Not much of a significant change since the last post. I'm still on Tramadol, which helps take care of the pain when it's in my system. However, I also think it's giving me migraine headaches - no idea if this is a Serotonin Syndrome red flag. All I know is that I've felt like roadkill for the past month.
The wound care specialist has declared my left ankle surgical wound healed. All that is left is a small scab, which can be dealt with by Laclotion or something similar. So, no more trips to that doctor - just a bill in dispute over the stuff he used on me to make the gaping wound fix itself -- or something like that. The next gaping wound may be in my bank account.
I did pay a visit to my regular doctor (the one who's trying to be ringleader of this five-ring circus) and talked to him about a couple of things. First, he's referred me back to an orthopedist with whom I have an established history, even if the last time he saw me was prior to 2009's disaster. He's got a much better bedside manner, compared to the...well, let's just leave it at that. Suffice it to say that he's going to get a bit of a shock when he sees the records I've had transferred to him.
The last time I did see orthopedist #2 (the one I'll be going to), he said I had bone spurs lose in my left knee. I didn't have an operation on them because I didn't have any leave to take. Now, with me on full-time medical disability, I could theoretically go in on Monday and have the surgery done on the same day. Time has little meaning for me right now (except for the times when my wife is away from the house and I'm all alone - yes, it's sappy, but it's true).
My regular doctor also had blood drawn for five different tests, including testosterone again. All of the energy I had when I was getting shots has gone pffft on me. I don't know if the Tramadol is the culprit this time or if I'm just naturally low on testosterone. Either way, I hope there's something that can be done.
Showing posts with label surgery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label surgery. Show all posts
Friday, June 21, 2013
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Case Closing, I Hope
The wound care doctor has managed finally to get my surgical wound on my outer left ankle to heal to the point where I can get it wet, wear socks, and do my normal stuff without help from my wife (she is rejoicing, yes). He went to using a "long acting" collagen with a different dressing. I still had to keep it dry during showers, but I didn't need a re-wrap afterwards. I'm still experiencing pain to the touch above it - something I will explain to my Pain Management doctor when I see him this morning - and I'm still taking Methadone 3 times a day to keep it and all of the other pain under control, be it from the fractures or from other arthritic conditions. Two more appointments and I should be done with the wound care.
That allows me to approach other problems not caused by the fall. First up will be my left knee, which I screwed up badly in a bicycle accident in the early 80s. I won't bore you with the details - suffice it to say that I had the knee scoped back when arthroscopic surgery was still relatively new, and the doctor who performed it was not much of a specialist. I've got arthritis, bone spurs, damage behind the patella, and other aches & pains that I've lived with since the operation. To this day I can't kneel, even with a pillow. I'd say that makes it an extremely good candidate for surgery.
Even that won't be the end of it. I've got arthritis in my right knee with bone-on-bone on the medial side, and I can't lean or kneel on it either. I need to fix this, get the rest of the hardware implants removed from my right foot, and see if something can be done about the arthritic symptoms I've had in the lower spinal vertebrae.
Next update will hopefully be a continuation of what happened to get my ankles into the shape they're in right now. We shall see.
That allows me to approach other problems not caused by the fall. First up will be my left knee, which I screwed up badly in a bicycle accident in the early 80s. I won't bore you with the details - suffice it to say that I had the knee scoped back when arthroscopic surgery was still relatively new, and the doctor who performed it was not much of a specialist. I've got arthritis, bone spurs, damage behind the patella, and other aches & pains that I've lived with since the operation. To this day I can't kneel, even with a pillow. I'd say that makes it an extremely good candidate for surgery.
Even that won't be the end of it. I've got arthritis in my right knee with bone-on-bone on the medial side, and I can't lean or kneel on it either. I need to fix this, get the rest of the hardware implants removed from my right foot, and see if something can be done about the arthritic symptoms I've had in the lower spinal vertebrae.
Next update will hopefully be a continuation of what happened to get my ankles into the shape they're in right now. We shall see.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Getting Back On Track, Again
A kind soul on Facebook finally gave kick in the seat of my pants that I needed to get this blog going again. Let's see, where were we...ah, yes! The nightmare during surgery.
I've been trying to figure out that dream for a couple of years now, but a description still eludes me. Suffice it to say that I dreamt, either during surgery or in recovery, that I was being operated on in a wood-paneled room in something that seemed like a room in, of all places, Hell!. I can't remember if I was in hell, going there, or if World War III had just broken out and everybody was headed there. Either way, I dreamt that I was trying to warn the surgeon (in mid-operation) that he shouldn't be operating on me with the end of the world imminent.
My wife says I really did say this next part during recovery. Apparently, I told a nurse that I had accidentally created a MIDI controller (musical device for non-techheads) that would launch all of the world's missiles if someone programmed it to play a certain song. Don't ask me what the song was - I can't remember.
The whole hallucination was probably due to the length of the operation. I was under for two or three hours. Not long when compared to an organ replacement, but plenty long when you consider just how much ankle hardware the doctor had to insert in order to repair bimalleolar fractures with complete dislocation on both feet.
Suffice it to say that I was under for more time than I've ever been. I also woke up in EXTREME pain.
Not to end the story, but just a quick status update: I'm now on long term disability leave from my job due to a laundry list of problems that keeps getting longer. I have a heart condition called PVC (Premature Ventricular Contractions) that can strike without warning, and the electrocardiology specialist who verified these (along with another heart problem) says there's nothing he can do, mainly due to the operation I had which put the Greenfield mesh filter into my vena cava. I won't go into the other problems since they're most likely not due to the gastric bypass, but next update I will go into the real hell that is called Spending Time in a Crappy Hospital.
Watch this space for the next installment, and thank you for reading.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Bad Omens
Okay, so the first doctor was a washout. Fine, just find another doctor, right? Sign up for his monthly pre-op orientation session, go, and get the ball rolling again.
It wasn't that easy.
I signed up for doctor #2's orientation session online. The class was scheduled a couple of hours before I had to go to work (I've done a 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. airshift for years now). I show up, and there's a note on the door - the meeting's been cancelled. No warning, no phone call, no e-mail - just cancelled, no reason given.
The next day I called the doctor's office and rescheduled things. Turns out I didn't need to go to his orientation session since I'd been to one when I was still considering doctor #1. That'll teach me to deal with a doctor over the Internet - do it by voice, so you'll know who to yell at next time.
By the latter part of 2009 I was finally getting things squared away for my bypass. I'd met the bypass doctor, got cardiac approval, had the psychiatric and other counseling done, got insurance approval, and was just waiting for a final appointment with the surgeon prior to the operation. I was in a bit of a hurry at this point since the end of the year was fast approaching and my insurance deductible would soon re-set. The Gods of Scheduling must have known this, because it seemed like there was a delay at every possible point. Even that final pre-op session with the doctor was rescheduled to another day, just hours before the appointment time.
I'd considered myself lucky to have made it through the mindfields of dealing with doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies, but contrary to how I felt, my luck was running out.
Come the day of the pre-op doctor's appointment and my wife and I were sitting in the exam room, talking with the surgeon. I was on an examination table that was rather high off the ground, and I had taken my glasses case out of my pocket and was holding them for some reason I can't recall. Somehow I managed to drop them onto the floor on the right side of the table. I bent over to retrieve them, and right as I got my arm to the floor I felt something go *POP* on the lower right-hand side of my rib cage. This was followed by a pretty good dose of pain. I had either pulled a rib cage muscle or done some damage to the cartilage between the ribs, but for some reason the surgeon didn't seem too concerned. The pain would stay with me for the next four weeks and would impede my recovery, but I didn't know that at the time.
I should have recognized right there that I'd been getting bad omens for weeks. I didn't even want to consider it, though - I was determined to get the gastric bypass, and I wasn't about to get superstitious before the operation.
Shows you what I know about superstitions, I guess.
(To be continued...)
It wasn't that easy.
I signed up for doctor #2's orientation session online. The class was scheduled a couple of hours before I had to go to work (I've done a 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. airshift for years now). I show up, and there's a note on the door - the meeting's been cancelled. No warning, no phone call, no e-mail - just cancelled, no reason given.
The next day I called the doctor's office and rescheduled things. Turns out I didn't need to go to his orientation session since I'd been to one when I was still considering doctor #1. That'll teach me to deal with a doctor over the Internet - do it by voice, so you'll know who to yell at next time.
By the latter part of 2009 I was finally getting things squared away for my bypass. I'd met the bypass doctor, got cardiac approval, had the psychiatric and other counseling done, got insurance approval, and was just waiting for a final appointment with the surgeon prior to the operation. I was in a bit of a hurry at this point since the end of the year was fast approaching and my insurance deductible would soon re-set. The Gods of Scheduling must have known this, because it seemed like there was a delay at every possible point. Even that final pre-op session with the doctor was rescheduled to another day, just hours before the appointment time.
I'd considered myself lucky to have made it through the mindfields of dealing with doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies, but contrary to how I felt, my luck was running out.
Come the day of the pre-op doctor's appointment and my wife and I were sitting in the exam room, talking with the surgeon. I was on an examination table that was rather high off the ground, and I had taken my glasses case out of my pocket and was holding them for some reason I can't recall. Somehow I managed to drop them onto the floor on the right side of the table. I bent over to retrieve them, and right as I got my arm to the floor I felt something go *POP* on the lower right-hand side of my rib cage. This was followed by a pretty good dose of pain. I had either pulled a rib cage muscle or done some damage to the cartilage between the ribs, but for some reason the surgeon didn't seem too concerned. The pain would stay with me for the next four weeks and would impede my recovery, but I didn't know that at the time.
I should have recognized right there that I'd been getting bad omens for weeks. I didn't even want to consider it, though - I was determined to get the gastric bypass, and I wasn't about to get superstitious before the operation.
Shows you what I know about superstitions, I guess.
(To be continued...)
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