Surgery Day 2, 3, 4, 5

As I mentioned before, I spent the night in post-op. We finally got a room around 2:30 p.m. if I'm remembering correctly ( I know we spent a record 22 hours in post-op). Obviously, that was bullshit about the shift change and getting a room at 8 a.m. There actually weren't any private rooms available, so we had to wait for someone to leave the hospital and for the room to be cleaned.

My graft was taken from my thigh, near the top in the front. By Saturday evening, I noticed that the wound was "leaking." I showed it to the nurse, who said she couldn't change the dressing without an order from the doctor and paged the doctor. I showed at least 2 resident's, maybe 3, on Sunday and the Sunday nurse paged whatever doctor was on call to come by to check on me. I was told over and over from Saturday evening and all day Sunday that my surgeon was coming to my room to change the dressing. By 10:30 p.m. on Sunday, I still hadn't seen the doctor so I called the transplant office and had my transplant coordinator paged. She listened to my complaints and said she'd contact the surgeon. Finally, at 11:30 p.m. on Sunday evening, the surgeon arrived with his resident...I remember 3 people, but I don't remember who the 3rd person was. My surgeon changed the dressing and applied some adhesive strips to hold the glued wound shut better than glue alone. It was completely gross because the wound was gaping open. I was relieved to have it finally taken care of.

By Monday mid-day, the graft had broken open again and was leaking again. The nurse paged the resident on call several times, but by 9 p.m. that evening nobody had come to check me. Since we had been asking all afternoon, as we had done nothing but wait endlessly since we had arrived in this damn hospital, my husband and I got very upset. We decided we'd walk downstairs to the emergency room, where we knew a doctor would be available, we would perhaps have a better chance of seeing a doctor. At least on Sunday, we were told over and over that the doctor would be coming. He even apologized (through the nurse) for the delays. While you're in the hospital, you have this heart monitor on the entire time (a "teli".) I removed them and left them on the bed as we got my robe on and unplugged the IV to prepare for our walk.

It didn't take long for someone to be alerted by the lack of my heart beat in their monitoring room. When the nurse arrived to check on me, we told her we weren't waiting any longer. We were going to see a doctor in the next 20 minutes, or we would go to the emergency room for help. She went to get the charge nurse who told us she'd try to page the resident again. We walked to the nurses station just in time to hear the charge nurse on the phone telling the doctor we were threatening to leave and that I had removed my "teli".

A doctor arrived about 25 minutes later and fixed me up properly with very strong adhesive strips. He stated that the strips that had been used previously were inadequate. He even went to the emergency room to get the proper supplies. He seemed like a very nice man and did a thorough job.

I was pretty upset about this situation. Especially, since the doctor who came was not the doctor on duty. He was the back-up for my surgeon's resident. He diplomatically assured us that she (the resident on duty - my surgeon's resident, Dr. K.) must have been tied up with something important. Dr. K visited me each morning I was in the hospital from Sunday through Wednesday when I left. She had an awful bed-side manner and when I told her my concerns she'd ignore them selectively. Say, if I said I was experiencing A, and B. She address A, but ignore B. Her answers were cursory and sometimes threatening. For example, after 2 days of solid food, I still had not had a bowel movement. (This is an important milestone when recovering from surgery.) Her response was not to "give it time" or something else supportive. She also didn't give me any sense of how long I should expect it to take. (As it turns out, it took about 6 days after I started eating solid food.) She did say "There's only one other solution for that." Clearly referring to an enema. Whatever.

I have nothing but good things to say about the nurses. Their jobs are difficult. People aren't very nice when they are sick. I tried to be as nice as possible while I was there. I would always thank them and ask please for things. Also, when we threatened to leave, I made sure to make it clear that I was upset with the doctors for not responding, but that I understood that the nurses were doing everything possible. Some nurses were better than others, but they were all very kind and proficient. I got the sense they were overworked even though the hospital certainly follows standards for patient to nurse ratios (I hope.) The reason I think that is the way they would seem to run around everywhere like they were always in a hurry. Also, the linens on my bed were only changed when we asked and I only got bathed if I did it myself, which was extremely difficult even when I was able to get out of bed after day 2 (with help.) Bending at the waist was nearly impossible. My husband helped me a lot, but I just didn't want to ask him to bath me, too. I mean, there has to be some detail sparing.

Another good thing is they let my husband stay with me in the hospital. They provided a cot for him and everything. He would go home during the day when my Mom or a friend was there with me in order to shower and check on the cats. Sometimes, he'd take a nap since we were always awakened at 6 a.m. in the morning for vitals, blood work and weighing -- which meant I had to get out of bed. What a pain, literally.