I checked in just after 11:30 a.m. and at noon a nurse came out to take me back to the pre-surgery area. I got established in a little cubicle and told to get out of all my clothes and put on the surgical gown, fuzzy booties and a hair net. This is the new kind of surgical gown (sort of paper fabric) that has ports in it to connect air hoses to blow in warm air (a really great innovation).
Nurse took my vitals - including temp and blood pressure (multiple times) and took a baseline EKG (so that, as she explained it, there would be something for comparison in case there was a problem during surgery.
After that, Carl was allowed back to keep me company. I was visited by several different individuals, including my surgeon - who reviewed with me again what the surgery plan was and told me he had one surgery ahead of me. He had an intern with him (whose name I have long since forgotten) who was tagging along and was going to be in the surgery suite as well. Then I got a visit from the anesthesiologist who went over what she would do to put me out for the operation - nice drugs in the IV line to put me out to start and then gas to keep me deeply asleep in the operating room. She said, depending on how long surgery lasted it would take from 15-30 min. for me to come out of anesthesia at the end. After she disappeared there was a long break when Carl and I were left alone. Then another nurse (male) popped his head in and said it wouldn't be too much longer (around 2 p.m.) and asked if I wanted to watch TV. TV? I didn't know I had a little digital TV in my stall (essentially a computer monitor on a flexible arm), so we got that set up - although there's nothing on daytime television worth watching. Around 2:30 p.m. things started moving again and nurses got me ready to go into the operating room.
I got rolled into the surgery suite just before 3 p.m. A lot of people there - my surgeon, the third year resident, the secondary surgeon that Dr. S. asked to be in attendance, a nurse or two and the anesthesiologist. They got me moved from gurney to the operating table; strapped me in; got my arms extended; plugged warm air hoses into my gown (the operating room is COLD); and then we all stopped for a "time out" to make sure we were all in agreement with what was about to happen - surgery on my right foot!
One of the nurses or the anesthesiologist (not sure which) put a gas mask over my nose/mouth and told me to breathe normally and that's the last thing I remember until I woke up 3 hours later in recovery!
Had a little trouble coming out of anesthesia - was weepy for some reason (not in any pain). My foot was all wrapped up and the surgeon and Carl came back to see me
. Dr. S. told me what he'd done, but prefaced it by saying I wasn't likely to remember any of what he said (he was so right) but the bottom line was that surgery was more extensive than originally thought (tendons were badly torn) but he got everything fixed. I was offered juice (yes) and crackers (no - didn't feel up to crackers) and within 10 min. or so, the nurse was having Carl help me back into clothes. He went off to bring our car around and a nurse got me wheeled down to the exit. I was apparently last patient of the day and they just wanted to get finished up and go home!
I got loaded into the car o.k. and we had smooth sailing on the beltway - until the last 5 miles. Then we hit a back up due to an accident coming off the ramp we needed to take and lost a good 10 min. or more.
To get into the house, I needed to negotiate steps in our garage (no way to enter the house without some stairs) up into the kitchen. I managed to scoot up the stairs on my behind but the problem was getting from a sitting position to a standing position once I was in the house. We called on a friend (pre-arranged) and when he showed up, with Carl on one side and our friend on the other, they got me upright and I got into the wheelchair (another one of those things I was working to arrange pre-surgery) and got over to the converted sofa sleeper in the livingroom - which is where I've been living/sleeping for the past 5 weeks.
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