ACL 2.2

So Friday I went back in for part 2 of my ACL surgery. By Friday morning I was feeling pretty good and was off of the pain meds from Wednesday's experience.

I discussed things with the anesthesiologist and he said that doing an epidural instead of general anesthesia. This would hopefully result in less nausea. So I went in, got my epidural, got a little "thwighlight" (this basically made it so I didn't remember the operation) and they finished the surgery.

Coming back into the recovery room I had the shakes pretty bad. I guess that is normal with epidurals. It tool awhile for my legs to get feeling back. It was kind of freeky because they felt like they where bent but I could see that they were lying flat.

The big challenge then became to pee. I couldn't go home until I emptied my bladder. I had had problems with that on Wednesday. Well, I found out that epidurals are worse in this sense. Finally at around 5 or 6 the doctor said they needed to give me catheter and admit me to the hospital overnight.

The pain really hadn't been too bad up to this point. They had given me some pain meds that had helped. One of the meds made me feel just a little bit queasy. The nurse asked if I wanted some anit-nausea medicine. I said that I as probably fine but she insisted that it would only get worse if I didn't take the medicine. It completely knocked me out. I couldn't really sleep but I could not keep my eyes open. So I was a bit incoherent for the next couple of hours.

While they were figuring out where they were going to admit me and how they were going to get me there I was detached from my ice machine almost the entire time. A couple of hours had passed by the time I was settled in the hospital room and hooked up again. During that time my leg had really swelled up and that caused a lot of pain.

Nathan and Kiersten came by as did Brad Smith. Nathan and Brad gave me a blessing and then let me rest. I still couldn't keep my eyes open for more than 30 seconds at a time.

I tried to just stick with my Tylenol medicine but by around 2am the pain was just too intense. The nurse gave me some morphine and that helped a little bit. I was able to sleep for an hour at a time and then would just be counting the minutes until my next dose of morphine.

By the morning the swelling had gone down and the pain was much better. They tool the catheter out and gave me another chance on the potty. No luck. At around 12:30 I was about to explode and the catheter had to go back in.

After that I was able to get my best sleep yet. I then spoke to the doctor and he said that they would take the catheter out again at 4pm and if I could empty my bladder before 10pm I could go home.

So after 4pm I tried for the next 6 hours. Finally at 9:30 I was able to. There had been a shift change though and the new nurses didn't seem to understand the instructions. They were going to make us stay until the next morning. We told them they needed to call the doctor. Finally at 11pm they told us we could leave.

By 11:30 we were finally home. Last night wasn't too bad. I started using my perpetual motion machine and that felt good. My pain is really gone as long as I stay horizontal.