My surgery was on Monday, March 27. DH and I got to the surgical center and they pretty quickly took me back to one of the cubicles. I didn't like the nurse I had. He seemed very matter of fact and not personable at all. At one point, I let him know that the IV in my hand hurt, and he said that was just the way it was and was probably because of the tape. He didn't even look at it to see if something could be adjusted. Fortunately, he left after a couple of hours and someone else replaced him. But I wouldn't say any of the nurses on the pre-op side were too hands on or chatty. And they weren't very busy - I know because my cubicle curtain opened right up onto the nurses station, so I was practically sitting at the nurses station with them! Thankfully, they let my husband come back there with me until they took me away to surgery. It ended up being a long wait. I think my doctor either had an issue with an earlier patient or maybe he had an emergency surgery to work in to the schedule. We got there at 8am, and it was noon before they took me back. They kept putting stuff in my IV to help relax me - Celebrex, Hydrocodone, and I don't remember what else. So I never did get really nervous because they kept me pretty loose, lol.
Thanks to some things I had read at BoneSmart, I decided to have the spinal anesthesia, if that's what the anesthesiologist recommended, and she did. She was great, really sweet and did a good job explaining everything to me.
Finally, a nice orderly named Jose came to get me and take me back to the operating room. He was really sweet and gentle. He's the one that held me while they put the spinal in, and afterwards I thanked him for holding me during it and he said something about it being like a nice hug. It was comforting to have that be my last memory before I passed out. Because that's basically what happened when they laid me on my back on the table - I remember nothing after that! And they hadn't even given me the propofol yet, at least I don't think so!
The next thing I remember is about an hour and a half later when a male voice urged me to wake up. It was the recovery room nurse. But I wanted to keep sleeping, lol! He was great, chatty and nice. He gave me some medication and some apple juice and shortbread cookies. I told him I was queasy so they brought me a barf bag, but I didn't need it (yet). They dressed me and let my husband come back there with me. We talked a bit and he was giving us some post-op instructions. Thank goodness, my husband remembers more about that than I did! I don't remember too much about that part of the day.
Then, he told us that once I went to the bathroom, we could go home. So I said that I thought I could go, and they got me up on the walker, showed me how to use it, and we headed for the bathroom. Well, I got about 8-10 steps in the journey and said that I thought I was going to throw up. Hubby handed me the barf bag and I did throw up all those nice shortbread cookies and apple juice. And maybe the meds too! My nurse was right there with us, but several other nurses came running when that happened. They put me back in my recliner that I'd been in in the recovery cube. They wheeled me down to the bathroom in that and back again. I felt much better after throwing up.
Basically after making sure I was okay, they removed my IV, had my husband go get the car, and sent us home by 4pm. So I had the surgery about 12:30ish and left the surgical center 3.5 hours later! Once we got home and got me settled in my recliner here, I promptly went to sleep and slept for about an hour. After that I ate a little and we watched some TV. No problems with using the walker to get up and go to the bathroom.
The doctor said I could sleep on my back or my side (a big WOO HOO for that!), but I didn't sleep great. I had my husband take me to the bathroom a couple of times (I don't usually get up to go in the middle of the night, but they had pumped me full of fluid at the surgery center.) I also took a pain pill partway through the night. Yesterday I took several naps and was pretty much doing okay until PT came yesterday (story above).
Sorry that's so long. I just wanted to capture all my thoughts for me and in case it would help someone else who might be wondering what a first 24 hours could look like.