Despite this being VERY delayed, I thought that I should finally start up my blog and record my experience of my first PAO. Until now, I've basically had almost zero concentration or motivation to do anything. I have a lot to update on here, but I figured that the best place to start was on surgery day and make up the lost time in later posts.
Friday February 28th, 2014: SURGERY DAY.
I had received a call the day prior that my surgery time was 4:45pm so I was to be at the hospital at 2:45pm. This meant that I had a LONG time to wait before my surgery on that day. Phew. It gave me a lot of time to be nervous. But I felt like I handled it pretty well. No dry heaving or throwing up! ;) I got to drink clear liquids until 12:45pm. So I drank up all morning in hopes of feeling a little less empty. I was very very nervous, but I had waited such a long time for this day, that I just needed it to come and be over with.
We left for the hospital nice and early as I had to show my parents how to get out of the hospital easily (the roads around the hospital are quite confusing and I was worried about them being lost late at night), and I had to return my pager and ID badge from my Radiology rotation. It was nice to not be rushed and get there with plenty of time. When I got there, they almost immediately took me back and got my IV started, I peed in a cup for the pregnancy test, and basically sat and waited. They were concerned about my temperature since it was so high, but the room had the heat blasting on and I was almost on the verge of sweating. They ended up retaking it a couple of times and then just decided to tell my surgeon that it was the room and that I didn't actually have a fever.
The anesthesiologist came in and we discussed that I would get general anesthetic. I made it very clear that I had got EXTREMELY sick in the past despite using Scopolamine patch, Zofran, Phenergan. He said that they would pump me full of all antinausea medications before I woke up and do their best. An hour later he came back and said that he had been thinking of me and had discussed my concerns with his colleagues and they wanted to do the Scopolamine patch still and that they would really be alert to my nausea levels. This anesthesiologist was not the one on my case, when I met the one on my case she happened to be a graduate from my medical school. It's too bad I don't remember this bit of information as the Versed had already kicked in at this point, but my parents told me because it was kinda ironic.
The surgeons resident came in and asked me a bunch of questions, I signed my leg, then my surgeon came in and signed me leg. He was very brief (as expected). And told my parents that if they saw him come out in half an hour...it was a bad thing as this could indicate that the arthroscopy to check the cartilage health showed more arthritis and that the PAO was not an option. Next thing, everybody flooded my room, I got some Versed (which is a pretty fast way to feel high), I said my good-byes, and vroom off to the OR. I don't remember going to the OR, but I remember transferring over to the fracture table for the first portion of the surgery. They gave me a mask to take deep breaths and that was it. I don't even remember waking up really. I remember being in my room on the ortho floor and complaining that my PCA wasn't working. That's about it. Nothing too extraordinary from my end as I had the easiest job there...simply being present while everybody else did the work.
As far as the surgery went, my surgeon actually stopped operating after the scope because apparently the cartilage was worse than he thought and he didn't know if he should do the PAO or if I should get a THR in a couple of weeks. He went out and talked with my parents about each of the choices they had, and it ended up that he and my parents decided that the PAO would be the best bet, even with the arthritis, because it could give me a few to several more years with my own hip and would make the THR last longer if the dysplasia was fixed. So he took another hour and a half to do the PAO portion of the surgery. I'm not sure how long this PAO is supposed to last or how much pain relief I am supposed to get from this surgery, but I think I would have made the same decision had I been awake and able to decide what I wanted for my hip.
I will elaborate on my hospital stay in another post.
No comments:
Post a Comment