The Trip to the Hip
A story about my experience with total hip replacement surgery.
A story about my experience with total hip replacement surgery.
9 PM
Evening came and the dragon that lived in my hip was clawing with such gusto so that I couldn’t lie still for more than a minute or two. My torso was aching from the pressure of gas caught in the upper regions of my body and refusing to move towards the exit. I felt full and nauseous. And then a sudden horrible urge hit me. “Oh my god! I think I have to poop!” Here I was attached to the IV machine, and a catheter hanging out my ‘hoo hoo.” and I thought, there is no way in HELL, I’ll take a dump in the bedpan! I didn’t care how much it was going to hurt or how hard it would be to get me to the bathroom, the idea of lying in my excrement was motivation enough to leap tall buildings in a single bound if necessary.
I pressed the nurse button. I could hear the little attention bell dinging in the distance and I thought, how do I tell them I need to go potty without sounding like a child or an uneducated dolt? “Yes, can I help you?” came the voice over the speaker. “Er…. yeah….um…. I have to …. um go to the bathroom.” the words rushed out of my mouth, because by this time I thought it was nearing an emergency. “OK, I’ll be right there.”
She came in holding a bedpan. “Uh, I’m sorry I really want to do this in the bathroom.” I pleaded.
“Are you sure?” she asked eyeing the equipment attached to me and remembering that I was still without pain meds. “This is something the therapist are supposed to do.” she added like she was taking a risk at a lawsuit if something went wrong.
“I don’t care!” I said without hesitation. She left and returned with her assistant. They moved the IV stand closer to the bathroom door and unhooked the collection bag from the side of my bed and laid it next to me. I began to scooch myself down the bed while turning my body until my sore leg was just at the edge of the bed. “You’ll need to hold my leg.” I explained, “while I get my other leg off the bed. Try to keep it the same distance apart.” I warned remembering my earlier experience. The nurse managed to hold onto my leg until the last minute when she let it slip from too high a point to the floor. “OWWwwwww!” I cried, as tears of pain welled in my eyes.
“Sorry.” she said with remorse.
“That’s OK.” I said through breathy puffs of air trying to work through the pain so I could stand up. I genuinely meant that too, because I knew she was trying her best to help me do something that I probably shouldn’t have been doing.
I grabbed onto the walker that was left in the room and the nurses helped me stand up and gingerly walk to the bathroom. I looked at the toilet seat and found it interesting and frightening that my toilet was just an ordinary hospital type potty. You’d think that in an orthopedic ward a toilet would be equipped with a special seat to raise the height to an acceptable level. So with a deep breath and my back to the toilet seat, both nurses helped steady me as I bent my legs to start what seemed like a long descent into a bottomless cavern. My leg was screaming with pain as I tried to control the speed at which I was moving. About one hour later (OK, a gross exaggeration, but that’s what it felt like) my backside landed on the seat. (mental note to self: ask Dad to get a raised seat for home) The nurses guided my various tubing out and shut the door so I could have some privacy.
It was gas.
