Sunday night, I had a big macaroni and cheese dinner, prepared by my lovely husband, Chip. If anything can make me feel relaxed and happy, it is pasta and cheese. My mom and stepdad came into town on Sunday, as well. They are staying with us until I am well enough to be on my own during the day while Chip is at work. Although I think it would have been possible for me to be on my own today (Wednesday, two days post op) I would definitely recommend having someone fully available to you for the first 36 hours, since your pain and medication side effects could be unpredictable.
Monday morning I had the first surgery slot at 8:45 AM. I arrived to the surgery center at about 7 to fill out some paperwork and wait around. I was taken back to a prep room and changed into a gown and hairnet. The surgery center I went to was really accommodating; each prep area had a heated blanket so you could be more comfortable while waiting for things to begin. The initial nurse came in and gave me an IV connected to nothing, had me pee in a cup (still not sure why this was needed) and went through the initial questions (did you eat or drink after midnight, how is your hip pain now, do you have metal in your body, etc.). She assured me that putting in the IV would be the most painful part of my day. She lied. More on that later, though.
The anesthesiologist came in next. He explained that I would be going under general anesthesia (totally asleep), which would be administered through my IV and a breathing tube during surgery. He also explained that I had the option to have a nerve black done before the procedure began. If you are given this option, I highly suggest you take the nerve block. This dulls about 90% of the nerves in your thigh for between 12-24 hours. When you come out of FAI surgery, you're still going to have pain, but the nerve block makes it so you ease into the full scope of pain. It also gives you a chance to get ahead of the pain, by taking pain pills before the nerve block wears off.
To administer the nerve block, they'll give you a bit of happy meds in your IV (which hit like champagne. All of a sudden you're lightheaded and giggly), and then they do an ultrasound of your hip so they can watch where the needle goes. He hit a nerve when he was doing it, but the happy meds made me not mind. The nerve block, at least for me, seemed to wear off in stages- my knee area and some of the are around my bandage was still numb last night, 36 hours after surgery. The incision started to hurt at about 2 AM Tuesday, so 18 hours after it was given.
Then, the doctor comes in, goes over his plan, and signs the hip he's operating on. He goes over post op protocol with you and whomever came to surgery with you- in my case, my mom and Chip. It was good they were in there, since my adrenaline was through the roof, and my happy meds were doing their job.
Into surgery I went. I followed the advice of another blogger and did not google what a traction table looked like. I think you only need to see that once, and it is better to see it with your happy meds. The surgery table is really thin. I'm a pretty small person and I definitely spanned one side to the other, width-wise. Then, they put oxygen on you, ask you to breath, and...you're out.
I woke up to a lot of movement. As a note, I am blind as a bat without contacts/glasses and my glasses were with my clothes. I could not see or identify anyone, really. The first thing I remember is being very cold. my teeth were chattering uncontrollably, and the movement was hurting my hip. The PA put some warm blankets on me and then began administering pain meds. My FAI doctor prescribes Dilaudid, which is hydromorphone. Before surgery he'd told me 2 mg should take care of my pain, but I could go up to 8 mg (4 pills). He joked that this was enough to take out a large, pro football player. The PA gave me 2, 4, and 6 mg and it had no effect on my pain or teeth chattering. To try and get the pain under control, she gave me demerol. This worked like a charm. My teeth stopped chattering, and my pain dropped from a 9 to a 2. That said, it did cause me to immediately break into hives; I told the doctor something along the lines of the hives being worth the decreased pain, but they seemed pretty concerned. At this point, they had let my mom and husband back into the post op room, and they were shut out again as I broke into hives. The PA was trying to help me dress. Everything felt pretty hectic. Before I knew it, though, my hives were under control and I was in the car, on the way to CVS to fill prescriptions of the pain meds, Dilaudid, and an anti-inflammatory/blood thinner mix.
This is important. If you are having surgery in a surgery center without an on-location pharmacy, find out what pain pills you will be prescribed and find a pharmacy that has those pain pills in stock. We went to many pharmacies, trying to find someone that had 60 pills of Dilaudid. Post surgery, my emotions were a disaster so I cried pretty much the whole time we were on this pill hunt. I was also really thirsty during this time- the thing they put down your throat with the anesthetic makes your throat very dry.
Eventually, we got home. I live up three flights of stairs, and there is significant sidewalk to walk into the building. Walking into the building, which is downhill, was terrible. After FAI, your muscles are a mess from being in traction- this hurts more than the pain of the surgery really does- you'll still be under the effects of anesthetic, too. I exhaled when taking a step with my bad leg, which helped, but this still ended up being pretty teary. Stairs weren't nearly as bad as walking, which surprised me. Just using the railing really helped.
My doctor sent me home with pictures of the surgery from within the arthroscope. My labral tears turned out to not be as bad as he had anticipated, and he said there was no trouble rounding out the top of my femur. What was surprising was the large amount of irritated tissue in the joint. He removed all of this. This was what was causing my pain. I've attached some pictures below, but I'm not sure what exactly they mean besides red tissue being the inflamed tissue.
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| Inflammation in the Joint |
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| I think this is the labrum. sorry for the terrible picture quality. |
Once home, I got comfy on the couch and just hung out. I was actually feeling pretty good. Every time I had to go to the bathroom, I was reminded how knotted my muscles were, but besides that, I was doing OK. Being an athlete, I was familiar with muscle pain and felt more comfortable wit this sort of pain. My next post will be on pain management, and my experience with it after this surgery. I had some problems with the pain killers that lead to unnecessary pain and sleeplessness.
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