11 nights, 10 days at Stanford Hospital...

    Nobody wants to go to the hospital, let alone stay for over a week.  Even though the staff is friendly, and the food not so bad (at least at Stanford it was decent), nothing beats the comfort of being at home, in your own bed as you rest and wait to get better.

    The first couple days were probably the most worrisome, doctors coming in on the regular to check up and give me status reports.  What scared me the most was my back, not the leg and foot, since it was reattached I knew it wasn't going to be a complete scratch, regardless the score was Earth 1- Kaj 0, and I had been skunked as a visitor.

    I remember the neurosurgeons having an impending gloom about them, at least that's how I perceived their demeanor.  Standing over my bed, looking down on me as they talked about whether or not there would be need for surgery on my back.  Thankfully, surgery was not going to be necessary.  Just the thought of having my back opened up was enough to put a real fear into my blood.  

    Like clockwork, every morning at 5am, I was visited by the orthopedic team.  They would look at my leg, at me, back at my leg and tell me to relax and hang in there, their visits were relatively short and calm. As I was saying earlier, it was my back I was really worried about.  It took four days of waiting before they were able to do the leg surgery, putting 3 plates and 12 screws to stabilize the ankle, and a reset of the tib/fib placement with the ankle. Gnarly.

    After surgery it was pretty routine, every hour I'd see a nurse unless I had buzzed them earlier, a phone call from the cafeteria around noon and 8pm asking what I wanted to eat.  With all the dilaudid running through my system, my appetite had been compromised, but as the days passed hunger prevailed and I began eating again. 

    Friends would show up and wake me from my dream state. If I remember right I was at 15mg every 10min on the dilaudid drip.  The doctors would ask about my pain and adjusted my dose as it deemed fit for management.  The idea behind pain management is to have a tolerable level and be awake, this was not my attitude, I had them up my dose so I could basically knock myself out.  I lied about the pain level so I could achieve a proper level of hydromorphone that would let me slip away into unconsciousness and forget about it all.  Not really the attitude or approach I would suggest doing, but this is what I did and I knew I'd have plenty of time on the bench to reflect about what I had done to myself.  I just want keep it real and not make it sound like I was some superman who denied all drugs and dealt with the pain.    

    As the days moved along, 5, 6, 7, I did realize that I was going to have to ease off the meds, kicking an opiate scares me more than the pain in my back or ankle, so I would wait as long as I could before pushing that green lit button.  Day 8, now they started in with the OxyContin and RoxiCodone, while dropping the dilaudid dosage considerably. For those that don't know, both are opioids (Oxy/Roxi), one the Oxy is a 12 hour time release pill while the latter is fast acting and straight to the point.

    Day 7, I received my custom fit clamshell for my back as well as instruction as to how I can get in and out of bed.  My first attempts were brutal, I was to roll to one side and do a tricep rise, pushing my body upright.  This was uncomfortable enough to make my eyes roll into the back of my head.  It wasn't that big of a deal though once I was sitting upright.  Now whenever I was to move in and out of bed, or in a wheelchair I would be wearing the clamshell.

    Opioids constipate you.  Bad.  I was going on day 8, my surgery was done, my body stable but I hadn't dropped a deuce in over a week and it was becoming clear that is what they were waiting for and so was I.

    Day 9, still no luck. By now I had been eating a well rounded meal along with snacks of fruit for a few days.  I'll skip the gruesome details and just say at about 2am on the 10day, finally.

Earth Hurts...