fairieswearboots

Hi everyone!
I had my right foot surgery on Monday and my immediate post-op period has been horrible! I am just now feeling well enough to give a progress report. I am not surprised because I always have a very tough time immediately post-op. I was hoping this time would be different but as long as the surgery helps me in the end, it will all be worth it.

When I talked to the anesthesiologist right before the procedure I requested the MAC anesthesia since general anesthesia makes me so extremely nauseous. Unfortunately, because of the length of the procedure, he said he said he would have to use general or he could use spinal anesthesia. I never had spinal anesthesia and I was afraid to try it so I went with the general. He gave me various pre-op meds to help prevent post-op nausea. I think he said he he gave me zofran towards the end of the procedure and the nurse gave me more zofran in PACU. I woke up nauseated and in pain. I was also given phenergan in PACU for nausea and Dilaudid for pain after waking up. The Dilaudid helped the pain for awhile but I remained very nauseous. The anesthesiologist was very nice and seemed genuinely concerned and told my husband and I (in the PACU) that next time I could call the surgery center ahead of time and get a scopolomine patch to put on the night before surgery to help prevent nausea, I think I'll try that when I get my other foot done.

I get in the car and my husband couldn't even get out of the surgery center parking lot before I started heaving. I get home and proceed to spend the next 2 hours mainly in the bathroom heaving, heaving, heaving! Everytime I crawled into bed, after about 10 minutes, I would get extremely nauseous and have to head back to the bathroom. The pain started up again and I didn't dare try to take the percocet for awhile for fear of getting even more nauseated than I already was (if that were possible!). Things finally settled down late that evening, I was able to take the pain medicine and I slept OK that night.

I get up the next morning in pain and I take more pain medicine. I was doing OK until about noon when my 2nd toe started burning horribly. I took more pain medicine which helped all but that blasted 2nd toe! (I had several procedures done to my foot but the most to the 2nd toe.) This went on all day and all night and I finally got about 4 hours of sleep that 2nd night. Mind you, I was taking the pain medicine (max dose) around the clock and that 2nd toe kept burning, burning, burning! I called my doctor's office to see if it would be OK if I took some vioxx I already had and she said OK but to also keep taking the percocet. I got about 2 hours of pain relief and tried to lay down for a nap. The stupid toe starts burning again and I could not sleep so I call the office again and got a prescription for Ambien (sleeping pill). I took that and the percocet and got about 7 fairly good hours of sleep on night #3 (last night). I have only taken 1 sleeping pill in my life about 15 years ago when I was in the hospital for some other surgery and it helped me so much back then.

I got up this morning in pain and took more pain medicine and another vioxx and it helped. Today has been a much better day and I think I am over the hump now. The pain meds are helping much better today and I no longer feel psychotic from unrelenting pain and lack of sleep. I will have my 1st post-op visit in the morning. I am anxious to see what my foot looks like although I imagine it will not be a pretty site with all of those incisions and dried blood. But at least I will get to see how well my bones are lined up. My feet already look like roadmaps from all the previous surgeries. Well, it is getting late and I am getting very sleepy. I'll keep you posted on how tomorrow's post-op visit goes. Everyone take care and keep on healing!