Post-Op Update

Hi everyone!

My surgery was on Thursday. Anesthesia came in to talk to me and get consent and their plan was regional. When I asked them to exlain that they said that they would numb from my arm down and put me into a little twilight. I said, enough twilight that I won't remember anything. They said, "well you shouldn't". Not good enough for me. When I said I was worried it was not only about knowing when they were drilling into my arm, etc., but I also didn't want to say something stupid like about what idiot doctor's can't read x-rays and how it's pretty bad when the ortho techs can do it better. I have a hard time adjusting my filter when I am not loopy, and I saw a recipe for disaster and therapy in my future if I remembered any of this or made an ass of myself.

So, I opted for general which meant I would be completely asleep, and the doc would only numb the area where he was working. They felt that the block would give me more pain control for a longer period and left that as an option available to me should I want it when I woke up.

I am happy to reprt that I don't remember a thing, not even getting into the OR. When I woke up I was in pain and they gave me a vicodin which didn't touch me. So the anesthesiologists came back. They said that normally they sedate people to do the block. That made me a little nervous about what was going to happen. They gave me a few shots of lidocaine in my neck area, and then gave a huge shot near my collarbone that worked BEAUTIFULLY for pain control! The only problem was that I could not move my arm, shoulder, hand on my own at all, LOL. I hit it on stuff a couple of times and never felt it. And to touch my own arm and try to lift it with my other arm was like dead weight and you would be surprised at how much a dead arm weighs...

The block began to wear off about 10:30 Thursday night. So it lasted about 8 hours. Lucky for me the nurses had told me to start the vicodin (and anti-nausea med) as soon as I got home and to keep up with it every 4 hours so that I wouldn't be playing catch up. I had to up it to two pills overnight and it was not touching me. I called in the morning and they switched me to percocet (it is stronger than vicodin which I did not know). Percocet was good, it didn't take away all of the pain, but made it tolerable and made me sleepy. I dropped down to one percocet every few hours Saturday morning and my last dose of pain meds was 2pm on Saturday. It is slightly painful, but nothing I feel like I need meds for and usually if I keep it elevated with ice for the swelling it'd not even painful.

I am in a soft cast (hard along the inside of my arm and all around my thumb to immobilize it, with an ace bandage the rest of the area) to allow for swelling until May 24th when I see my doc again. At that point he will decide which is next-hard cast or fracture brace (removable). In the meantime it's ice, elevation and relaxing.

Thank you for your prayers. If you could pray that this wrist heal correctly this time so we're done that would be great!