How Many People?

I may not have the energy to complete this all in one post, but I’m trying to count the number of people that I saw during the 31.5 hours I was at the hospital. This will also give you a play by play if you are interested in one because you came to this blog looking to see how things went.

1) The valet parker at the hospital.
2) The Registration desk person.
3) The Admitting person.
4) The volunteer that walked us up to the AM Admissions Waiting Room.
5) The volunteer at the desk that greeted us to tell us about Bart’s pager, etc.
6) The first nurse who took my weight and my blood pressure. According to that scale I was down 9 pounds from the previous Wednesday, which as my college son would say, is “pretty freakin’ sweet.”
7) The second nurse who came in to ask me several more questions.
8) The person who came in and tried to get a needle in my hand for an IV but failed.
9) The anesthesiologist who came in and did get a needle in my hand for the IV and went through the details with me. He was also present during surgery.
10) The nurse who explained last minute things, gave me my gown and robe, made me take off all my clothes, and gave me more instructions.
11) The transporters -- 2 people who came to wheel me to the surgical waiting area.
12) The nurse who came in to give me an arm band about the allergy to Vioxx that I have (that really isn’t that big of a deal).
13) The nurse who introduced herself as the person who was going to be in surgery with me.
14) The surgeon who stopped by to see me before surgery, for 90 minutes during surgery, at 6:30 that night, at 8:30 the next morning right before my stomach x-ray and at discharge at 4:00 the next afternoon.
15) The two or three people who whisked me through the surgery prep -- giving me stuff to breathe, asking me to switch over to a very hard table, making me put my arms straight out like I was being crucified, and said, “hurry, breathe deep, it’s oxygen” and “it will put you right to sleep” all in the same breath.
16) The nurse who was with me when I woke up. In the recovery area things are kind of a blur, so I have no idea exactly how many people were in there, so I’d guess at least three. At this moment I’m having trouble remembering much of anything about that place except that it was like an assembly line.
17) The day nurse who working that floor when I got there. She came in to check on me as soon as I was transported, in my haze, back to my room.
18) The nursing assistant who was also working my floor who introduced herself to me. I remember little about the afternoon. I know that Bart was there and talked to me and I let him leave about 2:45 because I was pretty groggy. I remember waking up and calling him around 6:15 or 6:20. I told him to call me back at 8:15.
19) The night nurse, as mentioned earlier was very talkative and somewhat annoying. She told me little stories about her husband, called the IV stand “George” talked to me about her hair, all kinds of things that I wasn’t interested in. And then when she found out that Bart and I had 10 kids, she couldn’t get off how wonderful we are and how GRATEFUL they must be. Just goes to show that people don’t get it. Our kids are very seldom grateful, and sometimes unable to be satisfied.
20) The night nursing assistant, who was as crabby as could be. The crabbiest person I met the whole time I was there. She was about 18 or so and acted like she did NOT want to be there at all. I had to go to the bathroom at 11:30, 1:15, 2:30, 5:30 and 7 and I had to have help every time with the IV stand (you know, George) so I had to bother her over and over again and then it took me forever to pee. She was the one who was not only annoyed, but even almost unkind, when I felt like I was going to puke.
21) The incompetent phlebotomist who could not get my blood out. Fortunately, I was half-awake as she dug through my arm veins for 10 minutes, finally giving up and poking my finger and then scraping blood out of that tiny hole for at least another 10.
22) The unknown women and one guy nurse who stomped in and out when the IV machine got unplugged or low on juice or whatever and the nurses weren’t available and just came in and did what needed done without a word.
23) The day nurse who was nice, but very busy and hardly had time to help much. I called her several times during the day for various things, mainly to find out when I was getting out.
24) The day nursing assistant who helped me get ready for a shower, which I was able to give myself.
25) The nurse who brought me my “tray” of food -- 2 oz jello, 4 oz chicken broth, 4 oz apple juice. I didn’t like the jello, only had 1/2 the juice and probably not even half the broth.
26) The transporter who took me to my x-ray.
27) Josh who was the x-ray technician, along with another young perky girl, an older guy, and the doctor that disappeared and reappeared for the barium swallow and the x-ray to see if the band was in the wrong place. I dreaded this way more than I should have. yeah, the Barium was gross, but it wasn’t horrible and I only had to have two swallows followed by some water.
28) The transporter who took me back from x-ray.
29) The more competent phlebotomist who took blood out of my hand, right next to the bruise caused by the IV attempt the previous day (I’m known at our clinic as a “hard stick”)
30) The dietician and her assistant who came to explain to me about diet and what needed to be done.
31) The head of the program who taught the class who stopped by with someone else to say hello and let me know I could call her any time.
32) The exercise physiologist and his two friends who came by to talk to me about exercise.
33) The case manager who came to go over the discharge paperwork around noon giving me lots of false hope.
34) The charge nurse who finally let me sign discharge papers and who wheeled me out to the van where we saw
35) The valet parking guy #2.

Well, that’s 49. I thought it was at least fifty, but I probably forgot some. And that’s pretty much a rundown of what happened. There were times when it was a total blur because I was still dealing with the aftermath of anesthesia. I did not sleep well at all that first night and was really nervous that it would be that way every night, but last night I slept as well as I did prior to surgery.

I hope that for those of you who really want to know what it was like to have this surgery done, that this has given you a fairly good picture.

Now we’ll just have to see progress.