Up at 4:30am. Prepared right leg with anti-bacterial application provided by hospital. Margaret and I make our way to the hospital and arrive at St. Joe's Hospital at 5:30am at the Imaging/Birthing center for admission. By 6am, I am called to the surgical prep room. IV is inserted. Blood pressure is taken -- 124/77 which was good. Questions asked about health history--5 previous scopes on knees. Three on the left knee, and two on the right knee. The right knee that was to be operated on was initially injured while playing baseball for the US Army while assigned to Schofield Barracks in Hawaii during the summer of 1975. The right knee was again operated on by surgeons at the Ann Arbor VA Hospital in 1986. Hence, the surgery today would be the third surgery on the right knee with an absence of 24 years since the last surgery.
At 6:30, the anestesiologist visits me and prepares me for the epidural which will numb me from the waist down. Afer the routine risks are expressed to me, and I sign the authorization form, the epidural is applied, and the first round of tranquilizers is injected into the IV. I become very relaxed. I am then moved to a mobile bed and wheeled to the OR. I recall 6 attendants then lifting the sheet I am on off the bed and moving me to the OR table. Overhead, I see the OR lights and several faces staring over me in preparation for the surgery.
The next conscious thought I have is coming out of a deep wonderful sleep. I see several people over me in a sort of mist who appear to be cleaning up. They tell me that the surgery was successful. I was completely unaware of the 2.5 hour surgery.
I was then wheeled to the recovery room. A nurse began checking my vitals, and watched over the drainage on the surgical site. The nurse indicates that she knows me--that our sons played baseball together as teenagers. The nurse was Mollie Cleary, wife of Bob Cleary who coached Chad's 14 year old baseball team. Bob was a doctor at St Joe's Hospital. In the recovery room, Mollie and I shared updates on the trials and tribulations of our respective sons. I thought, of course, what a small world. It was comforting to talk with Mollie as I lay in the recovery room, dozing in and out.
At 1:00, I am moved to the hospital room. I become aware of the several tubes attached to my body. I have oxygyn in my nose, and IV in my arm, morphine pumping into the epidural feed in my back, and a catheter inserted into me draining my urine. A nurse gives me several pills (cellobrex, antacid tablet, stool softene, etc). I am told that morphine is being automatically fed to me to control pain. I am also informed that I can inject additional shots of morphine by pressing a hand button--which I did use several times. The pain was intense at times.
At 3:00, doctors ask me to wiggle my toes. Feeling began returning to my legs. I become mildly aware of pressure (not pain) at my right knee.
Margaret tells me that the surgery took a little longer than two hours as the doctors had to work extra time to insure a solid fit of the prosthesis in the knee. There were several bone spurs that had to be cleaned up.
Margaret, Kirk, and Eric visited with me late in the day. I was very groggy and nauseous after the surgery. Eric and Kirk seem a little anxious at seeing their dad so helpless. Eric mentioned that the last time he recalls seeing someone with oxygyn in their nose was when he saw his Opa shortly before death. Margaret added (privately later) that the boys were unaccustomed to seeing their dad like this--as I represented a model of heath to them.
Margaret and the boys leave. The nurses visit with me every 2 to 4 hours to check blood pressure or give me pills. I continue to feel nauseous. I finally throw up into the container they provided. The nurse tells me that this is quite common when taking morphine. I eventuall fall into a restless sleep, more like several cat naps for the remainder of the night.
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