I'm home. I didnt wimp out. As of now I think it was a good decision. Of course, I may feel differently tomorrow. The worst part is having my mom here and in the hospital. Yes, mom, I know you know the answer to my questions. But I want to hear it for myself. So let me ask without interupting and rolling your eyes and looking at me like I'm an idiot! Besides, when I paged my doctor (yes, flagrant abuse of being a med student and having access to pager numbers!) and asked about advil\aleve, I got a different answer then you expected, which was to limit it due to bone healing being impaired by it, so clearly it wasnt such a dumb question! Besides, the other reason I asked was so he would know I was hurting so if I hurt a lot more tomorrow it wont be out of nowhere and he will be more likely to treat it more aggressively. And I dont want to hear anymore that this was premature and I should have waited. First off, its too late. Secondly, I still disagree. (Cross-reference first paragraph.) Finally, mom, my doctor said I can do anything I want, so stop telling me to use my crutches and sit on the couch and I'm not allowed to do this and I'm not allowed to do that. Please!!! If I sit on the couch I am going to get stiff. Do I really have to entertain you and follow your rules until Sunday? Besides, by then my friends will decide I am recovered enough and no longer stop by and visit and feed me, which they kept calling and offering to do today. And I dont want you to organize my book-case and make it "pretty." Yes, I told you it was OK with me the 7th time you asked, but I dont want you to tell me where to put my folders and photos other random stuff I have on it. And I dont see why I can't go to my friends' graduation tomorrow - I even joked about missing it with my surgeon before hand and she told me she thought I might be up to it so why not. But evidently my mom knows better than my surgeon, despite the fact that she has done this way more times and treated far more patients with this injury than my mom has! (note - I am my mom's "first" pt with this type of injury.) Rant, rant. I know she is here to help me, I just wish she would help me the way I want to be helped! OK, there were other unfun parts. Including the puking and the world spinning all night Weds. (At the 4-hour post-op check my doctor told me "be sure to ask for the anti-nausea stuff I ordered." Uhm, they gave me zofran before I even left the OR, and they kept giving me IV phegran and zofran!) I was also frustrated that they had me on a PCA pump, but no basal rate (was I supposed to wake up every 30 mins to push it overnight? I always put my patients on a base-rate and then give them a certain limit to how often they can push it and get feel-better meds. Always, of course, being the few times last month when I was asked what I wanted to do for their pain.) Maybe if I could hold down the lortab I wouldnt have needed the constant morphine, but I was much happier after my nurse paged the resident who ordered it and I was able to sleep soundly for a couple hours. And post-op x-rays on my way to my room were pretty painful - they kept sliding a cartridge under my hip and moving me around and manipulating me when all I wanted to do was lie there and not have to move! At least they didnt have to move me to a different x-ray bed. But I like the bed in my doctor's office which is all a cartridge or reading scanner or whatever so they dont have to move film around. And the IV nonsense. For starters, before you stick a needle in me, have everything ready so you dont have to run across the room and decide you need a tube of blood, while I am sitting there with a painful needle sticking out of me! Secondly, I have the best veins, so I dont understand why they picked the most painful elbow vein. I asked my surgeon if after they induced if they could move it so it didnt hurt every time I tried to move my arm the slightest bit. Evidently they stuck me 6 times in the OR and ended up in the vein I told the pre-op nurse to start in. Oh well. I have learned not to tell patients that after you have an IV it wont hurt, because mine was sore! Not as bad after they switched to the hand in the OR, but still sore. And the anesthesiologist who kept on trying to give me versed and telling me I am a nervous mess. I think I finally let him before I rolled back, and then I felt really woozy and the room spun. Just because I was asking what meds he planned on using and whether he was going to intubate or use a LMA didnt mean I was nervous - it meant I had preferences. (He used the meds I preferred, but they did intubate. Evidently they had me on my side and he thought he might loose the airway otherwise. Fair enough. I wont argue with that!) I know he meant well but I would much prefer if he offerred something to help me relax rather than tell me I was getting it and have me refuse and then him tell me I was wrong and I shouldnt feel bad about being nervous and I should just shut-up and stop refusing because I would feel better. (OK, he was nicer than I am making out and meant well, I just found it frustrating.) I'm not looking forward to tomorrow - something tells me I will be really stiff and sore when I wake up. I think I might set an alarm for a couple hours before I want to get up to take lortab so it will kick in.

Wow. I was squirming in my seat as I read your report. My closest experience to surgery is giving blood, and I HATE having the needle in me. It hurts from the time it goes in, to after it comes out. I don't envy you. I'm glad that the operation went well, that you may be able to move around in a couple of days. How long before you can resume normal every day activities like walking around crutches free?

Wonder if the pain meds are making you nauseated? In any case, no fun, hope you are over it soon. So did Dr.Red-head have any comments about what she found once she got in there? How long is your incision line? Time line to return to normal activity sounds really good! Have a nice nap!

Why would anyone stare at you? It's not uncommon to have somone on crutches in the hospital.

OK, my mom is finally gone. I dont mean to be ungrateful, but parents, when you have adult kids living on their own, please respect their wishes! If they ask you repeatedly to leave them alone and not visit, they probably want you to leave them alone and not visit! I know its profound and difficult to understand. And I'm sorry, there was no compromise on my mom's part: the whole I'll come down after to take care of you but notbefore the surgery just wasn't a compromise - thats doing what she wanted to do. Maybe taking what I wanted into consideration a tiny bit, but not really. And when I told her multiple times that I didnt need my book-shelf straightened, I really meant it. So don't get mad at me when you ask for the fifth time and I tell you "I guess you can neaten it" and then when you ask where I want stuff thats on it I tell you right where it is. So the bottom line, parents, if you are trying to help your kids, do it in a way that is helpful. Now that she's gone, I can clean up the mess she left. (I know she cleaned, but she didnt clean the way I like things done! And I need to put things back where I can find them.) And I dont have to hear about how my decision was premature and she hopes I dont have long-term complications until I answer the phone again. Which I might not do for many days.