Resting and recovering at home

My brother is visiting so he was able to drive me home from the hospital. This was very nice because then we did not need to take a taxi home. The drive was a little rough and bumpy, but overall not too bad at all. Once we got home the first thing I did was to fill up my pill container. I have a weekly pill container with all of my medications in it so that I do not forget a dose or take an extra dose if I forgot that I had already taken my medications. This took quite a while as I take 4 medications normally as well 4 supplements. I also take 2 medications for constipation, a pain medication, and a muscle relaxer for the first few weeks after surgery. Once this was done I sent my finace and one of his sisters to Walgreens.

The doctor prescribed a muscle relaxer (valium), but I did not want to get it filled because valium puts me into "la la land". I still had a refill on my other muscle relaxer (robaxin) from my decompression surgery last year that expired on 12/23/12, so I had them get a refill on that instead. Also, I had him pick up a medicine for my stomach because your lower intestines are the last thing to get working after anesthesia and straining is bad for your neck. The last thing I had them get for me was a no rinse shampoo. I can't wash my hair for at least a week and I have pretty greasy hair, so this shampoo you just spray in, massage it for a couple of minutes, and then brush your hair. It is not the same as a real shower, but it definitely helps! I also have a no rinse body wash from the hospital so I can at least wipe myself down a little bit.

My mom and fiance just helped me to wash out some dried blood and other gunk from in my hair and then we used the no rinse shampoo, so my hair finally feels semi-clean. We then took a paper towel and scrubbed off all of the sticky stuff from adhesive bandages. I had 6 monitors on my chest to monitor my heart rate, two on my ankles and two on my wrists to monitor sensory and nerve function, 2 on my stomach from where they did heparin injections to make sure I didn't get a blood clot, and a few on my arms from IVs, arterial lines, shots, and who know what else. All of these had bandages on them so they take some scrubbing to get all of the black sticky stuff off!

I have some major bruising on my right hand and wrist. The arterial line was in my right wrist, but we do not know why I have puncture marks in my hands. They might have been attempts to get arterial lines in, or they might have been from how I was positioned on the operating table. I have been using an all natural remedy that my mother-in-law found that is good for muscle aches and pain, but also bruising. This stuff is called Arnicare and has helped with the bruising from all of my IVs in my arms and hands. I will make a post later with a bunch of pictures of stuff from my surgery that I have been talking about.

I am feeling pretty well now. I have been taking my pain and muscle medications on a regular schedule, but surprisingly (and thankfully) I only woke up once during the night to go to the bathroom and take a couple pain pills and a muscle relaxer. After my decompression surgery night times were really rough for me and I woke up at least a few times a night for the first 2-3 weeks or so, so this was a nice surprise! I had forgotten to mention in my last post about sleep. You hardly get any sleep in the hospital because alarms that monitor vital signs are going off, nurses come in to check on you and give you medications, and the fire alarm even went off once. On Friday (the day after the surgery) I would fall asleep all of the time. In mid-sentence, during eating, while changing position, anytime. Thankfully by Saturday this had gone away completely and I was able to stay awake when I needed to.

I also forgot to add an issue I had right after surgery. I was fine when I was awake, but every time I would go to fall asleep my oxygen levels would drop dangerously low. We do not know why I was doing this (called desatting), but for this reason I had to wear oxygen in a nasal cannula (one of the things with two little prongs that stick up your nose to give you oxygen. I only needed this the first night and then all was good after that!

During the hospital I also had to get 2 scans done. I had a CT scan done while I was still in the ICU and an MRI done once I got to the regular room. The CT scan was super short again and the MRI was during the period where I still could not stay awake at all, so I just slept through it. It was a bit of a fight with medical records to get all of my records released so we are still fighting that. I got a copy of both of these scans with me, but I couldn't get the reports or the operative report right away. For some reason the hospital has me in their system twice: once with my middle name and once without. We should get those papers by about the middle of January, but I will probably have to follow up with that later.

As far as recovery goes I have to make an appointment with my PCP (primary care provider) for a couple of weeks from now. I am not sure when I am going to make this because I do have a home nurse who is coming out to do my infusions so she can check my incision as well and make sure it is healing. I then should need to do a skype conference in a few weeks with Dr. Rekate, then do a scan and  another skype conference in 3 months or so, and then probably return back to NY for a check up in a year from now.

Well this post is very long again already so I will update more later as things come about. I hope you are all well!