Hi all, sorry its taken me so long to update you all but have had quite the adventure. My surgery happened on August 30th. All went well surgically, and doc said it was as he expected, lots of damaged bones and bone spurs. Pain was pretty signficant as I had expected, since I had already been on opiod pain meds before surgery. The after surgery plan was to be 2 Percoset every 4 hours with Dilaudid 2-4 mgs every 4 fours for breakthru pain. We found that we had to switch those around, so now Dilaudid is 4 mgs every 3 hours and 1-2 Percoset for breakthru. Still not able to lower it without having more pain, so am sticking to this schedule for now. But its only been 10 days since surgery.
I was in the hospital 3 nights and then I was transferred to the rehab center where I stayed for one week. This was a combination nursing home and rehab center. Care was definetely not top notch. Had problems from the get go. I was not transferred in an ambulance but by more of a medical taxi service. They had me sitting up in a wheelchair and that was a bit hard getting comfortable. I shared a room with two lovely older ladies (86 & 89). One had broke her hip in a fall, and other had a small stroke. At least I had lovely roommates.
Problems started right away! My meds had not even been ordered yet. Then the hospital messed up my meds badly. For example, I take 3 tabs of Atenolol a day, I was only getting one, etc. I had to write my meds down and the dosage and then they called on call doc to have them filled. But was really bad is I went nearly 6 hours without the availability of pain meds until they were ordered and sent to the rehab. I was screaming in pain by the time they arrived. Then they were giving me a regular diet when I follow what is called a low residue diet. A special diet becuz of my Crohns disease. And the food was so horrid I couldn't eat it, practically had nothing to eat for about 2 1/2 days. Believe it or not, but I have not suffered with constipation at all, in fact I had to tell them not to give me the stool softners or Senna, becuz I have/had explosive diarrhea. The nurses assistants were all pretty nice, but a few of the charge nurses (med nurses) were horrid. I can't imagine someone like that even being a nurse! It seemed as if on one shift I would have a great nurse who gave me my meds around the clock on time, then the next shift would be nothing but problems. Every single shift it was different. I never cried so much in my life. I was in such pain, then being dealt with by idiots. And getting ice bags or elevation was pure hell.
Now onto the PT and OT. No matter how much I argued with them, they were just too rough. At the hospital the therapy had consisted of two days of walking about 25 feet and one day at 50 ft, then he would just check my extension. And it didn't hurt he was pretty dang cute! Haha...
But at the rehab I felt like they were treating me like someone who had surgery months back instead of only being on day four. I had told the first PT lady that my calves were really tight. So she said she would massage it some. Thinking it would be a nice relaxing massage, but no she ended up doing one of those DEEP tissue massages to break up the scar tissue. I was crying in pain and she wouldn't stop. Because of that I was up all night crying in pain. Told her the next day, that will never happen again. So next day OT decides to put me on a recumbent bike for 5 minutes, then another night of no sleep and horrid pain. I just kept hearing Jo saying rest, elevate, and ice. And remembering the no pain, no gain BS mantra. But it was like talking to a wall with these therapists. Finally on Saturday I could do no more I was utterly wiped out and my Crohns decided to act up and that was all she wrote. If I ever have to do the other one, you can be sure it will not be in that rehab center.
I am totally wiped out right now and starting to have pain, so I will sign off for now. Sorry for the long post, but it was definetly an adventure, not a good one though. Hugs!
United States
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