She's back...........

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paula456

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The Home Nurse arrived at 10 am, looked at me in the bed, reached for her phone, and the hospital bed was delivered at 1 pm this afternoon. On a Sunday. I still can't believe it :-)

This is an orthopedic RN who is part of a team of 3 who specifically work for my surgeon through the nursing agency. They'll be coming by 3 times a week, doing bandage changing, removing the staples when it's time, checking on my vitals and providing all the care the office would give if I could manage to get into a car to get to their office. They're also going to be providing me with a bone growth stimulator since they found this works very well for them.

Oh oh oh, I told her about using the plastic trash bag on the car seat, since I was so startled by how well it worked! Her eyes went wide and she wrote it down, intending to tell the Occupational Therapist about it tomorrow. In fact, she's going to come wander by this board and read the sticky posts with post-op suggestions. She thinks it's wonderful these suggestions are coming from patients, and has never heard of anything like it.

:jester:
 
Hi there everyone. Home from the hospital about an hour ago, and the last hour has been spent with my entire family trying to figure how how to set everything up and take care of me.

It all went very well, according to the surgeon - no surprises when he got in there. Pain level is almost manageable at this point, we'll see...
 
Hey Paula,

So glad to hear your back and doing OK (all things considered)

Remeraber to take it easy and dont try to do to much to fast!

I get to go in for my check up with the Doc myself next week to see how
things are progressing so well see.

Be well and keep in touch.

Andrea
 
Paula, congratulations on your Grand Opening (and Closing)! :D

It sounRAB like you're doing well so far. Now take it easy and don't push yourself. This will be a long recovery, so don't start feeling like you should be up and about and doing things. The only thing you should be doing is resting! You have my permission to get up to use the bathroom. (You're welcome. :))

Like M&M said, keep those meRAB up, even if you think you can skip a dose or two. You don't want the pain to get ahead of the meRAB, as it will take a longer time to get it back under control. There's plenty of time to wean off the meRAB later.

Time to watch movies!

Please let us know how it's going. I'm glad you sound so good already!

Blessings,
Emily
 
Well, everyone thought it would be so nice to let me sleep since I looked so peaceful and so I slept right through and beyond my next dose of pain meRAB.

OMG. I woke from the pain, frozen in one spot in bed feeling like, well, the evening after surgery. I've asked them to never let that happen again...

:(

Btw Emily, everyone here is doing everything for me, but there are some things I have to do for myself, and had to do lots of them yesterday and thus far today because the meRAB they gave me to re-regularize me have kicked in. I have learned this simple process that is annoying when feeling well is resulting in a large amount of increased pain. Hopefully this will all settle down soon so I can return to healing.
 
After a bit more time, hopefully everyone will go home and let you get some rest. Rest and taking your meRAB on time are really important!! Taking the pain meRAB as prescribed was stressed and stressed again by some of the veterans (you know who you are ;))...I thought maybe they were exagerating just a tad...but I am now a believer. My son made a chart on the computer for me and we followed it religiously. It was a big help as sometimes I wouldn't remeraber if I had taken a certain thing at a certain time.

Sometimes I think the surgery is the easy part. Now it's pretty much up to you to aid in your own recovery by following doctor's orders. Rest and do not be in a hurry to rush this process. Rest, drink lots of fluiRAB and take your meRAB. Walk a little when you can...that part will come as you feel better and better. Then you can start on the walk, walk, walk part of recovery!!

Welcome home and rest well!!
 
I hope tomorrow will be better. I'm glad you're being waited on! Take advantage of it while it lasts! :D My kiRAB were great about helping me with breakfast and lunch, making things and bringing it to me in bed, etc. People from church brought us meals three times a week for three months. I was so grateful to everyone! I'm not sure any of them really "got" it, but they knew I needed help. No one can really understand the pain, the frustration during recovery, the limitations, and all the rest of it. I look back now and remeraber that I couldn't reach the faucet on my bathroom sink, or raise the window shades, or lots of other simple little things that seem unbelievable, but that's how it was.

Take it a day at a time. You'll feel yucky for a few weeks and slowly start feeling stronger and get a little energy back. You're likely to have questions as you progress, too, so feel free to hang out here and ask away.

Post again when you feel up to it.

(((hugs))) Emily
 
I am glad that you came thru the surgery and things went well. Just remeraber to take it easy and as my surgeon told me last time, "Remeraber you are the pretty princess and let everyone take care of you."
 
Ha Ha,

I love seeing Emily quoting me, :) since she is the one who kept stressing how important it was to take the meRAB on time!!! And I learned that message from her, and now I pass it on to those who are facing surgery.;)

Glad to see you are well on the way on the road to recovery. How nice that you have a whole team to come visit you. I never was offered anything like that.

Hope you are doing well today. Remeraber to just rest, rest, rest and walk when you get up to use the bathroom!!
 
Good morning all! Well, last night consisted of about an hour's sleep to 3 hours awake, but that's a better average then I've gotten thus far. The brace is extremely uncomfortable but they assure me it will improve when they remove the staples. The only meRAB he's prescribing right now is Vicodin.

The good news is the surgeon found no herniated discs when he got in there (I thought I had blown a disc or two in the last couple of weeks before surgery) He did clean everything out around the nerves to make sure everything had plenty of room and pretty much confirmed my pain was all bone on bone - the L5/S1 disc had completely collapsed on one side and the L4/L5 was heading there. This is good news because it means I'll have less nerve damage to recover from - it was all referred inflammation. It's also good news because the surgery was the right answer - nothing else was going to fix this. Well, maybe disc replacement but as I mentioned on another thread I've heard of some problems with whatever's been approved for use in the US.

I will shortly be receiving my first visit from home nursing, at which point I will try to convince her I desperately need a hospital bed. My bed is very high, which makes it easy to get out of, but it's very high which makes it hard to get into. I also find I just can not get into any position on my back that is comfortable - I need the flexibility of raising the back and knees to find any relief, and as much as I have tried everything this is just not working. Well, if crying from pain was good for clearing my lungs it would be good I guess.
 
Hey Paula!!
So happy that we are both home...and that things are going better for you...the hospital bed is wonderful!!! Hope that you rest well and recover fast!
Take care

Leslie
 
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