between my wrist and my elbow – where getting in and out of bed and using a walker or crutches wasn’t going to affect it. I can’t even tell where Nurse Janet poked me. She left absolutely no trace. Having the IV in that location worked great. As a matter of fact, that’s where it should start out from the first poke back in the pre-operating area.
Most of the days I had Nurse Nimble. She is super nice, Asian and tiny. I don’t remember what she was doing, but I was sitting in a chair. She was helping me with something and wound up having to duck under my bedside tray. On day three I was able to lose the bulky bandages from surgery that were wrapped around my leg and knee. I graduated to some funky compression stockings that are basically an elastic tube. They are part of a pilot the hospital is doing to see if they work better at reducing swelling, etc., than other compression stockings.
The one for my non surgical leg went on peacefully. The one for my other leg was a bit of a bad boy. First, my surgical leg was puffy and stiff. It took 3 of us to get that thing on my leg. Nurse Nimble actually had to climb on my bed and tackle it at one point. I was holding bandages in place while Nurse Nimble and the surgical stocking swami wrestled with it. At that point, the pain pills were working just fine and I was copasetic.
Now that I’ve been wearing several days and am home, the stocking has been subdued but is still misbehaving. It is supposed to stay in place and keep my bandage over the staples that cover my new tin lizzie knee. But both ends of it like to roll. So, at one end I have a swollen foot with little fat sausage toes sticking out. At the other end my scar and staples peek out over the top of the non-cooperative and defiant flesh tube.
But, I did do well enough to get out of the hospital a day earlier than last time and I’m fairly mobile right now. I have less pain with this surgery and less swelling. So, all things considered, it was a success.
I now have my second tin lizzie knee. It’s been just a couple months since my right knee replacement surgery and my doc changed how he does things. The pain control protocol changed. Now he gives 3 pain meds before the anesthesiologist gives you the spinal block and sleepy stuff. The more numb the better in my book.
After the trip through the chop shop and a short tour through the recovery room, you wind up in your hospital room. Staying in a hospital room now is like a visit to the spa and hospitals are borrowing some concepts and terms from the land of hotels. First, you get a private room – at least in orthopedics. This is great – better rest and recovery and fewer germs. The hospital has WIFI and encourages you to bring your laptop and Blackberry. There are no defined visitor hours and the room has a couch that doubles as a bed, allowing for overnight guests.
On day one, my leg was immobilized. I had lots of padding from my toes to mid-thigh and was wrapped in an athletic wrap that might have been able to stretch to Cincinnati if unwound. Hey, who knows - the world’s biggest rubber band ball might have been started by an orthopedic surgeon. My new titanium parts and padding were in a big blue immobilizing sling held in place with lots of Velcro. I think back in the doctor’s lounge that orthopedic surgeons compare notes on how much Velcro and athletic wrap is used in a day, reminiscent of fishermen telling fish stories, or any kind of guy fest where power tools are discussed.
I wonder if the athletic wrap for the hospital is delivered in 18 wheeler trucks and comes on large rolls like carpeting. It’s possible that it comes on spools the size of water towers for small towns. Of course, another option is that it is delivered on flat bed trucks and comes in a giant ball that would fill the Hoover Dam Reservoir. All of these options would require several burly guys, a crane, or possibly a forklift to haul it in.
Day one is great. You are slightly groggy and very numb. The spinal block evaporates your memory of your body from the waist down. It’s a bit like being half invisible. Invisible is good since you are also wearing a hospital gown with a peek show in back.
On day two, the Velcro sling comes off and they put you on a continuous motion machine twice a day. This is to keep your leg moving and the new knee bending. This is the day that the spinal block wears off. As sensation returns, it’s a bit like landing on an alien planet with a familiar landscape. “Houston, we are being contacted by hostile forces. We are under siege by a tribe of nerve endings on Planet Knee Cap. Our shields are failing.” Body parts, it turns out have a long memory and hold a grudge.
During this stay, however, I had a couple of melt downs. My husband, Pat, came to visit after work and was sleeping on a couch. It was irritating. Don’t know why – just was. Also, I had zero appetitive and some well meaning tray toter from “host services” (which is basically a cart pushed by a worker who fills your water pitcher) would not shut up. She asked me if I had ordered dinner. I hadn’t. You see, they have ‘room service” in hospital rooms now and you can order food from 6:30 AM to 7 PM. It was only 5 and I wasn’t hungry. I also wasn’t feeling talkative.
So, rather than just leave me alone, the wonder woman of the water cart decided she had to convince me to order dinner. She did this by saying inane things like “I’m a good mom’ and “I love my job”. For my part, I thought I was pretty clear. I used body language. I put my hand over my eyes and said “I am not hungry and I don’t want to talk.” Simple yet to the point. When this didn’t work, I finally lost it. Since I couldn’t heave a bed pan or crutch at her I burst into tears and ordered her and Pat out of my room. This apparently led both of them to find my nurse and suggest that I was in too much pain. Yah think?
Knee surgery is followed by a whole regimen for controlling blood clots. First, they take you off all medication that thins your blood – like my hormone patch, the lack of which may have contributed to the melt downs, and one of my arthritis meds that really helps control the arthritis and pain.
After eliminating things that might thin your blood, they give you blood thinners. If this is making sense to anyone, you might be a great candidate for medical school. Start making a rubber band ball and save Velcro now. Blood thinners come in pill form but I was fortunate enough to get liquid stuff injected though wicked little needles into my stomach twice a day. The first shot left a palm size black and blue bruise on the left side of my tummy that is still looking mighty angry and very sensitive to touch.
Back to the melt down. When the nurse came in to see me, her first line of interrogation was about ordering dinner. I tell you. These people are evil. I realized how helpless I was against them. About the only thing I could do was push the nurse call button. I wasn’t mobile. I couldn’t reach the walker or the crutches and I couldn’t get out of bed by myself. I decided that if I did order food, I would have something to throw. So I went through the menu and ordered stuff that was hot and liquid and would spatter, or came in large heavy bowls that would be good for discus throwing.
When the food came – what luck – the same tray toter brought it in, the pitcher pourer who pedals information about being a good mom and loving her job. I decided the next best thing was to fake sleep until their shift was over. After all, they all had to leave sometime. The next day was better although my doc did come in my room with a very serious look on his face – so who knows what they wrote in my chart. Good thing they didn’t know what I was thinking and that I never acted out any of my evil plans.
Another blood clot prevention thing they do is to slap your feet in the puffer booties. These things fit on your feet like Velcro sandals. They are hooked to a machine that fills them up with air every minute. The concept is a bit like a boa constrictor wrapped around its prey. As the air goes in, the puffer booties squeeze your feet. It helps keep blood circulating through your legs. It also makes it a little hard to sleep with a wheezing thing going off and squeezing your feet every minute. It does tend to push you up in the bed so it’s a bit like being rocked by an asthmatic robot.
I did have an IV in my hand. They put antibiotics in my IV and saline in my IV. I also got my shots in my IV, except for the ones in the stomach. The problem with IVs in your hand, when you need to use a walker or crutches, is that your hand bends and “compromises” the IV. The end result is that your hand swells up like a football. So, I had to have my IV changed. I started out with it in my left hand, since I’m right handed and I planned on doing some writing while in the hospital. But, they had to move the IV to my right hand. But no luck, the first poke went through my vein. I had Nurse very nice and I have pretty decent veins. But she wasn’t having success in the second spot. So, Nurse very nice called in another nurse. I was surrounded by women in white with needles. They went for a third unsuccessful spot in my right arm and then called in Nurse Janet.
Nurse Janet is Queen Mother of IVs. She still wears a nurse hat, which I thought was pretty cool. Nurse Janet went back to my left arm, talked to me and voila! The IV was placed. She put it half way between my wrist and my elbow – where getting in and out of bed and using a walker or crutches wasn’t going to affect it. I can’t even tell where Nurse Janet poked me. She left absolutely no trace. Having the IV in that location worked great. As a matter of fact, that’s where it should start out from the first poke back in the pre-operating area.
Most of the days I had Nurse Nimble. She is super nice, Asian and tiny. I don’t remember what she was doing, but I was sitting in a chair. She was helping me with something and wound up having to duck under my bedside tray. On day three I was able to lose the bulky bandages from surgery that were wrapped around my leg and knee. I graduated to some funky compression stockings that are basically an elastic tube. They are part of a pilot the hospital is doing to see if they work better at reducing swelling, etc., than other compression stockings.
The one for my non surgical leg went on peacefully. The one for my other leg was a bit of a bad boy. First, my surgical leg was puffy and stiff. It took 3 of us to get that thing on my leg. Nurse Nimble actually had to climb on my bed and tackle it at one point. I was holding bandages in place while Nurse Nimble and the surgical stocking swami wrestled with it. At that point, the pain pills were working just fine and I was copasetic.
Now that I’ve been wearing several days and am home, the stocking has been subdued but is still misbehaving. It is supposed to stay in place and keep my bandage over the staples that cover my new tin lizzie knee. But both ends of it like to roll. So, at one end I have a swollen foot with little fat sausage toes sticking out. At the other end my scar and staples peek out over the top of the non-cooperative and defiant flesh tube.
But, I did do well enough to get out of the hospital a day earlier than last time and I’m fairly mobile right now. I have less pain with this surgery and less swelling. So, all things considered, it was a success.
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