Walking Spirit

The surgery did indeed go well. Dr. Stewart is extremely talented! It left me in quite a bit of pain but getting to return to the Burn Unit was worth it. I was quickly re-united with Angie, one of the Nurses who initially treated me after the accident. She made me feel right at home and, with the help of a morphine pump, the pain went away. Another nurse who watched over me in the past, Lindsey, made a special trip up from the ER to stick me with an IV.

The morning Nurses, Megan and Dennis, seemed happy to see me and I enjoyed watching the looks of surprise as other staff came by. Renee checked on me in the morning before going to work with her other patients and filled me in on what she new about the radiation treatment scheduled for later that day. The purpose of the radiation was to help prevent the extra bone from reforming. Shortly after Renee went to torture her first patient of the day one of the doctors from the Orthopedist's team came by to fill me in on the plan.

Some EMT's were supposed to pick me up between 9 and 9:30am to take me in an ambulance to IU Med (literally across the street) for a 10:30 appointment with Radiology that should last about 30 min. At 10:00am Megan got a call from the Radiology department and they told her she had to arrange transportation. This was absolutely not Megan's responsibility but she made it happen, and the EMT's came to get me on very short notice.

My Father and I took a quick trip in an ambulance across the street and then sat in a waiting room for a long time. It was nice to have the time to hang out with Dad but it would have been better if my morphine pump had not run out about 15 minutes after we arrived. Had it only been a 30 minute procedure this wouldn't have been a problem but, what was supposed to take 30 minutes actually took 6 hours! The Radiology staff gave me an occasional morphine injection to help fight the pain. It was too infrequent, and because I wasn't in control of it, my pain level increased from a 4 to a 6 on a 10 point scale. One being the best and 10 being the worst.

When I got back to the Burn Unit around 4:30 pm the nursing team immediately went to work on getting my pain back under control. Around 5:30 pm Renee came by to watch me prove my independence by transferring from the bed to the wheelchair. She let me off the hook when she saw my pain and then tried her best to lift my spirits. Mom and my friend Jamie joined her in this endeavor and, while they did lift my spirits, my pain level remained about a five.

A while later Rebecca (the Nurse who took care of me most nights when I was most critical) and Angie (the Nurse Rebecca took me from) increased my dosage of morphine and helped me get my pain down to a 2. The night went well from that point on and, for the most part, I slept peacefully. Oh, and during the time that my pain was at a six there was also a catheter incident but those details are to grusome to go into here!

This morning Renee and April (the Tech. who spoils me) snuck me a chocolate doughnut and coffee and I got to visit with some other familiar faces. Like Tony, the Nurse who helped me get ready to leave today, Janet Crawford, the Case Manager who helped guide my family and I through the procedures of Wishard, Karen, one of the PT's in the Burn Unit that helped get me ready for the ARC, and of course Dr. Sood.

The Ortho Doctors came up around 11:00 and changed the dressings on my wounds and removed the hema-vac (sp?) drain from my leg and released me. Five minutes later I was back in my own clothes and disconnected from the IV! It's amazing how much better I felt. I got to spend the next hour relaxing before Mom could get there and departed the Burn Unit in much better condition than last time. Now I'm home again, with some new pain medication, and with any luck will be walking more regularly in a couple of weeks!

Did I mention that last Friday the PT's (Pretty Torturesses - ie. Renee and Sarah) came to my house for therapy and showed me that I could get into the backyard? They even helped me get in my hammock! Getting out was not pretty but going through a couple of days of pain and inconvenience is worth it if I can spend more time in the yard!