The missing days, part 2

Waking up from anesthesia isn’t really what one can correctly label as “waking up.” It’s a very slow process where you start to realize that maybe this strange dream about fuzzy people floating around you mumbling gibberish occasionally mixed in with your name just might not be a dream after all. I think that’s the time spent in the recovery room, technically, where they take you immediately after surgery but before settling you in to your comfy ICU room. I can’t tell you what it looked like, or really much else about it.

As I get into this part of the recap, let me throw out another disclaimer: I can take no responsibility for the accuracy of any of these initial post-operative facts. The entire hospital stay has a way of distorting your view of reality and time, but it is most apparent in that first 24 hours in ICU. So my apologies for any slight inaccuracies, but I will guarantee that at least this is how I remember it.

I now believe anesthesiologists to be among the most powerful people in the world. They can concoct a serum to address everything your body does individually, as if they were brewing from a witch’s recipe book. A drop of “make-you-pass-out” mixed with 2ml of “stop-all-poo”, 5ml of “convince-the-heart-to-not-freak-out”, 3.5ml of “scalpels-and-sharp-objects-don’t-really-hurt”, and a good teaspoonful of “allow-knives,-cameras,-tubes-and-gauze-up-the-nose.” If this guy could have added a bit of “happy-dreams-about-bunnies”, he must have forgotten. If you future plans contain marrying an anesthesiologist, make sure you get all your trust issues out of the way first.

I finally became aware of my surroundings in the ICU, which at St. Mary’s was a huge, freshly renovated private room. I can remember someone saying that they could go tell my wife that I was finally in the room, which seemed odd because the very next second she was there, as was my Mom. And I was now aware that at least the surgery was over and that I was still here. A pretty lucid thought, I thought. I knew that everything had gone fine, and that the story of the surgeon that said “oops” would be one that I might actually hear, as opposed to one in which I might star.

I now realized for the first time that they had packed my nose full of drainage tubes and gauze. No-one had told me to expect that, but then again, I hadn’t asked. And of course they the roll a piece of gauze up just under your nose about the size of a magic marker and tape it to your face. Not really a problem, of course, because my upper lip was so swollen you could have had room to tape a beach towel under my nose and still see my mouth. I was a Simpsons character. But the good thing was, I still had my mustache. Nobody had shaved it during the ordeal, so at least my massively protruding lip monster was conveniently camouflaged by facial hair. Yeah, that’ll keep people from staring at the beach towel.

For all of the amazing things about this new and spaciously private room, it was seriously lacking in the chair department. As in, there were none. So Mom and Terry were flanking the sides of the bed, standing and holding onto my hand or at least just being close enough to let me know that they were there. After a certain amount of time had passed (an hour? 2 minutes?) I started to notice that my Mom was leaning forward a bit oddly on her side of the bed, as if she wanted to whisper a secret to the bed rail. She was sliding down inch by inch, as if in slow motion, with a bit of a blank stare on her face. Either my anesthesia was a bit trippier than I had thought, or something wasn’t quite right.

Luckily Terry noticed it from her side of the bed, and asked her if she was okay. This sort of snapped her out of it a bit, but only slightly. Mom managed to make her way to the door to try to find a chair, but again the slow motion kicked in and, leaning on the door, down she went. It took about 5 minutes for her complete this forward drop, luckily, which was plenty of time for Terry and all of the ICU nurses to get to her before she decided to move regular speed again. They laid her down on the floor, checked all of her vitals, got her to do a bit of floor polishing while she was down there, and all was fine.

A note to all family members of future surgery patients: It’s gonna be a long day. Make sure you get plenty of rest the night before, exercise a bit through the waiting time by walking around some and keeping the blood flowing, and of course, EAT at least your 3 meals at the appropriate times. I’d even recommend healthy snacks in your purse or coat pocket. Or even unhealthy ones. Especially if you’re a 78 year old recent recipient of triple-bypass surgery who gets a bit stressed at the thought of someone cutting open her son’s head and then stuffing gauze up his nose.

At some point Terry realized that it was probably best for them to head home and get some rest. I hated to see them go, but I’d certainly rather not have an encore performance, and I knew that Terry needed to get back home to Jasper and make sure he heard first hand that Daddy was fine. Looking a bit silly, but fine. And anyway, I really needed sleep.

Or so I thought. Apparently, the anesthesiologist had also mixed in 7ml of “remove-ability-to-even-remotely-get-more-than-5-minutes-of-sleep-at-a-time.” This was a time-release element, as I had obviously slept pretty freakin’ hard during the day. But now, no matter how exhausted and out of it I felt, the Sandman was not going to visit the ICU.

It was the longest night of insomnia in my life. I watched the clock, which was placed all the way across the room and over the door, through my fuzzy vision for hours upon hours. And although I could already tell that my bad eye had gotten better, I’m still fairly blind with an astigmatism that kept me guessing the actual time, as well as whether or not they used special clocks with 5 hands in this hospital.

I tossed and turned, not really able to get comfortable, as if I had thought that was a real possibility in the first place. There was all this stuff on my face, including a huge plastic tub strapped to my head delivering a mix of hydrated oxygen. (I mean think about it – there was no way to shove the tiny standard oxygen tubes into my nose, so they had to think of something.) I raised the bed up and down, and rolled on to my sides, but nothing worked. I THINK you’re supposed to sleep on your back and elevated about 45 degrees that first night, but since I didn’t have the manual and had not been informed of my sleeping responsibilities, I was on a quest. The quest for sleep.

The night went on. And on. And on. I’d stare at the clock. Almost 1 a.m. by my best estimate. The nurse would come in and check things. Machines would go “ping.” My automatic blood pressure cuff would inflate to python-strength proportions. The hydrating oxygen tube would make gurgling noises that rivaled even the most annoying snorer. The horrifying realization that yes, indeed, I was connected to my own catheter, was topped only by the thrill of tossing and turning in my bed tethered to a huge receptacle in the one place no guy would ever want to be tethered. The nurses would come in to draw some blood, yet again, to monitor my phludemumum levels. I’d press the button on the morphine drip in my IV, mistakenly thinking that this might help me. I’d stare at the clock again and realize that it’s actually closer to 12:10 a.m. I’d focus on the black spots on the walls and make wagers with myself as to whether or not those were windows or cabinets. (I chose windows, and then used them as gauges to see if the sun was anywhere close to waking up.)

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I had started to feel pretty bad. I mean, on top of the standard post-surgical bad. I got sweaty, clammy, nauseated. When I finally buzzed for the nurse to come check me out, my blood pressure was showing something outrageously low for me, like 80/50 or something. A quick injection into my IV of some magic nurse medicine, and I was calming down and chilling out in no time. You would think that someone would have been watching the BP on that nurses station monitor, but again, I have no real concept of what went on and in what order, and those ICU nurses are so on top of everything that I’ll happily give them the benefit of the doubt.

At some point I must have gotten at least some sleep, but I honestly doubt it. Once morning FINALLY arrived (I could tell because I had won my wager and there actually was sun starting to come in the windows), I told the new morning nurse how crappy my night had been. She asked why I hadn’t just asked for something to help me sleep. Having not been informed ahead of time that this was actually an option, my newly carved noggin had simply not reached this conclusion on its own. I wasn’t about to make that mistake again the next night.

Terry found that morning that even though she was my wife, they weren’t going to allow her to come into ICU until official visiting hours started at 11am. But somehow these morning hours were going a bit quicker than the night ones, maybe having something to do my quite elaborate nurse sponge bath. (Yes, he and I are good friends, now…) Regardless, Terry was soon in my room, as was also magically a chair, apparently only able to be seen by daylight. I realized over the course of the morning that morphine really does nothing but make you feel like very spacey crap, and we experimented the rest of the day with other possibilities. These helped me to drift in out of consciousness, even if they didn’t really take care of my nagging headache.

Given our connections to the clergy world, it was only a matter of time before their all-access passes brought them into the ICU. And by “them”, I mean that we know quite a bit of people who qualify as clergy. I think it was at least 3 different ones each day while in the ICU. The nurses were starting to wonder if maybe there was something about me they hadn’t been told. Like maybe I was the Golden Child. Or the Pope’s paperboy. Nonetheless,  the brief visits of friends from the clergy squad were, of course, greatly appreciated.

One of the things they monitor in ICU right after pituitary surgery is your fluid output, and mine kicked into high gear this day. They made the official call to extend my ICU stay one more day, until the fluids were a bit more under control. Which meant several more blood tests over the course of the day and night. Oddly enough, one of my least favorite pre-surgical events was now one of my more regular post-surgical activities – casually donating vials of blood to whomever came in with a needle and a large rubber band.

That second night in ICU was wonderful. Why? No morphine and the miracle of Ambien, that little sleeping pill you see on TV. It works. I had a calm, peaceful sleep that night. Or at least I did in between the nurses, beeps, pythons, and gurgles (which they actually sent someone in to fix for me). And I slept on my back, elevated. Although I am typically a side sleeper, this was really the best position for the time being.

The next day brought a killer sinus headache. I mean monster. It’s probably because I had to try to give myself a sponge bath all on my own. Not an easy task when you’re hooked up to a million tubes and wires. We experimented a bit more with meds, but it took most of the day to knock that headcahe out. I think Terry got a lot of work done on her laptop that day.

My fluids had slowed down and the lab work was looking much better, so I got the go ahead from the doctor to move downstairs to a private room. Unfortunately, there were no rooms available. And so, by the time Terry left that evening, I was officially in for a 3rd night in ICU. I was kind of getting used to it, though. It was nice having such great care, with all of those people watching out for you. I had no need to be anxious about anything, with all of that constant attention. ICU was now more of a luxury room than a necessity. It gave us all a nice feeling of safety and comfort.

So of course, when a room opened up around 10pm, they sent me packing.