March 15, 2024 Left hip replacement. Lunch - Grilled Salmon, Parsley Noodles, and chocolate pudding. Dinner - Pasta Primavera with chicken, chocolate pudding, Orange Sherbet, and dinner roll
What a difference an operation makes. This was an amazing day. We arose at 5:20 and I showered and rubbed my body with the anti-bacterial gel and we drove to the hospital at 6:30
When we arrived at 6:50 we registered and I paid my $300.00 fee for the operation.
I was told to go down to the surgery waiting area at the end of the hall.
When we arrive at the area a woman came out of an office and asked, “Are you Mr. Simon?”
When I said, “Yes.”, she responded, “They are ready for you.” Spandex walked me to an elevator and we went down to OR, where I stripped and put on a hospital gown and got into a bed. Then in rather rapid succession my nurse expertly put an IV into my arm and started a saline a glucose drip and shaved my incision area and covered me and I rested until 9:00 when they took me to the OR and administered a lower body block and put me to sleep. One and one-half hours I awakened in the recovery room and in another two hours I was taken to a private room on the Ortho floor of the hospital that was far more quiet than the ICU where I was taken after the first hip .
I had not eaten after 9:00 p.m. on the. 14th so was getting hungry even though I was still on the 5% glucose drip, so ordered grilled salmon, parsley noodles, and chocolate pudding.
Suzette came and sat with me for a few minutes and left around 3:00 when the food arrived because the plumbers were installing fixtures in the bathroom.
Luke called and we talked for a while and at 5:30 Willy came by after work.
What is amazing is that my vitals are much better than last and I am not in pain although I am being given Tylenol and Tramadol every 8 hours.
The dietician came by and we discussed my diet and she took me offrestricted protein and ordered double portions of carbs for me.
Before she came at 4:00 I had ordered dinner; Pasta Primavera without meat , but her order must have been conveyed to the kitchen because when I was served dinner at 6:00 the pasta was sprinkled with chicken and cheese plus chicken broth, a dinner roll, vanilla pudding, and orange sherbet. I first drank the chicken broth and ate the dinner roll. Then I ate most of the pasta and all the vegetables and about 1/2 of the chicken. A. little later I ate the orange sherbet, which had lots of sugar in it around 7:00.
At 8:00 I ate the chocolate pudding
The other thing that amazed was that when Physical Therapy came around 3:00 when I sat up and they took my blood pressure it was 193 over 8something. Then when I stood up my blood pressure dropped to 163 over 66, so I took 5 steps in each direction and got back in bed because the drop of 30 points was unacceptable for physical therapy.
Then when the took my blood pressure at 7:20 it was almost normal at 155 over 75 and my blood sugar was 125.
When my night nurse Jaroslav who had been a doctor in Ukraine who emigrated 20 years ago, but did not understand English wee enough to study for medical board certification, things changed again. It was like being drafted into the Ukrainian army. He stopped the IV drip and got me up and walked me to the door to the room, still without any pain. I felt like he would have me on the road to recovery whether I wanted it or not.
Then when we took vitals and took meds at 11:00 I had stabilized further. My blood pressure was nearly normal at 135 over 66 and blood sugars were 155. I guess he had read the notes and he replaced the 5% glucose drip for bed time and we had a 1/2 hour discussion about how Russia is behind all the chaos in the world from Ukraine to China, to Hamas, to Iran, to the U.S.
We both became friends and shook hands.
It will be interesting to see what blood sugars are and blood pressure are at 6:00 a.m. at the next check point.
It is 12:00 midnight and I am going to try to get some sleep.
The ortho floor is completely quiet, so it should be easy.
Bon Appetit
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