Day 2 - Day After Surgery

My doctor came to see me at 7am...said everything looked good and as to be expected.  I felt like crap...But at least the doctor was happy. My left hand was really super sore from whatever it was they shoved down my wrist so he checked it out to make sure there wasn't any nerve damage..I wasn't even aware that there was a risk of that..yikes.  I was still hooked up to IVs on both hands, but Dr. Riek took the lovely tube out of my nose... thank goodness.  Its really weird feeling a tube slide up from your stomach, up your throat and out your nose. Really weird. So now my nose and throat are sore because I had the anesthesia line down one nostril and the blood draining tube down the other and I guess during surgery they took the opportunity to straighten out my septum so that probably also had something to do with the soreness/numbness in my nose too..as well as the constant blood dripping out. yuck.  I didn't even know anything was wrong with my septum..sheesh. Dr. Rieck also took the super tight rubberbands off and replaced them with some slightly more  flexible bands that allowed me to open my mouth enough to get a straw in. So now with these changes, it was time to begin the liquid vicoden through the syringe. Nasty nasty nasty. Purple grape juice works pretty well to get rid of the after taste though... then you need to rinse with water to get rid of the grape juice taste.   I feel like you never quite get rid of the taste of whatever you just drank because its so hard to swallow. blahh.  Goals for the day included walking to the bathroom....taking a walk in the hallway...taking a shower...and eating something (i had some cream of chicken soup, some pureed peaches and a little bit of strawberry shake).  All of these goals were met, but drained pretty much all of my energy. I couldn't even stand up by myself i was so weak. I was able to drink a ton of water though.. The doctor told me at his evening visit that I was doing better than any of his other patients had before with the liquid intake.  Pain for the day still never got above a 3/10 but again I would rate the discomfort at a 8/10. I only woke up 3 times during the night though, opposed to every hour, so that was good..But still not very restful.  Having nurses always coming into the room, pumping your IVs with meds, taking your blood pressure, listening to your heart is very disruptive to sleep. I'm not a fan of the hospital.