Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Notes From Confinement: Episode 1

Thank goodness for mobile blogging.

I'm writing this from the confines of my hospital bed. No laptop yet; I won't have it for a couple of more days. And it is just after 3;00AM.

The surgery went smoothly. A slightly different anesthesia approach was used this time. When I had the Achilles repair I was given a spinal block along with a block to the popliteal area of my leg (right behind the knee in the vicinity of the popliteal artery). This time they did just the popliteal block with conscious sedation. Unlike the last time, the popliteal block worked.

I was on the table for just over 90 minutes from when they knocked me down. And through recovery time was really short; I was in the PACU for about an hour. No problems with dropping pressure or low heart rate, either, also unlike last time.

I think I mentioned the likelihood of discomfort in the donor site being a problem in a previous post. As it turns out I made an accurate prediction because I woke up with what feels like a road burn where he took the graft from. The nerve block has finally worn off after between 10 and 11 hours - it lasted much longer than I was told I could expect. However, it hurts enough that I asked for pain medication. And I learned the last time that I don't want pain to get ahead of me. Amazingly enough the graft itself doesn't hurt. At least not yet. But with the block gone I can wiggle my toes. With no pain...
Perhaps this t

1 comment:

AdCy said...

Oooh, I had a skin graft done, so I totally understand where you are coming from. And then I ended up with a bad infection and wound up in a SNF, also. I will keep my fingers crossed for you. It does get better!