Well I did it. Went into surgery on July 11th here at Lancaster General Hospital, having a had a microvascular decompression performed by Dr. Eddie Garrido.
Let me just tell you there is literally no preparation for pain you experience when you wake up post op!
Today is Friday the 13th , two days post op and I am finally thinking I am going to live.
Here is what I can remember: got to hospital on Wednesday for pre op by 6:30am. Bunches of questions , pee test for pregnancy, odd white dancer tight tights placed on legs, talk to the doctor and the anesthesiologist, then rolled out. I do not remember one thing past that! Whatever went into my IV knocked me out! 8:45am
I woke up in a very bright room with what felt like people yelling at me and others to be woken up. I remember the rows of people , lots of snoring, lots of lights, and having a very hard time trying to wake up and focus. (Recovery Room)12:45 ish
When I actually became aware of my surroundings I found myself surrounded by a team of people hooking me up to a multitude of different machines and monitors. I also noticed that I was having problems seeing out of my right eye.
After getting settled into my room in Neura Trauma, I found I was connected via catheter, IV, blood pressure monitor, oxygen monitor and heart monitors.
My head was pounding but I couldn’t stop rubbing my eye. I was to find out later that my cornea was scratched during surgery…so once we got the antibiotics, and salve in…and a patch this issue became settled and I realized that my head was Throbbing out of control. Most of the first day post surgery is pretty much a blur.
I guess I was all settled in my room and my mom and husband came anxiously back to see me somewhere in the time frame of post 2:pm. They told me what the surgeon had told them, met the nurses, unpacked my bags, and saw my serpentine shaped staple scar going down my head.
I learned from the neurosurgeon that veins had been found entangled Around the lower arm of the trigeminal nerve, these have since been released and untangled and a tiny piece of Teflon was placed in between.
I was to continue taking two percocets as needed for pain, and they would also be giving me tegretol, and steroids for the swelling. I am gonna say maybe two or three hours later I started experiencing some serious head pain! Now I am not new to head pain, but this got very overwhelming very quickly! I ended up with an IV in where morphine was delivered to me very hour. This along with the percocets being raised to three pills now every four hours. I was in and out of it , woke up later that night starving … They wanted to feed me jello and broth… Neither which I eat (vegetarian) and for whatever reasons I began crying immediately! I ended up with mashed potatoes and peas and slept about an hour to two hours at a time throughout the night!
Thursday…still huge amounts of pain, both inside the head, and at the incision, oh the neck muscles were killing me! Had a couple of melt downs, but pt came and got me out of bed in the afternoon, and this really made me feel so much better! I continued to do lots of monitored walking throughout the night…even packed my bags before I went to bed so I could be ready to leave Friday if they gave me the ok!
Friday…feeling horrible again, not the tn head pain, but my entire neck, ear, cheeck and face on the left side is sooooo swollen…even my eye is puffy! Can’t hear out of my left ear…can barely swallow. All my vitals are ok. Doctors sanid that at 72 hours post surgery can be the biggest swelling. Continued with Percocet and morphine until 1:00 where I went to physical and occupational therapy…no problem! However due to the amount of swelling they are keeping me again. Stopped morphine. And at 4:00 today I was moved from Neura Trauma to a regular hospital room. Pain is down, swelling still there…I am hanging at about a 4 in pain. I tell what I won’t do tonight… I will NOT sleep with my head unelevnated like I did last night , and I will not over walk! It is amazing how quickly I tire out, I heard it said up on the neuro floor like this… Doing a crossword puzzle after a craniotomy is like jogging on a sprained ankle…a little bit goes a long way!
Friday …now. I am in my new room, major downgrade from my neuro trauma room…it’s like the ghetto here, people out talking in the halls… I was spoiled up in the trauma unit! And my food is missing!!!