First hospital stay

My husband tore his ACL and had to have surgery last week to repair it. This was his first over night stay in a hospital so I thought I would journal our lovely experience.

We were told to be at the hospital by his Ortho doctor at 6AM for pre-op. I guess vallet parking does not happen that early, because we had to find a spot in the garage. I didn't even know the hospital did vallet parking. Anyways, we arrived 10 mins early and went to the first floor just like our sheet said to do. After waiting several minutes we were finally directed to the correct floor #3. We signed in and eventually his name was called for check-in. The man was like gosh you are really early we have several ahead of you...what time did they tell you to get here? You should have seen my face. We have you scheduled to arrive at 7AM. Ok so we are an hour early, not that big of an ordeal. We wait and wait.... finally he gets called around 7:45 to be taken back to pre-op. We were actually waiting on a bed to become available. On an average morning they do 12 ortho procedures and on that day they had 25.

First they hooked Eddie up to what he called his barney suit. It was a big purple gown that had adjustable air flowing through it to aid in regulating your body temperature. In the top picture above you can kind of see it. The tech then shaved his right leg and Eddie had to be funny and ask her, "Why did you shave that leg?" You should have seen the look on that poor girls face. She was like "Don't do that to me!" haha He was constantly craking jokes.

If you know Eddie then you know he loves Diet Pepsi and well... his food. He had not been able to have either since the night before. He points out the nurses break room (called the nourishment room) right away and the mini fridge at the nurses desk and both were across from his pre-op room. He said of course they are right here in front of me because I am thirsty and can't have it! haha

The nurse had several questions for Eddie like, "Do you have any hearing problems?" and Eddie says, "HUH?" She started to repeat herself and he was like I'm just kidding "NO!" haha He was funny, especially once the feel good drugs kicked in.

The nurse then gave him his IV and that was an ordeal too. She stuck him and blood squirted out on the floor all over his sheet. It was nasty, she was not good at the IV thing. She had to stick him in both arms to get blood- good grief! Anyways, he got a nerve block in his right leg too. Gotta love those big needles.

The surgery lasted for an hour and recovery was only about an hour. The Dr came out and talked to me and said it all went well, and that his ACL was torn like he thought and it was wadded up in the front of his knee. Yummy sounding I know!

We got in a room around noon. Of course immediately Eddie wants to know about drink and food. The nurse said liquid only and at dinner around 5:00PM he would get a tray of food. We had only been in the room 2hrs when physical therapy showed up. I was like are you kidding me? I said he has only been out of surgery a few hrs and you want to work his leg and you want him to get up? I said are you sure you are in the right room? He had a fall risk arm band on and a sign on his bed that said femoral block. I was thinking... hello people his leg is numb and I don't think walking is the smartest thing to do right now, but heck what does little ole me know. Well luckily his nurse came in and said his blood pressure was too low and he could not get up.

Well 5:00 came and went and by 6:30PM there was still no food, so I had to go to the nurses station and ask why he didn't have a tray of food yet? Well they had him listed as no food by mouth! UGH they were going to get it corrected and get food sent asap. The nurse did scrounge up a sandwhich, yogurt, and juice in the mean time. When 7:15 rolled around and he still had no food, his Mom brought us Chick-Fil-A. Finally around 8PM he got his food, it was ridiculous!

Around 10:00PM a tech brought this knee machine and drops it off in the floor. She said here is a toy for you and leaves the room. OK I was like, "What is that?" When the nurse came in about 30 mins later I pointed at it and said someone dropped that off. I was trying to figure out if it was going home with us or what? The nurse was like "OH" maybe he is suppose to be using that now! Um... "You think so?!" So she checked the orders and sure enough he was suppose to be on it for 8-10 hours... goodness. The machine kept his leg moving to prevent blood clots etc. It was just a wild night of no sleep and constant vital checks etc. We were just so ready to get him home.

Praise God the surgery was a success and he is on the recovery side of things now. He will have a 5-6 month full recovery process but he is strong willed and I know he will be moving about before long. He actually started physical therapy today and it went very well.

Thanks everyone for the prayers and well wishes. We definitely felt the love by so many of our dear friends and family members, with the calls, emails, cards, visits, & even meals! You guys are the best!!