Surgery Day and Since.......

I'm lumping this all together. Angela did a really good job of filling in for me. The surgery was more difficult that Dr. Voth expected. He and I worked out our plan for the first week following surgery before I left the hospital. He called me in more pain medication to take with my 1o? strength of Hydrocodene (nope, not 250, not 750). I basically was asleep the entire week. I took the medicine 5 times a day like clockwork, to stay heavily sedated. It worked.... I missed most of the pain, but ran into the Mouth Thrush from the antibiotics. Two round of additional medicine, and my mouth is finally starting to heal. That is one painful problem, cause you mouth burns continuously, especially the tongue.



Gary has set up an "infirmary" unit (that's what he calls it) in the living room. He installed a tall toilet prior to the surgery, and then he went to storage and got Dad's other power reclined for me to sit in. It really has helped. When you can do NOTHING with your right hand, and your left knee is bad, it's hard to get up and down. He has been so good, and here's the weird part. He seems to have enjoyed taking care of me. He custom cooks breakfast for Dad and me.



This is funny, since it turned out okay. I was watching TV in the power recliner, reclined almost all the way back, and I saw Dad attempt to sit down outside at the patio table, and he had Stella in his arms. He missed the chair and fell. I started screaming for Gary.... "Dad's fallen and can't get up, hurry ". Most of you know that Gary has permanent hearing loss in addition to the normal male selective hearing loss. I couldn't find the control to unrecline my chair, and Gary didn't seem to hear me. I couldn't get up..... Gary finally heard me and went out to help Dad get up. Thank goodness, he didn't even get a bruise. I have used a safety pin to keep the recliner controller in one spot where I can reach it with my left hand. I felt like one of those beached whales trying to get back to the water.....



I'm still relying on the pills to get me to sleep at night, as there's something about reclining that makes the arm start to throb... much like tendonitis. That is scary. I go to the doctor Friday, and I guess he'll remove the stitches, and hopefully he'll start me on physical theraphy. I am ready to do something fun, and I cannot stand not driving. I'm housebound and stir-crazy.



Gary helped me get Dad packed for his trip to Okla.. He leaves in the morning. We're going to need to get up around 6:00 am to get him to his 9:30 am flight to Tulsa. From there, he'll go to his Pawnee, Ok., high school reunion. He'll also get to visit his 89 year old sister, Lorene. Gary is "supposed" to work on laying tile in Dad's bathroom while Dad is gone. Angie is coming over tomorrow to clean Dad's room really good, and then she and I are going to have a girls day. We're going to lunch, probably chinese, and then rent movies. I'm going to make one more blog entry and then quit for the night, as the pills are starting to make me sleepy.