Surgery #5 Complete

Last week I went in for surgery #5, another bone graft.  Dr. D did this surgery and took bone from my right tibia.

From all accounts the surgery went well.  Dr. D told my father (not a man to be trusted with details) that the work that Dr. S had previously done had made her job easier and that the surgery had gone well. I am hopeful.  I haven't been in too much pain with this surgery, which is nice.

Here are my post-op war stories -
I wake up in recovery and I have a nurse who is an idiot and doesn't even know it.  She goes to take my warmer away, except I'm still cold.  When I warmed up she took away the warmer but left me under a stifling number of blankets, including the plastic one that connects with the warmer.  Then I get a neighbor who "can't breathe" apparently he had a chest tube and it hurt to breathe, but he was actually breathing.  For anyone who has come out of surgery - you don't really care, you just want them to shut up.  Of course there was some mix up with the PSA so it took a little longer then necessary to get working and shut him up.  Finally the nurse comes to check on me and I asked what I had to do to get away from the guy, she laughed.  I wasn't actually trying to make a joke...

3 hours goes by and I'm still in recovery.  The nurse assures me she's working on my release to post-op ambulatory, but times goes by slowly (I was in front of a clock, it goes very slowly) and now I'm starting to develop pain.  I tell the nurse this.  I know that if I get medication that I have to stay here for a while, my thinking was that if I'm going to be stuck here another hour, give me drugs, if I'm ready to go then send me on my way.  She says that as long as my pain is below a 2 I should just wait.  Who the heck said anything about the pain scale?  I decided I should take my chances and get away from her before she killed me.

In post-op ambulatory the nurses were much better, I even had a student nurse who was a complete sweetheart.  They even gave me drugs!  Then I finally got to leave and go to my parents house.

Recovery has been ok, my leg is not as sore as I expected, but I do find it's often hard to get comfortable, particularly at night when I'm trying to sleep (emphasis on the trying).  But otherwise I'm progressing ok.