5. Footie stuff, part 1.

 So, after much back and forth, we had all the little duckies lined up, and were ready to get the surgery taken care of. 

The morning of, we took care of the cleaning of self, got dressed and on the road, right on schedule the way we'd planned.  Showed up at the hospital, found the section we needed to go to, entered...

And no one was in there. 

? 

Realized there was a phone with a note saying to call x. I did, and they said they would be right out.  We have nearly an hour drive, and I was, at best, having a case of nerves, so off to the bathroom - what? Big sign on the door, if you are having surgery, please don't use the bathroom without checking with the nurse. 

Oh. No... !

Nurse came out, and said I could come back, I asked if I could pee first. I think she saw the urgency, and let me take care of things. 

Husband took a bit to come in where I was, he was parking the car. I was given one of those lovely, fashionable robes, and in the bed, with an IV set up.  I was third in line for surgery.  So, we waited.  It was nice, as far as it went.  They needed to give me a nerve blocker, so, he decided to step out for a while.

Did I mention I had nerves?  The IV wasn't running, but you wouldn't have known it, as many times as I had to go! And they didn't want me using the foot with the block, so it was, get wheelchair, go to restroom, use bar to get on toilet, do job, use bar to get OFF toilet, go back to bed to wait. 

And repeat.

And again...

Finally, one poor nurse came over, and said something to the effect that this worked for her bird... Flipped off the light, closed the privacy screen and said, take a nap! It stuck me funny, and I did relax some.  I think I only had to pee once after that. 

While waiting, I hear, "Modified Trauma, 3 incoming, 5 minutes out".  Oh, lovely.  I can't complain, having been on the other end of that, but just have to wait longer. Sigh...

The doctor came in later, and asked how my foot felt. I told him, like a foot. He looked confused. It's not numb? 

No...

He touched the spot where my bone spur was, I jumped. He was not pleased. He called an anesthesiologist to look things over, a different one than had done the job before.  I took the poor guy away from his lunch.  After much discussion, doctor and anesthesiologist recommended I have a second block. 

Fine...

The second one took.  I did have a bit of a problem when he first started, the blood pressure cuff liked to cut my arm in half, and it was hard not to move, which isn't great when someone has a needle in your leg! The nurse quickly gave me a different cuff, night and day difference.

I watched the injection on a screen, he was using it to sight in on where to put the block. I think they were a little worried with me watching. When I asked questions, wondering about some things I saw, they realized I was not going to have a problem. 

In fact, the only problem, I had the poor doctor's face about 6 inches or so from my rear. And then, I had an urge to fart. I could probably have cracked open a walnut, as tightly as I was holding back said poot.  He finished, they were leaving, and I gassed the area! Yoiks!!

Well, this had my surgery running much later than expected, since they had to wait to make sure it took. 

But it did, and so next blog, the surgery and such...