Ok, I survived another surgery [View all]

[csziggy]

My list of major surgeries impress even the doctors and medical professionals. The latest was fusion of the L5 to S1 vertebrae. I lost over forty pounds so they could do the non-invasive version. This means I have only three pretty small incisions.

The surgery was Friday afternoon - it was scheduled for 10:30 in the morning but with various things I wasn't taken into the operating room until 3 PM. I was in my hospital room at 6:30 PM.

Saturday was great - I felt good, aced the first physical therapy session and they were going to try to discharge me that afternoon. Unfortunately (or maybe not) getting home physical therapy set up with the insurance company was slow so I stayed over Saturday night.

Sunday morning after breakfast I needed to pee and being a good patient I buzzed for assistance and sat up on the side of the bed. I began feeling nauseous and didn't want to make a mess so I took my walker and went in the bathroom. I stood over the sink, not sure if I was going to throw up or not. Then suddenly I was under the sink and the walker was on the floor with me.

I could not reach either of the emergency pull cords in the bathroom and couldn't seem to make much noise. Fortunately a CNA tech in training came in, probably in response to my original buzz. Poor thing panicked and ran out into the hall yelling, "Help, Help!" She was really shaken up the rest of the day and I kept apologizing for scaring her.

I was really gray feeling, my sight was grayed, out and apparently I was very white. When they took my blood pressure before trying to get me up it was 78/47. The second and third times were not much higher. They got me into a wheelchair and back into bed. Later they took me for a CT scan of my head - I had a bad laceration and had whacked it pretty good - I still have a good sized sore area. The CT proves yet again that I have a hard head - no damage to my skull or brain.

My blood pressure did not return to normal for hours and it is still trending low. They did check my heart - EKG, heart monitor and echo-cardiogram. With my history of aortic valve replacement, they wanted to make sure I was OK. The current theory is that with my weight loss (66 pounds since I had the valve replacement) and surgery I may not need blood pressure medicine any more. They told me to take it here at home, but with my blood pressure hovering at 105/60 I have not. I'm also not taking the opioids that were prescribed since those can also lower blood pressure.

I guess I was better off staying in the hospital Saturday night so I was there when I fell rather than at home.

Tomorrow I start home physical therapy and I hope everything goes OK. I hope the therapist will let me walk around outside - I am tired of being cooped up!