Beth has done a phenomenal job of keeping the blogosphere updated on the outcome of my surgery. Earlier today, after a nice bath and some clean clothes, I caught up on everything she’s written and I just don’t see how I couldn’t said it any better. But she said I must try. So here goes.
Thursday went pretty much as expected, I guess. We got up at 4:15 and had checked into the “same day surgery” facility at the North Oaks Hospital in Hammond, LA mostly on time. I liked the face that the pre-op area had personal rooms for each patient. In the past, when I had my knee surgeries, they just put everyone in a wide open place separated with little curtains. The pre-op nurse couldn’t seem to find a vein through which to attach my IV, so she left that for the anesthesiologist. That IV moved around a few times over the course of the upcoming two days, it turns out.
The surgery itself went well, I was told. Dr. Gianoli found several places in the mastoid bone that needed to be patched, and fixed them all. They also found from doing my spinal tap that my cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pressure was too high. This could be what caused me to start having the intermittent symptoms in the first place. So they drained some of my CSF now and put me on some medicine to try to bring the pressure down even more. Assuming all goes well, I’ll stay on that and we’ll see if reducing my CSF pressure to normal keeps the left ear from ever getting worse. One other surprise Dr. Gianoli found while he was in there was that the brain material was actually stuck directly onto the malleus. I’ve read about this happening in other cases and he had said the CT scan looked like this might be the case with me. It was, so he had to unstick things before repairing the skull.
That first night, I stayed in the ICU. That means not getting very much sleep, as I wore a machine to take my blood pressure every hour. Plus the nurses had lots of other things to interrupt me about – more medicine or saline in my IV, vision tests, strength tests, etc. But I felt pretty good, nonetheless.
Friday I started in the ICU but then got transferred to a regular hotel bed. On the plus side it meant that I didn’t have to have my BP measured every hour. But on the minus side, there’s more noise in the surgery wing. So I think I actually got less sleep.
I discovered a few things from that first 24 to 36 hours. First, the ICU nurse injected me with the steroid I was supposed to take, and that sent me into a loop. I got these instantaneous waves of nausea, with high pulse rate, high blood pressure, and sweats. I think I was supposed to have four doses altogether, and the first one was when I was still unconscious so that wasn’t a huge deal, but the second and third really sucked. I would’ve vomited, except there was nothing in my stomach. The other thing I learned is that I didn’t tolerate my pain medicine very well on an empty stomach. I was taking Tylenol 3 (the one with codeine) as needed, and found that if I took one of those without eating some crackers first, it would make me puke. Once I figured that out, we were careful to put a cracker or two in me before the meds. And really the Tylenol 3 didn’t really help my pain all that much anyhow, so when I was discharged I got the doctor to switch me over to Percocet. I knew from my knee surgeries that works for my pain and I tolerate it well without the strange emotional side effects that some people have (scary dreams, etc.).
So, Friday night and Saturday morning I tried to continue to get better, but had a lot of dizziness issues – more, it seemed, than Thursday Friday morning, which made me thing it was due to not getting enough sleep. But around noon on Saturday I was discharged and send on my way.
Beth drove to a local pharmacy to pick up the many bottles of pills I needed, and then came back to the hotel to pick me up. By then, I was having my last hospital lunch, and then said my goodbyes. The 30 minute drive from the hospital to our hotel wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected. Since I discovered the keep to keeping the waves of dizziness down was to not move my head but only move my eyes (at least in my case), that’s what I did. Shortly after, we got to the hotel room and I haven’t left since!
It’s an extended stay suite type of place, so there’s a small kitchen, a living room/dining room, a bedroom with separate beds, and a bathroom. We got the handicapped room, so I have hand holds at the toilet, etc. My appetite still isn’t great, even though the food quality’s gone up. Beth’s been making some good (but soft) food for me. For example, lunch today was thinly sliced strawberries, saltine crackers, and some warm Campbell’s beef and vegetable stew, plus some Coke in a glass of ice. It may not sound like much, but it hits the spot.
I’m now doing lots of napping, but since I got so much sleep last night I’m feeling lots better than yesterday. It’s been slow going, but I’ve been able to write over 5000 characters of this blog article over the past couple hours. There was a physical therapist at the hospital who came by and gave me three sets of exercises I’m supposed to do to improve my balance, vertigo, etc., and I’ve been doing those exercises and getting pretty good with them. I’ve almost got Beth convinced that I can go to the bathroom by myself. 🙂
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For her own written journal on my surgery – including some very telling photos – see here:
Day one: http://bethpartin.com/monhaibun-baton-rouge/
Day three: http://bethpartin.com/day-three-of-todds-trip-for-scds-surgery-wednesday-at-the-doctors-office-in-baton-rouge-la/
Day four: http://bethpartin.com/trip-to-baton-rouge-for-todds-scds-surgery-thursday-at-north-oaks-medical-center-in-hammond-la/
Day five: http://bethpartin.com/day-five-of-todds-trip-for-scds-surgery-recovery-at-north-oaks-medical-center-hammond-la/
Wow, Todd, pretty amazing post for someone 3 days out of surgery on the inside of his head! Please continue to get better so we can go wrestle alligators!