For those who actually made it through the first part of this story, I both apologize for the longevity of this story and thank you for your endurance. For those who checked out already, I have no apologies for you. Go find something else to view on the internet until I write about something else (it’s my blog, I can write about whatever I want on it). Anyway, without further ado, here is my week of recovery:
DAY 3: My doctor had sent me home with prescriptions for Percocet (for pain) and Cipro (to prevent infection). I was allowed to take between 4 and 8 pain relievers a day as needed, though even in the first day back I don’t think I exceeded 4. I did find that the pain relievers were necessary as nothing felt very good around hour 6, but one every 6 hours kept me on track pretty well. My wife did what she could to keep me comfy and the children at bay – even went so far as to pawn them off on my mother-in-law for the afternoon. But truth be told the afternoon without them was kind of boring.
DAY 4: This morning proved complex as once again the kids needed to be places around the same time that I needed to be about a half-hour away (the one downside of shopping for a better urologist in a better hospital). If I could drive myself I probably would have, but once again we ended up in morning traffic and once again my wife had that aura of spontaneous combustion. Ironically the office had no idea I was coming in, so I had to wait a bit before the doctor could come pull the centimeter wide tube from my back. If I had brought my Percocet with me, I would have popped another as soon as I could because the spot where the tube was burned like hell for about 15 minutes afterward. But by the time we made it home, not only did it feel better, I was in significantly less pain in general from that point forward (and no more bag strapped to my leg to drain every few hours). Tonight, I retired to my own bed again.
DAY 5 – 7: I’m lumping these days together because there was honestly little to report. I spent most of the time either watching TV or playing board games with Grasshopper (he is off from pre-school Tuesdays & Thursdays and had an in-service day on Wednesday). It was a pretty nice few days, though. He loved the attention and I was happy to spend some one-on-one time with him that didn’t involve being tackled – there were a few close calls, but he was pretty good about it most of the time.
DAY 8: This is the day that I finally would become free of all foreign objects – I came out of surgery with a tube sticking out of my back, a catheter (you know where), an IV line in my hand, and a stent running from my kidney to my bladder. I left the hospital with 2 items removed and had the third item removed on Monday. So only the stent remained. I had the sobering discussion with my dad the night before about how they remove that now that the tube is gone. My doctor told me the week before that it would only take about 30 seconds, but that they would be the scariest 30 seconds of my life. It was not an understatement. It was toe-curling. I won’t go into great detail, but there was numbing gel, a scope and a water pump involved. In the end I was somewhat shocked to see that the stent itself was only about 2 millimeters in diameter. After about 20 minutes of physical recovery, I was able to sit and eat lunch without feeling like I was going to hurl. On a positive note, I was able to kick my prescription pain meds and as a result my house arrest.
DAY 9 – 10: These are the last days of freedom before I go back to my 9 to 5. My wife has been making up for her week of caretaking by sequestering herself upstairs to do all the writing work she has fallen behind on. So it is pretty much me and the kids. I am doing my best to keep them entertained (much of the time on their own with me just mediating fights). As a result, I have needed to resort to other drugs such as coffee and ibuprofen to maintain my sanity. I’m sure the Percocet would be more effective, but that would tie me back to not leaving the house (which I cannot abide).
In the end, the surgery itself was hasher than I expected and the follow-up procedures sucked, but my recovery was much more comfortable than I anticipated. Hopefully if I ever have to repeat the experience, it will be a long, long time from now (35 more years seems a logical expectation). In the meantime, this journey is not completely over. I have a follow-up in 6 weeks to review x-rays I have to get and the results of a 24-hour urinalysis I have to send out (I would never have guessed there were pee-by-mail services). I’m sure the follow-up will come with a list of dietary recommendations that I will have to consider (though a lot of what I’ve read seems to suggest specific foods only play a small part in the puzzle). I doubt I’ll be put on any on-going medications, but my dad will probably continue to try to talk me into taking celery and cherry extract pills (they seem to work wonders for his gout). The only sure thing is that I will soon be generally back into my normal routine (which naturally involves some level of chaos).