Long day

Ok, the scoop on the aforementioned hospital knitting extravaganza. It all began at 3 a.m. when Jim woke me up (we didn’t need to leave until 4:45). To tell me he couldn’t walk.

During the week he had complained of knee pain /weakness and felt better on pain meds. That was, until Thursday evening. On his way home from work, he felt something in his knee “snap”. He was able to limp home and still able to walk for the rest of the evening. Since he was having surgery the next morning, we didn’t’ think he should take any pain medicine. BIG mistake. He was in so much pain that he didn’t sleep all night. He barely made it out of the car and into the hospital, but somehow managed to shuffle along. When he finally got checked in they did give him some morphine, but wasn’t working very well (???!!!???).

When the doctor arrived he examined the knee and decided there was no risk in continuing with the scheduled procedure (more information in this post. And so it began…

This was supposed to be a relatively quick surgery commencing at 7:30 a.m., finishing around 9. It was 11:45 before the doctor finally came out to talk to me and 12:30 before I got to see him. Meanwhile, my friend L showed up to sit with me for a while around 9. She took me to get a bagel at Bruegger’s (a block away) which later turned out to be a blessing. It was nice to have someone else there to take my mind off things. Another great thing about :knitting:…you can socialize while you do it.

Overall, the surgery went fine. However, due to the multiple ablations in his upper atrium, they had some trouble getting a good signal to the pacemaker…that is why it took so much longer than expected. I’m glad they took the time though to do it right the first time.

When I finally got to see Jim again, I was amazed to hear him say that his leg still hurt. I thought for sure with all the IV drugs he’d get some relief. His surgeon had arranged for him to go down to the emergency room after surgery so someone could look at his leg. An ultrasound, an x-ray, a set of crutches and 5 hours later he was released. No, we still don’t know what is wrong with his leg.:cuss: All they can determine from those tests is that he doesn’t have a clot (a risk, since he had to go off of warfarin before the surgery and that there is no bone damage. Dr. Cheryl (moi) has narrowed it down to a tendon rupture or ligament damage. Fortunately he has a great relationship with a very nice doctor who took his call today who has agreed to see him Monday. He isn’t an orthopedist, but should be able to further narrow the diagnosis.

This is the funniest part, although certainly not funny at the time. They wheeled him out to the car when we left and he was barely able to get in. So guess what? When we got home, should it have surprised us that he couldn’t get out of the car (actually an SUV so that did help some)???!!! Not for a lack of trying…about 3 attempts with 20 minute breaks in between. Finally it dawned on us that a friend of mine who lives around the corner had a wheelchair for a recent injury. I called to find out it had been borrowed from someone else. Her husband told me though that the medical supply place just 2 miles away from our house rented wheelchairs. At the time, I thought he was nuts. No way they were going to be open at 7:30 p.m. on a Friday night. I was glad I was wrong! So back home we went where Jim was able to get out of the SUV seat and into the wheelchair. Now, the funny part. The only way to get into our house via this method was up a hill around the back of the house. Keep in mind, I had surgery on my shoulder about 2 months ago… yet stubbornly I pushed him around the back of the house, up the hill, all 6′4″, 200 pounds of him. I think I was going on pure adrenaline, plus, what choice did I really have?

To make a long story slightly shorter, we got in, I went to pick up his drugs and he was able to sleep the rest of the night. Today has still been torture for him. He still can’t walk and is barely getting relief from the pain medications. Monday really can’t get here quickly enough.