Happy birthday to me! I’m now officially on the road to 50
and just hope I make it.
For my No. 49, and this was premeditated, I celebrated – or whatever
the right word would be – in Acibadem hospital, getting my shoulder fixed. Not
the same shoulder I got fixed two years ago; the one I hurt picking up a
jacket. No kidding. My suede Timberland
jacket fell off my chair at work last year and, when I went to pick it up, an
evil gremlin ripped it out of its socket, twisted it and then crammed it back
in.
It’s been over a year, several topicals, a shot, steroids, a
couple MRIs, X-rays, PT, two cortisone shots and more PT, and finally it came
down to surgery. And at that point, after all that, to think I could really be
on the road to recovery in a day, well, that was a birthday present. I found
out I’d need the surgery last week but they couldn’t get me in until Saturday.
I was fine with that.
So for my birthday, I headed up to the hospital, decked in
green. I got a lot of weird stares. Oh well.
The hospital, someone at work told me, was like a six-star
hotel. I gotta say, it was really swanky. There was a room service menu, but I
couldn’t eat anything prior to surgery. Gosh, that’s the worst. I couldn’t eat
or drink from midnight to surgery time, which meant 12 and a half hours. No tea
for 12 ½ hours – that’s criminal. And I was just so hungry!
There was a giant clock above he TV and I was just counting
down until I went under so I didn’t have to think of how hungry and thirsty I
was. Finally they took me to the room, which didn’t seem like an OR to me. It
had a bunch of equipment in it and I felt like it could have been a warehouse
except everything was clean. I almost expected more people to be in surgery at the
same time; there was that much equipment.
Anyway, they put me under intravenously. Took no time at
all. When I woke up, some two hours later, I was just shaking uncontrollably,
but I guess that was normal. No one looked panicked, and there were a bunch of
people there.
Back in my room, I was still thirsty more than hungry but
when the guy brought food I got hungry again. He brought two meals; I guess because
I missed lunch. I had both soups but only the roasted chicken meal. Felt so
much better after that.
Everyone in the hospital was nice, but you can’t get a lot
of rest with people checking up on you constantly. One person kept coming to
ice my shoulder and another would do the IV thing.
I hate the IV thing. It’s preferable to needles going in and
out; I get that. But the idea of a
needle living under my skin just gives me the heebie jeebies, It limited me
more, too, because I had on arm immobilized and a needle in my other. I couldn't hold the phone to my ear at all.
I was mobile, but when they had the IV hooked up, it was a
pain. You think grocery carts have bad wheels? They had nothing on this. I had
to drag it from here to there and it would just get stuck on one of the bad
wheels. I even resorted to just picking it up but since I had a needle in that
arm it creeped me out. I really didn’t want to drop I and rip the needle out of
my arm, so I mostly drug it, feeling like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
The rounds continued through the night so I didn’t get a lot
of sleep but I haven’t been in real pain yet. One of the IVs was a painkiller
but they didn’t send me home with any drugs. The doctor said to just take
Advil.
After a tiny breakfast of a piece of pineapple – no tea, no milk,
no toast – and the an amazing lunch of salmon, potatoes au gratin and chocolate
cake, I got the OK to leave. I was still trying to find out some details and I
was walking to the nurses’ station to ask when I saw a lady with tea. She must
have caught a glimpse of the look on my face because she offered me some. Did I
want tea? Of course!
Now I’m home and doing fine. I have a sling more complicated
than one of Wendy’s saddles and a massive ice pack. Playing work by ear but
plan on going just out of sheer boredom.
Right now, though, I am curled up with Butch and Sundance.
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