For whatever reason, when I woke up there were no painkillers in my system and for the first two hours I was in truly amazing pain. The postop nurse was a saint, she sat with me and made me tell her stories while we waited for the medicine to kick in. I knew full well what she was doing, but I was a willing participant. I mean, how often does a guy get to talk about himself for two hours, especially when the audience is an attractive woman? I didn’t even notice when the drugs finally kicked in.
Talking about it with the surgeon it basically came down to not wanting to suppress things like breathing and what not by piling opiates on top of anesthesia and me waking up faster than expected.
It has also had the positive effect of making me damned reluctant to risk more pain. After the previous surgery I was constantly pushing my limits, skipping pain pills and trying to escape my room, then going for hikes a few weeks after they sent me home.
Talking about it with the surgeon it basically came down to not wanting to suppress things like breathing and what not by piling opiates on top of anesthesia and me waking up faster than expected.
It has also had the positive effect of making me damned reluctant to risk more pain. After the previous surgery I was constantly pushing my limits, skipping pain pills and trying to escape my room, then going for hikes a few weeks after they sent me home.
I don’t know if my push to “get better” back then led to the damage that brought me back but I have no intention of having to make a 3rd trip. This time I will be quite happy to lay here doing as little as possible. I bought myself a Switch to amuse myself for the next 6 weeks.
Still, I seem to be creating some cognitive dissonance in the staff. The surgeon keeps talking about me hanging out for 2-3 more days until I’m cleared by the PT people. The PT people, though, are like, “just go home already….” We’ll see, maybe Sunday. SWHTL has apparently been dragging furniture around the living room to make me a proper nest.
Still, I seem to be creating some cognitive dissonance in the staff. The surgeon keeps talking about me hanging out for 2-3 more days until I’m cleared by the PT people. The PT people, though, are like, “just go home already….” We’ll see, maybe Sunday. SWHTL has apparently been dragging furniture around the living room to make me a proper nest.
The craziest part? Before the surgery I had noticed something in one of the CT scans they took (because the surgeon was staring at it) but he didn’t say anything about it so I figured I just didn’t know how to read a CT scan and didn’t bring it up. After the surgery, he told me that what he had been looking at was that the vertebrae had so completely collapsed into each other that they had already started fusing themselves together. He had to separate them to get them aligned and spaced properly. No issues with the surgery itself, though.
Now I just have to sit in a recliner for 6 weeks and try not to get saddle sores.
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