Construction Zone!

Hi Friends! Now that I am home and recovering, I will give you the details on my surgery and stay in the hospital...

Well, you know it's not a good thing when the nurse is confused about what side the surgery is being done on. After identifying me as the patient, the nurse asked, "So you're having surgery done on your right shoulder today?" To which I replied, "Umm I'm pretty sure it's the left side..." It was rather kind of awkward but she had just misread the chart.

So then she set up my IV  and took a routine blood sample to send to the blood bank before she started running something that was called a Lactate Ringer (?) Basically it's a blend of electrolytes and water to keep me hydrated and stuff.

After a few minutes a different nurse came in and said that the nurse had dated my blood sample the wrong date so they had to draw a new sample because of health code.

A few minutes after that, my sides just started itching and burning like crazy and my parents said that my face and skin turned bright red. I was having an allergic reaction to the antibiotic that they run before surgery. My reaction was called "Red Man Syndrome" and was somewhat common. Basically, I broke out in hives without the welts. They had to stop the antibiotic immediately and start me on Benedryl which pushed the surgery time back to 7:30.

My surgery took about two hours so it was done at 9:30. Because I was on Benedryl, it took me  a little longer to wake up after surgery and I woke up around 12:15. My parents had received a good message from my surgeon after the surgery that she had found some extra muscle fibers growing around the nerves, which was unexpected, but good because they were able to remove it and ultimately provide more room for the blood vessels and nerves.

I spent most of the day sleeping and I don't remember a whole lot of pain. I didn't have any visitors outside of family and and my Dad stayed the night with me. There were a few times were I felt nauseated but I didn't have any more issues. I also began to itch badly underneath the tape over the surgery site. It turns out that I am also allergic to the adhesive used on medical tape. It was an easy fix...they eventually switched to paper tape. I still have Tape Burn which looks worse than it feels.

The next morning, there was talk of me going home, but I didn't think I was ready because I was experiencing way more pain than I had the day before. I was very blessed by friends and visitors when they came to visit all day long. It was a good reminder of how blessed I am. This was also the day when they gave me this "miracle drug" called Dillotted (or something like that). Basically, it just worked super fast and well! I was also on Benedryl to combat my new found allergies. It was hard to stay alert and focused during my many visits, but there was a lot of grace :) Later that night, my friend, Natalie was able to spend the night which was a blessing to my family so both of my parents were able to get good nights of sleep and rest.

Yesterday, the Dr.s came in and gave me the green light to go home home, so I did. Now I'm recovering. The hardest thing to adjust to is staying ahead of the pain. I was supposed to wake up at 2 a.m. and take my pain meds but I didn't hear my alarm and woke up at 4 a.m. when I was in a lot of pain. So there's a lot of things to get used to like the amount of time it takes me to get ready and how tired I seem to get after the littlest things.

So thanks for all of your prayers :)