Surg Blurbs, Vol. IV

• The insides of my elbows were super sore for several days. I have no idea what position they had me in for the surgery but...ouch.
• Walking is the key to speedy healing, so I made sure I got around at least twice a day, trying to go a little further each time. Fortunately I had been up and around once or twice before, so I was on top of things when the 19 year old boy nurse tried to wheel me and my IV out the door without securing my #1 receptacle to the IV pole.
• Awkward, uncomfortable, and fairly humiliating. All these things describe walking around with a catheter in place.
  
• I made myself look Oscar almost immediately. I also made Jody and my mom look at. It's fucking unnatural and foul as hell, but it's my new reality for the next several months.
  
• They changed the bag on the second (?) day. It felt like they were cutting it off of me with razor blades.
• PCA pain meds don't do anything for me, but I was still hitting that button like a Jeopardy contestant anyhow.
  
• On maybe the third day, they took me off of the epidural, IV, and catheter in quick succession. Every tube they took out made me feel lighter and more able of taking care of myself. Unfortunately, they did still have IV meds to give me, and administering these without the bag of fluid was a little tougher, ie they had to push them very slowly and they burned a bit.
  
• Fast forward to when one nurse was flushing my line with saline and something started to HURT. "Yeah, it can sting a little bit..." she said. "No, it feels like something is WRONG." She looked at the needle and said it looked a little red, so maybe she would just leave it alone, blahblahblah as she left the room. Yeah, I'm pretty sure she blew my vein. It felt all shreddy when she was doing the injection. Fortunately the next nurse agreed and they called down someone to put in a new line.
• Other souvenirs I brought home included a stray EKG lead and part of the covering of the surgery table that apparently got stuck to the back of my thigh. Nice.