The Spine Fusion really happens

Back to September 11:

My dear pal, Tom, calmly gave me a hug and drove me to Adventist. 

They took me to a big open room and a bed between a couple of curtains.  The surgeon and the anesthesiologist came and greeted me.  An attendant took my clothes, and put me in some anti-clot stockings (which I found out later were several sizes too small.

In the operating room, the anesthesiologist told me "you're getting your margarita now" and a half second later, I was out.

I had expected to wake up screaming and to continue screaming until they tossed me into a broom closet to avoid scaring the others.  Instead, there must have been some anesthetic still in me, since I woke feeling fine and talking to the nurse. 

Eventually, I was taken to a private room, shown my big IV tree, and handed something with a push button--my pain drug pump.  I decided I did not want the pain meds with their accompanying nausea.  But just in case I might change my mind, I clutched the little pump. 

It was a long first night, but not quite as bad as I expected.  I had survived.  I was alive.  'Nuf said.

The spine fusion and I

The past month has been a blur.  That ambulance ride in July to St. Joseph started a whirlwind of visits to and from doctors, a new pattern of painkiller shots, and a date for surgery.  (If I didn't say so last month, I thank Dr. K again for his visits to the first hospital long past when he should have been at home in bed.)

The surgery schedule prompted many, many phone messages, and a clear phone call that surgery would be 2 days sooner than scheduled originally, at a hospital I had never seen. 

I hadn't been able to drive since the ambulance ride to emergency in July, so a wonderful person drove far out of her way to take me to registration at Glendale Adventist.  The registration was a nightmare in more than one way, and leads me to a story I have to tell.

After a couple of needles, for some reason I was led to a windowless room and told to wait.  All the chairs were too tall for my short legs, but there was a makeshift loveseat the right height.  I sat.  And sat.

After a little while, a woman came in with a tiny older woman, perhaps her mother.  She pointed at one of the tall chairs, and motioned for the tiny woman to sit.  The next time I looked I notice that the little woman had badly swollen legs and feet.  She had taken her feet out of her wedge shoes, which, from the tall chair, she could barely reach with her toes.  Her "daughter" was busy talking with a nurse and did not look at her.

I wanted to go over and suggest the mother come and sit by me, where she could reach the floor.  Then I was afraid it would cause friction with the frustrated-looking daughter.  So I did nothing.

What's wrong with this picture? 
-The nurse and the daughter did not even look at the mother, who was presumably the patient.  Nor did they speak to her.

-I wimped out and finally did nothing. 

-Our view from our cheerless room of gloomy furniture was into a huge, lavish, glass-walled room, not for patients, but for visitors and relatives.  Big, comfy chairs were in groups around coffee tables, and coffee was available. 

Again I ask:  what's wrong with that picture?  Who is important in a hospital?

More later. ..

Elephants and industrial design

When my daughters were small, maybe before first grade, we often read a little book called Brave Baby Elephant.  The kids may still remember it, because the title became a sort of secret byword for brave adventures.

The plot was that a pre-first-grade elephant decides that he will go "by himself, alone" up the stairs into the possibly dark second floor and brush his teeth without adult assistance.  Of course, he succeeds.  There were probably congratulations.  So for a long time, we would describe some new plan to do almost anything "by myself, alone."

Why am I telling you this?  I looked at the calendar and realized it's been a month since my first ever ambulance ride, and my walker and I have never gone  past the front walk by ourselves.  Muscles are disappearing, as they will when we are over 29 and under-exercised.

So today, I set out for Gelson's.  By the time one risks the parking lot and gets into the store, it's easily two blocks from here.  In said parking lot, an SUV and a kid on a skateboard each missed me by inches.  Not many inches.  Previously, I had hoped to be inconspicuous and non-invalidish.  Bad idea.  If I had been wearing Jimmy Chous, at least the woman in the SUV would have noticed me.

So my new walker design will include, of course, a London taxi horn, maybe a flashing red light as well.  There probably is no law against having these on a walker.

Designs for the well, designs for the sick

I have a car that was the one I could afford.  It has been running, except for about 10 or12 days in the shop, for over 20 years.

When I left the hospital recently, they (or Medicare) gave me a walker that will, with any luck, last 20 weeks.  The man who adjusted it to my height told me not to give it away-- it was the only one I would get in this lifetime.  A plastic guard at the bottom of one leg, to keep it from catching on the carpet, disintegrated in less than two weeks.  I found the pieces in the alley leading to the laundry room.  I guess I was supposed to carry the walker. 

A week or so later, I was told to buy a shower chair.

This blog is supposed to be about getting what we need, so I should start a letter like this:

Dear Invacare:
About this shower chair.  Really thoughtless design.  It's not safe, except maybe for washing my feet.   
 
The plastic seat and back are nice and shiny, so my soapy hand grasping for safety slides right off.

The back legs on this beauty do not cant backward.  If I even brush against it, it tilts backward immediately, leaving nothing for me to grab onto.  I'm back to showering standing up.

My roommate just got an exec chair for only $45 more than the shower chair cost.  His chair wouldn't fall backward if hit by a small car. 
What's wrong with this picture? 

It's not easy being without Green

I'm a mystery fiction addict.  I read the big boys--Michael Connolly and that crowd, because I like the way they write.

When a character in the book is on the run, hiding out, broke, or otherwise in trouble, he rents a dingy room that has a commanding view of the side of another building.  No tree, no bush, no sky. 

When I was in the hospital a couple of weeks ago, my room had a window.  It had a great window shade that kept out the hot sun, and unfortunately, the sky.  I missed the sky.

This was not a big deal; I was only there for three days, and it was pretty luxurious as hospitals go.  The nurses and aides were incredibly busy.  I guess I could have thrown myself on their mercy on our many trips to the bathroom, and got the shade opened. 

There is a "garden" at that hospital.  It's really mostly concrete, with a double koi pond and real koi.  As a patient, I saw it for only 3 seconds as I was rolled at high speed down a hallway/bridge to another wing.

Once, as a visitor, I noticed it could not be seen from my friend's room. 

My goal these days is to ensure that hospital gardens are for patients to see, and to heal from.  If you get tired of hearing about this, please give me a comment.  And if you've been a patient who could see or touch a garden when in a hospital or convalescent home, please tell us where it is.

She Don't Look Sick to Me Part 4

Several years ago, a woman from another country was my regular coiffeur, or however you spell it, cutting my hair in her own salon.  She informed me that multiple customers had told her they didn't want to come any more because so many people in wheelchairs were always there.  I decided I might someday be in a wheelchair for even a short time.  I didn't like their attitude.

Since then, someone I knew went to Europe and the UK and mentioned that they were less concerned about helping handicapped persons than the US is.
(Forget the ramps and such--get along the best you can.)

I'm lucky to be here.

For various reasons, I now have a different woman cutting and styling my hair.

And now, without much warning, I use a walker.   Sitting in the front row without it, I am the still the woman who could probably make you laugh.  Walking to the ladies' room with the walker, who am I?

SHE DON'T LOOK SICK TO ME PART 3

Suddenly, I do look sick because I have a walker. Now I am the patient.  It's a good name for us because the role requires patience.

A year and a half ago, I made a bad mistake moving furniture, which either  aggravated an existing spine problem or started a new one.  One injection.  Then, for a year and a half, I was okay as usual.  Physical therapy and some lifting restrictions.  Did my job.

Then, about a month ago, I got leg pain that an injection didn't help.
Almost two weeks ago, Saturday night,  the pain was so severe in the right leg that I didn't quite make it back to the apartment.  My roommate and benefactor more or less dragged me to the courtyard and called an ambulance.

Three days in the hospital, home for one night with big pain medicine, then back for a different kind of injections.  There are already three doctors involved.

 That right leg is the one that lets me hit the brake pedal, of course. So I'm not to drive. I can get out of this secure apartment complex, but no one can just walk in even to visit until I go to the gate.   

Some wonderful friends have helped. 
There is also a wonderful home health nurse, and wonderful as she is, there are still communication problems.  For example: Every 4 hours for mild pain as needed seems to mean different things to each of us.  I was not expecting communication problems.  There's a physical therapist and a social worker.  And I don't like thinking their questions sound like I'm 99 and a bit dotty.

Probable surgery is lurking, hovering over everything I do.  I was job-hunting; now that is on hold.  And my family is far away.

Sitting in a meeting or a waiting room, with the walker behind the chair, I don't look sick.  And yet almost my whole life is on hold.  I needed a copy of my birth certificate to apply for transportation vouchers.  The printer ran out of ink, and here I was with no transportation.
   
Have you been in this situation?  How did you cope with any fears of helplessness, fears of surgery that may not work, or of whatever?