Hospital Post-Op

I knew it was going to be rough, but rough is an understatement

Thursday, the first night after my surgery was excruciating. I couldn't keep my eyes open and the pain was quite intense; I couldn't even pick up my head. I could administer morphine by a button as needed, but I was so out of it and in so much pain that the nurses even had to help me do that. I found out that I didn't have to go to ICU because my vitals were good, but it was hard to believe that I could be in a regular room when I had so much pain. It was a relief to be out of surgery, but felt like I was being stabbed all over my head by a huge sharp knife.

Manami ordering my dinner, which I couldn't eat :-(

Ross and Bob were with me and then Manami came by, but I felt like I couldn't even focus to see her. She says I was actually communicating pretty well, but I really can't remember it.

Thursday through Sunday were pretty rough days. The pain was extremely intense and I couldn't hold down any food or anything I drank. One of the nurses, Virginia realized on Saturday that I was probably also having caffeine withdrawal since I usually have a big cup of coffee every morning and then a couple of diet Cokes in the afternoon. When she gave me something with caffeine it did improve slightly. bob did ask people not to visit because I was having such a hard time, but I did have a couple of visitors and was thankful to see them.

Nurses Virginia & Rowena

Ludlow & Alyssa

I wish I had more photos of all of the nurses and techs that helped me. I appreciated them so much; they were always so kind and helpful. I wasn't able to focus my eyes/mind on my phone camera until Monday.

Dr. Tyagi

Friday morning Dr. Tyagi visited me and explained how everything went. She had already explained it all to Bob and Ross and Bob told me, but I had a hard time remembering. She said that she did a craniectomy around the posterier fossa, she removed some of the Dura (covering of the brain) and then could see that my brain was pressed right up against the bone and the cerebral spinal fluid was obstructed so she also shaved the cerebellar tonsils to give more room. This would help the flow of fluid not to be obstructed and the nerves to be decompressed. She said that not only was the cerebral spinal fluid obstructed, but that the cerebellar tonsils also showed evidence of compression. This was actually really good to hear since even though the herniation was shown on my MRI it wasn't as evident that the flow was obstructed. It was good to hear that there was real evidence that supported the need for surgery and that could mean that my symptoms may have continued to progress to even a worse state.

Does this look like a woman who is up to physical therapy?

 Friday they already drug me out of bed to go to physical therapy even though I resisted. It was a major effort just to lift my head and sit up. They said that they needed to do physical therapy before I could be released and that the physical therapy staff didn't work on the weekend. Just to sit was enough and then they had me get up, walk across the floor, go up and down a couple of steps and step in and out of a bathtub. Then I had to do arm and leg lifts. You can't imagine how challenging this was. Then it was time for a nap.

from Tommy & Connie Beene

Saturday was once again quite challenging with pain control and trying to keep anything down. I had a few visitors, but could hardly speak to them. Appreciate it so much though. One of Dr. Tyagi's associates came by and removed my bandage and of course I wanted to see what it looked like right away. I also had Bob count my staples - 19 of them. Wow! So good to see that Dr. Tyagi only had a small strip of my hair shaved right down the middle of the back of my head. I had seen so many pictures of people who had the whole bottom half of their head shaved. So here it goes....are you ready? You gotta help me out by feelin' a little of my pain. :-)

19 staples does look like a zipper!

 

 

 

By the way my hair was plastered to the sides away from the incision area by antiseptic glue. On Monday Dr.Tyagi released me to go home and said I could shower and wash my hair like normal. I tried getting all that glue out, but it's going to take a couple of shampoos.

guess they had trouble finding a vein