My Hip Replacement Journey – Part 1
There is something slightly surreal about getting up at four o’clock in the morning for surgery.
Normally, if Glen and I are awake at that hour, there is probably an airport involved. There would be luggage by the door, a travel mug of coffee for me, and the anticipation of going somewhere new. Glen has never been a coffee drinker, so there would only be one travel mug.
This time, though, there was no luggage.
There was a hospital bag, a walker, and a hip replacement waiting for me later that morning.
After months of appointments, tests, preparations and waiting, hip replacement day had finally arrived.
The preparation had actually started the night before. I had showered using the surgical scrub I purchased at the hospital as directed and climbed into a bed with freshly changed sheets. There were medications to stop, medications to continue, and very specific instructions about what I could eat and drink and when.
The pre-operative instructions also included drinking a high-carbohydrate clear fluid. The night before surgery, I was to drink 800 mL of something like clear apple or cranberry juice or a sports drink. Then I was to drink another 400 mL the morning of surgery, finishing it two hours before my scheduled 8 a.m. surgery.
That meant finishing it by 6 a.m., which wasn’t going to be a problem. We would be well on our way by then.
The hospital is normally about a 30- to 40-minute drive from our house, depending on traffic. Fortunately, traffic isn’t much of an issue at 4:30 in the morning.
We did, however, have a detour to make.
We had arranged for our doggy daycare lady to take Piper earlier than usual. She lives on a small farm and had kindly agreed to accommodate our very early schedule.
My bigger concern was whether Piper would cooperate with it.
Would she go outside and do her morning business that early? More importantly, would she eat her breakfast? I certainly didn’t want to take her to daycare on an empty stomach.
Piper is a Labrador, complete with that famous Lab eat-everything gene, but occasionally she decides she’s going to put things off. She has a bit of an I’ll do it when I’m good and ready attitude.
Fortunately, Piper cooperated.
We gathered everything we needed, loaded ourselves—and Piper—into the car and headed out into the very quiet early morning.
First stop was doggy daycare.
When we arrived, we pulled up alongside the road as we normally do and waited at the gate. There was a light on in the house, so we thought our doggy daycare lady would be out shortly.
We waited.
I sent her a text. Nothing.
I tried calling. It went to voicemail.
By then, we were becoming concerned about the time. We still had to get to the hospital, and being late for surgery wasn’t an option.
So Piper stayed in the car and we headed for the hospital. The new plan was for Glen to drop me off and then double back with Piper.
We were about halfway to the hospital when I finally reached our doggy daycare lady. She was very apologetic. She had been out back feeding her other animals and had forgotten that we were coming so early.
At least we knew what had happened.
Glen dropped me off at the front entrance of the hospital with Piper still in the car.
Before I went inside, we talked about whether he would make it back in time to see me before I went into surgery. He was concerned about that, but he was also wondering how he was going to find me once he got back.
I told him I would text him as soon as I knew where I was going.
I went inside, found the admitting department and went through the admitting process. From there, I made my way to the surgical daycare area where I would be prepared for surgery.
Once I knew where I was, I texted Glen. I told him what floor I was on and which elevator to take to get to surgical daycare.
My directions made perfect sense to me.
Unfortunately, they didn’t make quite as much sense to Glen.
This is a very large hospital with more than one set of elevators. I was giving him directions based on the route I had taken from the admitting department, while Glen would be coming in through the front entrance.
Fortunately, Glen knows that I am directionally challenged. He figured out which elevators I meant and found his way to the surgical daycare area.
In the meantime, he had driven Piper back to doggy daycare, successfully dropped her off this time, and returned to the hospital while I was still being prepared for surgery.
Despite the unexpected start to our morning, everything had worked out. Piper was safely at daycare, I had made it to the hospital on time, and Glen had made it back before I went into surgery.
I was very glad to see him.
While I was being prepared for surgery, the nurses made sure they had Glen’s correct cell phone number. The hospital had a system that would send him text updates as I moved through the different stages of surgery and recovery. He would know when my surgery was finished, when I was in the recovery room, and when I had left recovery and was back in the surgical daycare area.
I thought that was an excellent system. The patient is surrounded by people who know exactly what is happening, but the person waiting for them usually isn’t. Those simple text messages meant Glen wouldn’t be sitting there wondering where I was or whether the surgery was over.
The plan was for me to have a spinal anaesthetic, and that was done in the pre-op area before I was taken into the operating room.
When it was time for Glen to go to the waiting area, we shared a kiss before I went into surgery. After all the uncertainty that morning about whether he would make it back in time, I was very glad that we had those few minutes together.
Then it was time to go.
Members of the surgical team wheeled me down the hall and into the operating room.
There was a lot of activity around me as everyone went about preparing for surgery. The doctor who would be assisting introduced himself, and then my surgeon came in and said good morning.
I was curious about the robotic equipment that would be used for my hip replacement, so I asked where the robotic arm was. Unfortunately, it was still draped, so I didn’t get a chance to see it. My surgeon did point out the computer monitor that would display the information from the robotic system during surgery, so at least I got to see that much.
Then it was time to transfer me onto the operating table.
Once I was there, the familiar safety procedures began. Straps were put in place to keep me safely positioned. I was asked again which leg was being operated on, and they checked that the correct leg had been marked. It had. The team worked through the required pre-operative checks before proceeding.
I knew what they were doing and why they were doing it.
During my nursing career, I had managed an operating room. The procedures, the checks and the importance of all those safety measures were very familiar to me.
Being the patient, however, was something entirely different.
You can know how the system works and still discover that being the person lying on the operating table is nothing like observing it from the other side.
It wasn’t long before a mask was placed over my face.
The next thing I remember, I was waking up in the recovery room.