Hi,
Surgery Update: I started writing this on Friday, 10-4-2024, but didn’t finish it for almost a week (Thursday 10-10-2024). I’m posting it today (Friday, 10-11-2024).
My hand surgery, after a couple of last-minute incidents, went as well as I could have hoped, but…
Six days before the scheduled surgery date, I got a text message (at 5:00 PM on Friday 9-27-2024) saying I needed to get an EKG for surgery clearance. I couldn’t do anything about it until Monday, so I went to my clinic on Monday (September 30th), and they conducted the test, but said my heart rate was a little over 120 beats per minute (BPM). They said I needed to go to an emergency room right away and tried to call an ambulance for me. I refused the ambulance. That heart rate (120 BPM) *is *high, but (with A-Fib) it’s not unusual for me to sometimes spike up like that, and then drop back down to below 100. I felt fine, so I said I could drive myself. I did that a couple of years ago when they first discovered my A-Fib. My heartrate that day was 160 BPM (but they let me drive myself then). This time they wouldn’t release me without a ride, so I called Minay, had her bring my Metoprolol pills (emergency beta-blockers for high heart rate), and had her drive me to the emergency room after I took a Metoprolol. The emergency room doctor also ran two EKGs on me, and took a ton of blood, and kept me for about three hours before releasing me. My BPM had dropped down below 100 within the first couple of hours. None of that was necessary, in my opinion.
For over a month my surgeon’s office had been telling me I needed to arrive at the Ambulatory Surgery Center (the ASC) by 5:00 AM for my 7:00 AM surgery. Then, around September 25th, I got a message that said the new arrival time was a half-hour later (5:30 AM). The afternoon after the EKG (October 1st) at 4:00, which was about 40 hours before the surgery was supposed to happen, I got a text that said my arrival time was now 9:00 AM on October 3rd. I was okay with that. I would be fasting longer before the surgery, but Minay wouldn’t be driving me there in the dark. She would, however, be driving me through downtown Houston during rush hour (not fun for her either way).
Then, on October 2nd, the day before the surgery, I got a call from the surgeon’s scheduler telling me the ASC didn’t have my EKG. I explained everything that happened on the 30th. She gave the ASC that information, and called me back to say they were able to find it, but they also said I still needed a clearance from my cardiologist. I complained (loudly, I’m afraid), wondering why all of this couldn’t have been taken care of days or even weeks before. She said she would make some calls to the surgeon and the anesthesiologist. The next morning, around 7:00 AM, we were ready to leave and waiting to hear from her when she called. My surgeon and the anesthesiologist said they would accept what they had and would just monitor me more closely during the surgery. She emphasized that we had to be there before 9:30 or they would have to reschedule.
The traffic was terrible, but we managed to make it by 8:30, checked in and waited. An hour later they called me to a staging area where they asked me a bunch of questions (allergies, prescribed meds, etc.), and I had to sign several forms, and get dressed in my hospital gown. Around 11:00 they started me on an IV-saline drip. then added an antibiotic to the saline. Minay was allowed back at that point to sit with me for a while. The surgeon arrived and covered the details of the surgery and recovery with me. He dotted my wrist and thumb with permanent marker to establish his cut-lines and initialed it, then he left. See below.
Around 11:30 or so they moved me to a prep room where a couple of nurses asked more questions (I guess to make sure I was still lucid, or not panicked or something). Then the anesthesiologist came in and explained how the nerve block worked. They did a sonogram of my upper arm to find the major nerve they were going to block, and inserted an IV near my right armpit. All of a sudden the room was crowded. The surgeon had reappeared, along with several other people who were crowding around the bed. They were about to move me to the OR. Minay told me later that this was about noon.
I woke up a few hours later in a sling, with my hand and wrist encased in a splint that ran from the base of my fingers to halfway up my forearm. Minay was back with me again. She said that, while I was coming out of the anesthetic, I talked about Star Wars a lot, and about how pretty the nurses were. I don’t remember that part too well. I *do* remember apple juice and them wheeling me outside where Minay was waiting with the car door open. I still had my apple juice. I remember slurping the rest of it while Minay drove us home. They had given her a bottle of Tramadol for my pain, which I have judiciously taken at appropriate intervals. The next six days I slept a lot, read a lot, ate well, and exercised my fingers. Over the next five weeks I have three follow-up appointments, so I know they’re going to take good care of me.
Obviously I *can* type, but it’s a bit of a slog. So far it’s almost entirely one-handed (the left one, of course) and slow, but I am managing. As you can see (from the time at the top) it took me six days to get this far.
The next post will be another update (probably a very brief one).
See you then,
Michael
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