I want to try to focus on the positive on this blog and not vent, but I will say the difference between a bad nurse and a great nurse is night and day. Let's just say the assistant nurse asked me, probably around 2 or 3am, if she could borrow my phone charger...Emily had plugged my phone in and put it o my bed tray before leaving. In my nauseous and pained state, I think I mumbled "yeah," but really wanted to mumble, "that's really weird, borrowing a patient's phone charger." When Emily arrived, she noted my phone was unplugged; I was just glad it actually got returned.
Alex, the awesome nurse, gave me some Zofran and instructed me to let it dissolve under my tongue. Emily and I looked at each other and then gave her a confused look. "My main nurse last night didn't tell me anything, so I just swallowed it whole." Alex, confused, replied with, "Hmmm...no, Zofran should be dissolved under the tongue." Yup, last night's nurse wasn't that great either...and this was just one example of how we knew this.
Anyway, the Zofran finally kicked in, thanks to proper medical advice, and so by noon I was ready to have my first ever hospital meal, since I had to let my breakfast sit on the bed tray untouched due to my nausea. I tried not to go too crazy, to let my stomach start to adjust, but I definitely ate as much as I could. It felt good to have something in my stomach other than applesauce and water.
During all of this, I had complained that I was starting to feel tightness in my chest and windpipe, likely due to post-op swelling. While it wasn't causing much pain, I was worried that if it progressed any more, it would start to compromise my breathing and/or swallowing ability. Alex called Dr. Sigari, and he visited at 10am to check. He was concerned that there might be a bit of internal bleeding, so he examined what was going on and asked if I could stick around at the hospital until the early evening, just for monitoring. Worst case, if any bleeding worsened, then I might have to go back into surgery for a repair session.
Yeah, I was not happy about that. But, Dr. Sigari came back around 1pm to check on me and noted that the swelling had not gotten worse, so he thought things would be OK. I also started to ice down my neck after his initial visit, so I think that helped. In any case, he told me he'd return one more time at around 6pm to make a final check and discharge me, so I obliged and began to hang out with Emily.
I said earlier that I'd write more about Emily...she'll get her own post(s) eventually, but I have to point out that she was at the hospital from about 2:30pm to 12:30am, and then 7:00am through my eventual discharge at 6:00pm. I think that's pretty amazing.
We hung out and watched TV, and several friends came to visit, including my old co-workers from eHarmony down the street, which was nice. At 6pm, after eating my second (and final) hospital meal, Dr. Sigari came by, made a final examination of my neck, and decided to discharge me. WOOHOO!
My discharge face.
We thanked our nurses and high-tailed it out of there. Emily drove me to my apartment real quick to pick up food in my fridge that she had cooked for me and my family for my recovery phase, and we drove out to Baldwin Park. We got to my parents' house at around 9pm, and my hyper niece greeted me at the door by colliding into my legs and hugging them. That was nice, but I was kind of car sick from the ride, so I went into my room, popped a codeine, and passed the F out.
And that was my surgery journey. Next stop, recovery town!
Stupid thyroid.
-W
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