The Trip to the Hip

October 21, Wednesday

5 AM

“Here to check your vitals.”

I throw my right arm over the side of the bed without opening my eyes. Fall back to sleep.

7:30 AM

Flood of light suddenly fills the room and a booming voice says, “Good morning! How are we doing today?”

I blink like a coal miner coming out of a cave a noon. It’s Dr. Namazian, making his morning rounds. “Better today, I think….” I’m still half asleep.

“Good! How’d you like to go home tomorrow?” he asks as he approaches the side of my bed.

“That would be great,” I answered

“Hey! Why do you still have that catheter in.  That has to come out! You just got a new hip and that can cause problems if it stays in there.” he was genuinely shocked to see that. So he walks to the other side of my bed lifts my blankets and proceeds to pull the darn thing out of me. No real warning like a nurse would say, “Now just relax. This won’t hurt.” I thought he might call in a nurse to take care of that, thinking that a doctor wouldn’t want to mess with a foley cath. but he had no problem pulling that thing out of me and taking care of the contents of the bag himself. I thought that was pretty impressive actually.

Then he walked to the other side of the bed, “Ok let’s take a look at this thing.” And without much warning he picked up the pad that was under me and literally flipped me on my side. I winced in pain, but it was a much faster move and much more comfortable move than the nurses had tried.  You could tell he definitely wasn’t afraid of hurting his work. He then peeled of the bandage that covered the wound, commented on how nice it looked and then recovered it. “Have  you been up walking?” he asked as he helped me roll back over.

“Well I tried yesterday, but nearly passed out twice.” I said looking for some sympathy.

“Oh well. You aren’t the first to feel that way and you won’t be the last.” Obviously no sympathy there. He walked to the end of the bed and asked me to move my feet then he pulled on my surgical leg as if to make sure it was the same length as the good leg and covered my feet back up.  “Get up and walk today. It’s important for your recovery.”  He smiled, turned off the light and walked out of the room. His entire approach that morning, although it seemed abrupt, was good natured and friendly and  showed he had confidence in his work. This made me feel that way too.

Breakfast came and I ate remembering how food helped me feel better last night. I ate the muffin and some fruit and drank some juice.  I then filled out the menu request form for the following day. I watched some TV and waited for Physical Therapy to return.  I was ready today. I was going to walk no matter what!

When the therapist returned that morning, she was alone and her walker didn’t have the “seat belt” with it.  She asked me how I was feeling and I told her that my blood pressure was much better this morning and I was ready to go for it. First she had me do some exercises while lying on  the bed. Heel pumps, pointing and flexing my feet; the pushing my knees to the bed, and finally some glute squeezes, which hurt the most.

She then helped me move to the edge of the bed which was always the most painful part.  Getting my right leg over the side of the bed and down to the floor was a long slow process.  Once down she brought the walker to me and instructed me how to get up. With a little help under my arm I stood up.  I waited a moment to make sure I wasn’t going to get light headed and when I felt secure in that, we began our slow plod out the door.  “How are you feeling?’ she asked, obviously remembering the day before.”Good,” I answered trying to clear the fuzzy feeling from my head.

We trundled along the hallways of Four East among the “freeway” traffic of other recovering patients.  This floor was dedicated to orthopedics so nearly everyone here had some bone repair issue or two.  We circled the nurses station and then came back up the hallway towards my room.  “Should I walk around again?” I asked.  I really thought I could do that, but was glad when she said not to overdo it.  We headed back to the room where we reversed the painful process of getting my leg back up on the bed.

While I was up and walking the nurse had come in and changed my sheets. She asked me if I wanted to go into the bathroom and clean up a little. So she helped me stand and use my walker to get to the bathroom.  She handed me a clean wash cloth and my toothbrush and toothpaste. I was happy to see that the requested toilet seat had arrived so I decided to use it since I was up. Although it still hurt to move my body down, the fact that it didn’t hurt as much as the night before was a blessing.  I was definitely going to call my dad and tell him to get me a toilet seat for the house.  There was no way I wanted to feel that kind of pain every time I had to use the bathroom.

My sister called me later and said she would stop by but couldn’t stay. She asked if there was anything i wanted. I said I didn’t think so, but when she mentioned chocolate I changed my mind.  She brought me peanut M & M’s, Skittles and donated her fruit flavored Mentos that she had in her purse. “That’s all the vending machine had.” she confessed as if what she had brought wasn’t adequate.  I was very happy with the gifts and thanked her for her efforts.

My dad showed up a little later with a brochure from the medical supply place.  I glanced over the various pottys available until I found one that I thought would be sufficient.  It fit over the toilet seat and had some nice sturdy looking handles attached to the sides. A throne for a handicapped princess.  Dad circled the choice and promised to have it for me tomorrow when I was discharged. He sat in the chair and we chatted through lunch.  I ate some soup and some crackers. Drank the juice and nibbled at a tough wheat roll. “Hey, Dad,” I inquired, “how would you like to go for a walk with me?” I was tired of laying in that bed all day. Frankly, it hurt my back and numbed my backside. .  He was quite agreeable. So I rang for the nurse to come in and detached me from the IV. My dad then helped me with the walker and getting to my feet.

We strolled the hallways twice around this time. “I’m strolling at your speed now, huh Dad?” This was a change of pace quite literally.  Usually it was me slowing up for Dad, but now it was Dad slowing up for me

After he helped me back into bed we chatted for a while more, while the nurse reattached the IV and took my vitals. Then he left right before the Dodger playoff game was to start.  I’m sure he preferred to watch the game from the comfort of his living room. I can’t say I blamed him.

Kalani called and said something about bringing the boys out for a visit. We talked about the timing as it was a school night, and I knew there would be homework involved.  I told him not to bother if the boys had much homework, because that was more important, plus the fact that I would probably be going to my sister’s house tomorrow and they could visit me there. So I passed the evening alone with the TV and a book.

Late that night I awoke with the need to use the bathroom.  I looked at the call button and debated about ringing for the nurse.  I thought to myself, that sooner or later I was going to have to get up off the bed by myself and this was as good a time as any to try it.  I was still attached to the IV so I leaned back and pushed the stand toward the end of the bed being careful not to get tangled in the tubing.  Now came the part of how to get my legs off the bed by myself.  I scooted myself as close to the edge of the bed as I could. Then holding my sore leg I helped move it sideways at the same pace as my good leg until I could let it down to the floor.  That was the most painful part.  I reached for the walker and convinced myself to stand up. “Well, that wasn’t so bad, ” I thought to myself. I slowly maneuvered myself towards the bathroom, pulling the IV stand so that it was just outside the bathroom door.  I pulled the tubing over my head so that it was in front of me, backed myself up until my legs were against the toilet seat and carefully lowered myself into place.

When I was done I used the handles on the side of the seat to push myself back to standing. I washed my hands, and reversed the motions, pushing the IV stand back into place and managing to get my leg up on the bed, and scooching my backside up until I was straightened out. Success! I felt like it was quite the accomplishment!  I lay my head back and tried to sleep waiting for tomorrow to come so I could get out of here and be somewhere where no one was waking me up every 2 hours.