Post Op

Today is the first day of school, which does not have a lot of meaning in my household, but it seemed like a good place to restart. More to the point, it is almost a month after Mom's surgery. We are not quite done with the disruption to our lives--that will take about another month--but still, things are better.

I am glad to say that I was not driven nearly as close to the edge this time. I have actually not written about that yet, but trust me, it's a good thing. The dogs dealt with it better, and I was more careful, which helped.

Also, Mom's recovery has been much better. I think there are a few factors in this. One is that this was the second knee replacement, so she has two good knees now, instead of one good and one bad. Also, this knee was never quite as bad, so they were able to get out of the surgery more quickly, which makes a difference. She did not really even go under full anasthetic, but they used a combination of medication and nerve blocks, and it worked well. Finally, it is warmer, lighter weather (not as light as a typical August, but still brighter than December was.) I think this has been a big help psychologically for her. Doing it the week of Christmas was convenient from a time off perspective, but it was gloomier in many ways.

That is not to say it is all hearts and flowers. There is still a lot of pain that is just inevitable. The patient will have two months of pain, and there is really no getting around it. Over time pain fatigue sets in, where you just can believe how long it has been hurting, and knowing it will be a few more weeks is not comforting. For one weird kind of bright side, Mom thinks this time is worse than last time, because she does not remember it hurting so badly. It did--she just blocked it out, and since none of us were on oxycodone at the time we all remember. So, she will probably block this out too at some point.

There are a few things that experience did not improve. In terms of getting a clear answer on taking the patient home, it was still just as impossible. I think they are afraid of giving a time and then having a complication arise. Still, we got her home roughly when we expected.

I thought about doing a guide to OHSU on the travel blog. Not that you would willingly vacation there, but if you need to go there you might use vacation time for it. It still doesn't quite fit, but here are some key things.

One is that I was surprised when the cafeteria was closed that first time. Well, even though it is on the floor where you check in, and where the waiting room is, that is not the main dining hall on Floor 9. Go to Floor 3 for that.

The other thing is that based on my experience, there are only four floors in the fourteen story hospital where things actually happen:

9 – Check-in and waiting
10 – Patient rooms
3 – Main cafeteria
6 – Pre-op/anesthesia

Okay, maybe part of my experience is that both times we have been with orthopedics, with the other floors being used by other departments. However, I ended up on one of the other floors (I won’t say which in case this reaches the wrong eyes), and there were no signs or windows—just long passages with a couple of people in scrubs scurrying off.

Based on this, I can only assume the other ten floors are used for horrible experiments. It’s so obvious.