Surgery.

The day of surgery I was scheduled to check into the hospital at 10am, for a surgery time of 12pm.   So, I started the day as usual, got up, got the kids ready for school, walked Reese to school and came home to a voicemail from the hospital asking me to come in sooner, because the doctor wants to start earlier. I panic, call all of my neighbors until one answers to come and stay with my boys until my mom could get there. And then we headed for the hospital.

When we get there the check in process went super smoothly, we check in and I'm almost immediately called back into the prep room.  We go through all of the standard get ready process and then my surgeon comes in to talk to us. At this point I knew I was either going in for open or closed FAI surgery, we just weren't sure which. Well, then my doctor dropped another bomb. Actually, it could be the FAI that we've been gearing up for, OR it could simple be a tendon that is too tight and needs to be released, OR, it could be some scary third thing that's a major, major surgery. His hope is that it's just the tendon, but he is ready to repair the labrum if it's torn worse than it looks, and should it be the third thing we pull out and find someone who specializes in such a delicate surgery. So, I go back into the OR not knowing what kind of surgery I'm going to have.

Waking up from anesthesia was ROUGH. I remember waking up and feeling like one of my kids was in danger, and that I had to get to them right away.  People were pushing me down, trying to get me to calm down, and when I figured out where I was I remember shaking from head to toe, shivering. I guess in order to keep the light field open in arthroscopic surgery they need to irrigate the area the entire time, and I had been in surgery for four hours, so I had literally been chilled to the bone. The next thing that hit me was the pain. I was warming up, but I was still shaking from pain. My doctor had ordered a nerve block before I woke up, but that didn't happen. So, they finally get me calmed down, get the anesthesiologist, and the ultrasound machine ready to locate the nerve to block when the anesthesiologist gets called away on an emergency. At this point I am laying in a hospital bed, sobbing in pain and waiting for an anesthesiologist. When he finally makes it back to my room the anesthesiologist decides that this would be the perfect opportunity to teach someone how to do a nerve block. You know, while I've already waited am extra 15 minutes for a missing anesthesiologist and am laying on a bed shaking and sobbing in pain sounds like a perfect teaching opportunity.

So I now have a nerve block, that can take up to 45 minutes to kick in, and a still in so much pain. The pain management team is talking about giving me more dilauded when my post op nurse tries to talk them out of it, saying 'I was just scoped.' and shouldn't need more pain meds.  I think it's fair to say that I was a hot mess post-op, especially at this point because I was still in so much pain, and i still had NO IDEA WHAT SURGERY I HAD JUST HAD.  I thought that maybe it was just me the post op nurse didn't like until I heard her tell the guy in the room next to me (who had just had spinal fusion surgery) that 'he came in with a pain level of 8, and he was at an 8 now, so that should be a tolerable level of pain for him.' And that's when I decided that she was an evil bitch who should probably be a prison warden, and not a nurse.

Mark and my dad are finally allowed back into the room with me, and that's when I learn what surgery I had. I had a deteriorated labrum that had to be completely reattached, and the over overage in my hip joint was shaved down, and I also had one of my tendons released because it was too tight. Overall the surgery took 4.5 hours, mad I spent 3.5 hours in recovery mad was able to go home that night. So, now I'm home, drugged to the high heavens and ready to get on the road to recovery.