As you already know from the previous post, it was going to be a long day, but it got to be even longer when my 4:00 pm surgery didn't happen until 7:00 pm. And, it's a little unsettling when your ortho surgeon is yawning through his pre-op consult with you after being in surgery since 7:30 that morning!
I didn't sleep much the night before as I was busy getting ready and got up to eat a high-protein meal at 11:30 so it would carry me through the next day. Am so glad I did that! I was allowed 8 ounces of water at 6:00 am to take my medications. We left the house a little after 2:00 am for the airport. After we dropped Johanna and the kids at the airport, we drove back up the freeway a short distance so Steve could have breakfast. I stayed in the car and told him not to even smell like food when he came back! ha.... We then drove 1/2 way into SF and stopped at a rest stop where we always stop. We slept there for several hours. When we went to leave, the battery was dead! Steve had the key on to listen to the radio and I was charging my phone. Fortunately, we had an emergency battery pack and hooked it up to the battery to get it started. We drove on into the city and sat some more in the hospital lobby until it was my check-in time at 1:40 pm. Then we sat some more until they finally called me for pre-op around 6:00 ish.
I was grateful for the skillful lab tech who was able to get an IV started in the back of my left hand. My veins are damaged from an early round of chemo that was done without a port. Turns out he was from our area and graduated from the local high school. We had fun visiting! And, Steve kept finding nurses (Females) in my care who rode motorcycles! So there was a lot of motorcycle talk!
Everyone on the operating team came by pre-op to introduce themselves and meet me. My PA had to leave at 5:00 but there were others on the team - a dr doing a fellowship in ortho, a resident, a 4th year medical student. The anesthesiologist was a resident who was going to be doing my anesthesia. She was accompanied by her "attending" anesthesiologist. My lips and throat sure took a beating and don't know if that was due to how they had to move me onto my stomach to work on my back or her "skill". Somewhere in my stack of papers, I remember seeing a note that my ortho was the "attending" physician as well. So I'm not sure who actually did the procedure. I don't remember much of anything after entering the OR until waking up in recovery. My ortho doc is such a sweet, kind man. He went all the way down to the 1st floor to get Steve and took him back up to recovery. Then talked to us both about the procedure and how things went well.
I was given a private room that had a chair that folded into a futon for Steve. The nurses gave him a pillow and blanket and he was soon fast asleep. I slept, too, most of the night other than the interruptions from the nurse checking on me and checking my vitals.
The nursing staff changed the next morning and we had the dearest middle-aged woman from the UK assigned to us. She was sure we'd be out of there by 10:00 am. We were so happy to hear that and anxious to head home. However, my doc was in surgery again and there were no orders left for my discharge! Finally, around 12:30 they got a hold of one of his PA's and told them we needed to get out of there for our long drive home and before the traffic got so heavy in the afternoon. She brought the pharmacist who went over post-op meds and we opted for sending the prescriptions to our local Costco pharmacy so we could get going and not wait for them to be filled at the local Walgreen's. When they brought my discharge papers, we noticed he had accidently sent the scripts to a specialty pharmacy in Sacramento who fills my chemo pills! It would have taken me 5 days to receive the drugs and I was to start on them as soon as I got home. Now it's back to tracking down everybody again and more waiting! Finally got it sent to Costco and we left there just before 3:00 pm and drove into the heavy Friday afternoon traffic! We didn't get home until 9:00 pm that night.
When we arrived home the answering machine light was blinking so took a few minutes to listen to messages before falling exhausted into bed. The pharmacy in Sacramento was calling about my prescription!! Great! They hadn't canceled it! I called Costco as soon as they opened the next morning and found out they had the prescription but couldn't fill cause the other pharmacy had already entered it into the insurance computer. She was able to come up with a solution, however. They would fill the script and we could pay for it. When we could cancel the other one on Monday morning, they would run mine through the insurance and we would receive credit for the difference.
So there are all the details of my adventure with kyphoplasty. I have to say the staff and nurses we encountered at UCSF were great! They were just as frustrated with the poor communication as we were.
There was a lot of waiting through the entire day. I did nap a little but found it difficult to sleep much. I read a book most of the time which helped keep my mind occupied. But overall, I would have to say there was a calm and peace that I knew could only come from Above and the prayers that were spoken on my behalf.
