first day

it's just after seven am i'm laying in my bed--that's where i am always to be found these days--with my foot up on the blue velvety memory foam 'foot ramp' i bought on amazon specifically for these weeks of prescribed foot raising.  i've been awake since 4:25.  my body likes to do that.  wake up 5 minutes before the set pain pill alarm. "winner winner chicken dinner," crows body as i groan and clutch for my phone and fumble with the lid of the pill bottles.  

wide awake.  now what to do.  i decided it was a good time to say my prayers.  i say them with my eyes open laying on my back.  fatima suggested i pray with my eyes open after i told her that i kept having dreams and hallucinations in the middle of my prayers.  it works.  also i'm more lucid now. my prayers are mostly long lists of gratitudes right now.  there is so much to be thankful for in a situation like this when my day is a series of loving acts of service performed by many people.  there is no other conclusion to make except to see clearly that i am so blessed.  abundantly blessed.  almost, there isn't room enough to receive it...

izzy began to wail outside my door.  i put off getting up to pee because i wouldn't be able to feed her and she would be like 'what's your deal?' and i'd be like 'i can't do things' and she'd be like 'get over yourself and put food in my bowl' and i'd be like 'i want to but i'm unable.' and she'd be like 'you will wish you never said that.'

instead i took advantage of the alone time and had a scripture study.  my notebook that i made last year is falling apart.  it needs to be re-glued.  both the covers are off but i just shuffle them together.  i use one of mom's delightful dried flower bookmarks.  today i read in alma 30. "all things denote there is a God".

by 6:30 i could hold it in no longer.  i had to get up to pee.  just as i was attempting my new method of bed to scooter transfer i heard jane's feet lighting tip tapping up the stairs.  the key is outside in it's secret location and she let herself in and was peeking in my door just after i up righted myself. we were face to face. "oh you have to go pee?" she asked and made way for me.  i was proud to show her that i didn't need any help.  i have come a long way since she last saw me on june 3.

she fed izzy while i did my thing and we all met back in the bedroom.  izzy acts crazy for food and then just takes a few bites when she gets it. we talked a bit and then jane left to go teach seminary. she will be back around 8 to give me breakfast.  she's my day babysitter today.

a lay back in bed for a while and then gathered up my gumption and rolled into the kitchen.  i rarely visit this part of the house these days.  my kingdom is bedroom, hallway, bathroom. but i wanted to brush my teeth and do the things. those implements are at the kitchen sink. spotless kitchen. spotless house thanks to leilani and heather.

now i'm back and my heel has a dull ache.  next pills in half an hour.

the last 7 days have been a blur.  i stayed up late the night before surgery making myself  salads and chopping up pineapple while talking to leilani on the phone. i had waves of butterflies come and go about the next day.  mostly i was prepared.  i prepared as much as i could.  the saturday before heather and i even did practice runs up and down the stairs and perfected our method which we call 'monkey climbing'. laundry, groceries, news & views finished and printed, board report, all was at a ready.

my check in was at 10:30 but the intake nurse told me to show up half an hour early.  i picked heather up at city hall sky train station at 9.  we parked a while so i could fill out some forms that i was supposed to bring with me but then later no one wanted them.  a guy told us we should never park where we were parked so we moved on.

i asked heather what she was going to do while i was in surgery.  she said she would probably go home.  i thought it might be risky because she would have to deal with rush hour traffic coming into vancouver from the north shore. but i was wrong.  

heather dropped me off, i went up to day surgery on the 3rd floor and the nurse was like 'you're a little early. have a seat.  we'll call you when we're ready.'  um ok.  so i amused myself doing some instagram stories, and i did my daily scripture study. around 10;30 i was called in.  my nurse was a guy.  he was nice.  i got my blood pressure and temperature taken then he took me to change.  ok first let me say that when i got a call from the clinic i asked if we wear underwear under our hospital gowns and she said "uh please do", her tone implying that i was pervert.  so when i was changing in to my gowns (one for front and one for back) i heard another nurse take someone else in and she said \"take everything off, even the underwear." "even the underwear?!" i interrupted from behind my curtain.  my nurse never said that.  "yes even the underwear she reiterated. so 2 gowns.  one with the back open, and the other over top like a coat to hide your rump roast, two bootie slippers, one hair net.  when i came out she took my stuff and said they were waiting for me and i could just walk over there.

when i walked over there was a nurse doing a big stretch at the reception.  she had no idea who i was or who was ready for me.  i said "do you want me to wait over there?" she was like "yah, i'll tell you if i find someone."  well she didn't.  so i was sitting in the hall in my get up when one of the drs comes searching for me.  "laura clarke?"  that's me!  "we've been waiting for you!" she said in a friendly way.  i tried to explain how i had come and been turned away  and she kind of answered in a baby voice "oh who would turn you away?" like you coo to an angry baby.  lol.  she led me to a bed with a whole bunch of people around it.  they were all waiting for me. i climbed on the bed and all these friendly people started introducing themselves to me.  some were drs, some were assistants, some must have been nurses.  i don't know.  we were all there to do a nerve block.  st. paul's is a teaching hospital.  my blood pressure was taken a bunch more times.  in fact it was on repeat.  it was a really squeezie tight cuff.  another girl put in my iv.  i don't know what she was doing but i felt liquid drip over my fingers.  it was my blood.  she seemed uncocerned about it.  "i used that method you told me about." she said to another lady.  "yah it's the worst when you get it in and then accidentally take it out." said the lady.  

it was time for the nerve block.  i had to lay on my stomach and they had an ultrasound on my thigh as they traced the nerves.  there was an older dr. teaching and mentoring a group of youngers.  they were giving me some sedation.  they called it wine.  "want some more wine?" which confused me. of course i was about to say "i don't drink." haha, but it was a hypothetical question.  it was interesting to listen to them talk academically about tracing my nerves.  at some point they put freezing in.  then i turned over and they did the same to my inner thigh.  apparently there was one nerve that was hard to find so the nerve block might not be for the whole foot. already the big toe felt weird.  felt huge.  

i was left to stew for a while.  surgery was supposed to be at 12:30. (heather and i calculated i would be out of hospital by 3 or 4. ha!) but i didn't get wheeled into the or until 1pm.  getting wheeled to or is weird.  you see all the lights go by like you do in the movies.

the or had bright lights and a big swirly thing on the ceiling.  it was full of cheerful busy people.  they lined up the bed with the table and it was my job to scootch over onto it with my frozen leg.  which i did.  i remember them lining my head up with some vinyl covered cushioned head rest.  then it was like th hordes descended on me.  dr. andi said a cheery hearty hello.  then she was like \'ok team we have laura clarke we are doing this this and this to her." all the while people were grabbing at me pulling at me, putting things on me.  some guy put something yellow around my thigh. i heard him say tourniquet. someone else was pulling off my rumproast cover robe and pulling my arm out of the other one.  i got multiple ecg stickies placed on me and then the mask over my mouth and nose.  i was told to breath deep and just as someone was injecting something painful into me i was out.

coming back was like going towards a rush of noisy busy talking and sounds.  when i opened my eyes i was still in the or. and a whole team was looking down on me.  i just stared back at them mute.  dr. valjkovic smiled down on me and said something about "now it's neutral."  i just looked at her.  somehow they must have moved me onto the bed again because they wheeled me into recovery where they had me in the sitting position and kept saying how my breathing was so much better in the sitting position.  i said i could feel something in my achilles tendon and they gave me some pain pills.  the older nurse explained to the younger nurse that this would lengthen out my stay.  the younger nurse kept telling me to breath deep and to cough.

my surgery was 3.5 hours.

and thus i sat watching people for 4.5 hours. i went through 3 nurses.  apparently because of sleep apnea it takes longer for my breathing to regulate after anesthesia.  i would randomly desat, as the nurses would say. which means my oxygen would get really low.  like i was forgetting to breathe? i dunno i felt like i was breathing the whole time.  the lady beside me was very nauseous.  she just wanted to sleep but every time she would fall asleep she'd stop breathing and our nurse would be like "breathe!" a man across from me was anxious about staying in hospital. he just had his bladder out, yet he was surprised. there was quite the kerfuffle.  he wanted to get up and walk.  he wanted the needle out of his back.  he wanted to go the 1st floor.  he wanted to go home.

i got a call from heather on the hospital cordless phone.  she was just checking since she hadn't heard anything. "are you ok?" she asked. "yeah." i said.  "are you sure you're ok?" she asked.  apparently i was talking in a very monotone dead voice.

by 7:30 or 7:45 i was ready to leave recovery.  no more desats for over an hour. ruby, my spitfire last nurse of the day called the anesthesiologist to come and check me out.  we needed her ok for me to go back to day surgery where i would be released.  well she came but she was busy doing her 'boards'. it was making ruby really antsy.  she kept checking.  then she was helping deal with the anxious guy.  by the time she got to us it was 8pm.  we got her ok but day surgery closes at 8 and so they had to discharge me there.  ruby wasn't pleased.  she was sure day surgery was slacking.  a lady from day surgery came to give me my 'teaching'.  there was a huge list of meds.  she didn't explain it very well. 

 ruby was left to dress me and give me a bed pan to pee in.  peeing in the bed pan was super weird.  you lay flat and pee kind of burbles out of you and down into the pan like you are a pee fountain. i kept peeing and peeing. ruby put tissues in my hand to wipe but then grabbed them out and was like "i'll wipe for you!" and gave me to quick dry pats with the tissues.  i found ruby and her attitude quite funny.  getting dressed was a nightmare.  "you didn't bring a bra?" asked ruby as we put my tshirt over my head. "no, i thought there was no point." i said.  ruby kind of laughed. "ya i guess.  really there is no point." putting on my shorts and underwear was the devil.  it was so hot in the recover and so my legs and back were sweaty.  it felt like ruby positioned my underwear all twisted sister.  they rolled.  i couldn't pull them up over my bum.  ruby told me to roll on my side and she pulled them up.  i was still pulling them over my stomach when she opened the curtain.  i finally got my phone back.  i called heather to come get me and did some instagram stories.  i got out of the bed and into a wheelchair.

when heather arrived a porter was called to take me down.  the porter was this little bent lady who was very cute.  as we went down she told me the story of when she broke her ankle, "split it in two" but didn't realize it and still came to work.

my foot was starting to tingle before we left.  ruby said that meant the freezing was starting to wear off and i should get my prescription right away.  thanks ruby.  why didn't they just give me something before i left?  anyways i got in the car pretty easily. i'm the right height and it was the right side for the right side if you know what i mean.

i told heather we needed to get the pain meds right away.  there was a shoppers around the corner on davies. she went in with the long list of meds and came back right away with a popsicle for me and some bad news.  it would be 45 minute wait.  i was feeling panicky, like what if i started to feel extreme pain by then? but what could we do.  so she took my care card and insurance card and went back in.  i was also worried about my foot being in the down position for so long.  they really hammered into my head that it should be raised ALL THE TIME.  so when heather came back out with another popsicle and some other things we jimmied a foot rest for me.  we propped my crutch under my bum, opened the car door and rested the other end on the open window ledge.  then heather heaved my leg up and rested it on the crutch.  i felt quite proud of that creative solution.

when we got the drugs we were so happy about it we almost tucked them away and drove off without first giving them to me.  but that got sorted pretty quickly and we were off driving back to richmond.  it was about 10:30 by this point.  heather and i were kind of weirdly euphoric like we are at the start of a road trip.  kind of.  not fully.  but happily burbled off the reasons like it worked out so great that i got out late from the hospital. cooler weather, no traffic, heather had a nap and my leg was less frozen for climbing the stairs.

we arrived at said stairs around 11:30. heather backed in all the way to my door. i waited while she went in, went pee, fed izzy put a chair at the top of the stairs with a stool and put the knee scooter in place. so i tried to get out and i balked at getting from the grass to the curb so heather, my literal hero, jumped in and moved the car a little so i was right at the curb.  then i balked at using crutches to the stairs and leaving the safety of the car.  so heather ran up the stairs and got the knee scooter for me.  i rode it to the stairs.  it was pitch black because my flood lights are burnt out.  then we performed the stair crawl just like we had practiced.  it went very smoothly.  easy even.  we used my foam yoga block for me to kneel on with my bad leg.  my knee was partially frozen so it felt weird.  so each step i would grab the steps in front of my climb with my good leg and put my bad foot leg down on the yoga block, which heather moved and positioned for me each time.  when we got to the top i thought it would be hard to transition on to the chair but it was quite easy.  so there i sat, shining a light down for hero-heather while she ran down to grab all her stuff, my stuff, the crutches, the knee scooter, the meds... all that stuff.  in the middle of that alvin, emma and nathan got home.  they are my downstairs neighbours.  "are you ok laura, do you need help?" asked emma.  "i'm already up here.  thanks though, i have my friend to help me, " i said.  nathan and i exchanged hellos. he was very sleepy as it was past 11:30 at night.  then we transitioned from chair to crutches... that was too scary to cross the door jam with, we discarded those and went on the scooter.  heather was often heard to say "tell me what you need."  we made it over the door jam with some difficulty, into the kitchen.  i had to pee but was putting it off.  i sat on a kitchen chair and heather sat on he office rolly and we talked more about the day and the operation and all that happened.

eventually it was time to go pee and go to bed.  getting up from chair.  ordeal.  big ordeal.  i was just so scared of accidentally putting my foot down. i couldn't wrap my head around standing up on one foot.  we pulled the table over so i could lean on that.  heather's shoulder was an option, the crutches the scooter... eventually i did it.  but it was a slog.  rode the scooter to the bathroom.  to turn all the corners i needed heather to move the back wheels for me.  

sitting on the toilet.  haha.  ordeal!  getting into the bathroom, off the scooter, on one foot, panicking if that leg felt fatigued, plus feeling like i was going to pee my pants, sitting down on the toilet by grabbing heather's hand and lowing myself down, while she slid forward in her socks, haha.  so i was sitting.  but my pants were still up.  heather stood with her back to me.  the struggle to get them off and down while sitting on them was real.  i was sweaty the bathroom was humid and sticky... finally after much grunting and groaning and wiggling i got them off and peed. i knew i did not want to pull those up again.  so i covered myself with a towel and heather brought a fresh pair of garments and helped me get my feet into them.  then getting them up and and standing up and they fell part way down and getting them up over my rump roast... it all happened.  i got a new garment top. felt fresh, rolled to my bedroom and the transition from scooter to bed was easy. i could just kneel on the bed and crawl to my pillows and prop my foot up on the thing i got for foot propping.  sigh of relief. it was now 1:30.  heather went to bed on the couch and i went to sleep for one hour, woke up at 2;30 to take more meds and fell asleep again.  the next alarm was at 6:30.  and that was the first day.  we survived it.