The last couple of weeks are something of a blurr now. In many ways time plodded along, in other ways it flew by so fast. Of course, I was unconscious for a portion of one day. Several folks have asked me to describe some of my experience, and I'll try to do that here. With luck, my make-shift photo techniques will offer up some visual aids for the amusement of all.
I'll begin with describing the pre-op routine I underwent the night prior to surgery. During the morning pre-op meeting (with nurse, anethatist, etc.) at the hospital, I was given a speciman container filled with 2% chlorhexidine gluconate, an anticeptic. The instruction was to shower just before going to bed, using the anticeptic in place of any soap or body wash. There was enough in the container to scrub every nook and cranny from top of head to tip of toes of my person a total of three times. I felt very clean crawling into bed that night. In the morning, after checking in, I was handed a sealed package containing six towlettes that had been soaked in the same solution. The towelettes were snow white, and had a texture similar to a cat's tongue. Using a numbered drawing as a guide, I was told to use one towelette on each section of my body, being careful not to overlap any of the areas. Happened to glance at the towelette used on my chest, and noted a distinctive beige colouring. Was it dead skin? Something that had oozed out of my pores overnight? Dirt that failed to come off during the previous night's ample washing? I have no idea, but I suddenly felt very dirty despite giving myself a most thorough cleaning. The pre-op nurse told me all this cleaning was part of a program to help reduce the number of infections patients contract while in hospital. Apparently the method has lowered the incidence of H1N1, Norwalk, c-difficile, and other infections by at least 40%. So all worth the effort, me thinks. But the cleaning wasn't limited to my skin alone. Oh no. The most amusing aspect of the routine (at least for Phil and Ellen who were standing by until I was called to the OR) came when a nurse continued the disinfecting process by attacking any nasties that might be lurking in my nose. That's right, my nose. She first swabbed each nostril with a bright blue solution, and then inserted a light bulb (like those little LED Christmas bulbs) in each nostril. I could feel things warming up, but it wasn't to the point of being uncomfortable. The blue solution did give off a rather odd odour, however. Here's a photo Ellen took via her cell phone. The spiffy glasses helped protect my eyes from the very bright light that had once been my dainty proboscis.
Within minutes after that, I was whisked into the OR, had a brief chat with the surgical team, and said goodnight to those gathered around.
Next thing I knew I was in recovery and being wheeled onto the neuro-ICU ward. Lunch arrived a short time later as did the first group of residents making their rounds. As Penny reported, I was awake enough to greet the group even if I could only see half of them.
Every hour on the hour for the first two days, a nurse would check my brain function. She'd ask my name, where I was, why I was there, and then have me wiggle my fingers and toes, squeeze her hands, lift my arms and go through several other gyrations to ensure all synapses were firing as they should. At first this seemed rather silly since I knew very well who I was and could easily perform all the tasks as requested. However, I could easily overhear similar conversations being held in the adjacent rooms, with less postive results. An older gent in one room beside me had suffered a stroke, and couldn't say his name. He also thought he was in a hotel rather than a hospital, but couldn't figure out what city he might be in or what might bring him to a hotel where folks asked him odd questions. There were a number of other brain injuries, some from car or industrial accidents. Then there was the dude who just woke from a coma after being in a bar room brawl - he had several drinks, a few Tylenol for a headache, a few more drinks, got into an altercation in which he struck his head en route to the floor. When he woke up on the ward he didn't know where he was or what had happened to him, proceeded to rip out all his lines, and took out one nurse while she was emptying a drain. After that the fellow was retrained and nurses and other staff were instructed to not enter his room alone. Yup, time on the ward was a real eye-opener. Once again I considered myself very fortunate to be there under the circumstances as they were rather than as any of these others had come to be there.
Odd thing: I felt very little pain post surgery. Only thing I took was regular strength Tylenol. On the 1-10 pain scale, my discomfort never got higher than a low 3. Again, I feel very fortunate. Especially when one considers how I looked once the bandage was removed. To think that some folks pay a lot of money to look like this! If only I had surgery a couple of weeks earlier, I would have won every Halloween contest going!
Two weeks post-surgery, there is still some minor brusing in the under eye area as well as on the inside of my right wrist where one of the IV lines was inserted. Suspect the fact that I'm back on the anti-clotting agent dalteparin has much to do with the slowness of healing. I had the staples removed last Tues, just prior to starting radiation. My very short hair still has large globs of blood attached to it along the incision lines. Have tried to remove it using warm cloths, but hair and scabs continue to pull away as well which starts things bleeding again (thanks to the deltaparin, no doubt), so I'm letting it fall out of its own accord. All of my hair should be falling out very soon in any case, thanks to the radiation. With luck, by then the incisions will have healed enough to do a proper clean up.
So far radiation treatment is going okay. It takes longer to set things up than to do the actual treatment. The techs line the beam up to the bridge of my nose and the two bones at the back of my skull (one either side of the spine). I get two blasts of radiation, one on each side. Each blast lasts about one minute. The odd part of the whole experience is the sudden smell of ozone as the radiation beam bursts into action. The room smells like smoky bleach. Not unpleasant, but not exactly appealing either. Just strange.
I've taken a taxi to Donna's after each treatment, even though her condo is only a couple of blocks away. Guess all that attention to the brain has more of an unsettling effect that I first imagined. Know I'm suddenly quite tired. After the first treatment, I had one of the worst headaches of my life. Suspect it was my very first full-blown migrane. Lots of those odd auras like I had a few weeks back when I thought something weird was happening to my eyes. Fortunately, after the second radiation treatment, I was put back on Dexamethasone, so post radiation brain swelling is better controled and, thus, so are the headaches. But I'm still mighty tired. Had hoped to use time in town to catch up with folks I haven't seen for a while. Instead, I'm spending a lot of time in bed. Guess that's what my body wants right now.
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