In my previous post, I talked about the days leading up to surgery, pre-op and the morning of surgery. This is where I’ll pick up.
I knew I would be intubated, as the anesthesiologist said it was necessary to keep the airway open while I laid on my stomach for the back of legs to be worked on. She also told me that when it was time to wake up, she would call my name and remove the tube very quickly. I don’t remember anyone calling my name, but I remember the feeling of something moving, like being pulled away from me. I honestly couldn’t tell you if it was a catheter being removed, or if it was the breathing tube. Whatever it was, it didn’t hurt.
The next thing I remember is standing back in the pre-op room with two nurses pulling compression pants on me, tucking and having me help as much as I could. I remember thinking my hamstrings were tight, and doing a long stretch where I put my hands flat on the floor and the nurses making a comment about my hypermobility. Dr. Schwartz came in and they told him I’d stretched like that and he chuckled about his hypermobile patients (Hypermobility and lipedema go hand in hand. Mine is called Hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, in fact.) Anyway, I don’t remember many details about being in recovery.
At some point they wheeled me and my little bag of personal belongings out, where a driver from Pearl Recovery Center was waiting for me in a black, tinted out Mercedes.
We drove straight to the under-building, private entrance garage of the Viceroy hotel, where I was able to get in another wheelchair, rolled down a red carpet (really!) and into a private elevator. Once we got up to the second floor, my door was open and there were nurses standing there to greet me, and puppy pads were everywhere – on the floor, the bed, the pillows.
All I had to do was get in bed. The nurses worked in teams of two and three and fussed about me, bringing me ginger ale and crackers, tucking me in, checking my drains, checking my vitals, and doing introductions. I had a good, sore throat and a dry mouth. I alternated between sleeping, and waking up to drink or munch ice for a good while. Every now and then I’d get up to use the restroom, the nurses would come change the puppy pads, and they’d take vitals or give me meds. Somehow I made a video during this time talking about my sore throat. My face is very swollen in video one – I was warned this would be the case since surgery was face down, and it would go away.
By morning, the facial swelling was gone.
The nurses at pearl were incredible, and above and beyond in every way. If I needed something, I texted them and at least one would almost instantly appear. I asked for yogurt one evening and the nurse literally went to the store during her off time and bought me yogurt for the next day! I tipped her well. I will do a whole post reviewing Pearl shortly.
Day after surgery, I really felt good. I did some standing yoga poses in the room, walked 300 steps every time I got up, did manual drainage to get some of the fluids out, put on makeup, read books. And I went in for my first post op appointment at Dr. Schwartz’s – driven, again, in the blacked out Mercedes.
The first post op was just a quick look at my skin health and overall well being. We removed the compression and I got woozy and had to sit down. When we were done, we put the compression back on. I got woozy and had to sit down, but not big issues that were out of the ordinary.
I rested hard core and let the nurses pamper me for the rest of my 48 hour stay at Pearl. I drank my protein shakes faithfully, let the nurses take care of the drains, and did great.
At 11 am on day 2 post op (Friday), it was check out time and I’d be on my own. I’d already checked into my hotel – The Residence Inn Beverly Hills for an 11 am arrival. This time, the driver collected me in a black Cadillac and deposited me right at the door of the Residence Inn, helped me with my bags, and waited until I was safely under someone else’s watch.
And of course when I got to the hotel front desk, the hotel did not have any rooms ready. There were two “Beverly Hills Looking” ladies at the desk, fussing about rooms not being ready. I checked in, and was told no rooms yet. I was kind, as I always try to be to anyone providing service for me, and let them know I was recovering from surgery and would be waiting in the empty breakfast area. I rolled my bags over to the tables off in the corner and spent my time ordering groceries for the next six days on Instacart, and I ordered myself some door dash lunch from a close by restaurant. While I was there, my drains got full, and started leaking down my legs. I went to the restroom twice to clean up and empty drains, and was thankful that I had on a mega long black maxi dress. (If I had it to do over I would have packed three of those dresses because I didn’t anticipate having nude colored compression that wouldn’t hide smelly grossness.) Even then, I couldn’t really hide my bloody leg.
It turns out the Residence Inn felt my pain and they gave me the first available room. They also walked my keys to me and did all the check in schpiel right in the breakfast room. I went upstairs and never really unpacked all the way. I just left my luggage in the kitchen floor, digging out what i needed.
I started by laying out the few puppy pads I had packed from home (I bought a big case from Amazon) on the bed, and pillow. I blew up my leg pillow and put it on the bed, and then I sort of just chilled until the Instacart guy called and said he was at the front desk. I asked if he would come up to the room because I was recovering from surgery, and he was happy to do it. He even carrid my groceries in after he saw my leg. I tipped him well too.
Here’s a run down of what I bought for cooking in a mini kitchen for five-six days:
a box of special K almond cereal
1/2 gallon milk
a package of sliced cheese
a loaf of wheat bread
tiny tub of margarine
a pound of nitrate free bacon
a four pack of Greek light n fit yogurt
a vegan pot pie
a vegetarian cheese enchilada dinner
a box of mac n cheese
one pound of ground beef
a box of hamburger helper
puppy pads
a bottle of febreeze
one can of lentil soup
I put the groceries away quickly and went to bed. Over the days at the RI, I cooked most of my meals, at one free grab n go breakfast, walked to a deli on my last night, and had quite a bit of food left over to put in a little food pantry nearby on my way out of town.
On Saturday and Sunday, I did a whole lot of intentional sleeping, walking, yoga, rest cycles. By Monday I felt pretty good. I made a couple of other videos these first days that are also on my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCClrV-k0eVqw_0APgEaQklA.
