Surgery Spring part 2

Continuing the story of my spine surgery. This might be TMI for some. For the first chapters, go to my previous post.

I checked into Oakland Kaiser March 12 and was in the hospital two nights. I got good care but hospital personnel seemed like they were trying hard to look calm and relaxed when covid-19 had become the focus. Two covid patients were already there in isolation. Staff were flustered and distracted and their assignments changed continually. Some wore masks, but most did not. Our floor of the hospital was emptying out. I might have been the last elective surgery, just under the wire. We couldn’t wait to get out of there.

The nadir of the whole surgery experience was the hour-long drive back home from Oakland to Santa Rosa. In excruciating pain, I got overly familiar with every damn bump in the highway. What a relief to lie (carefully) down in my own bed!

I Love My Wife

Working construction when you come home after work so tired that all you can do is throw some food in your mouth and go to bed, we tradeswomen often wished for wives like our male coworkers had. We all needed a wife. Well I now have a wife and I can tell you that it’s just as great as I imagined, especially when you’re laid up after surgery. My wife Holly was chief nurse, cook and bandage changer while I recovered. When I first got home from the hospital just getting in and out of bed was a painful chore. I needed help to do everything. What would I have done without my wife? I began to think about what people do when they don’t have a partner to care for them in situations like this. If you have money you hire someone. I would’ve had to hire someone to be here 24 hours a day, at least at the beginning. Holly, sleeping in the guest room, woke up in the middle of the night to check on me and give me pain drugs. Or maybe the hospital would have sent me to rehab or to a nursing home. We have a friend who, after she suffered an injury, is now stuck in a nursing home that is locked down. And Holly‘s mom is locked down at her assisted living place in Windsor. No visitors allowed. I feel thankful and lucky.

Did Rush Ever Shit?

During the time he was addicted to opioids and was caught buying them on the black market, did Rush Limbaugh ever have a shit? Perhaps he was literally full of shit. This is what I couldn’t help thinking as I faced my own opioid crisis. I just don’t understand what people see in these drugs. They didn’t get me high and they totally fuck with my digestive system. I couldn’t wait to get free. In the meantime I resorted to disgusting and painful methods of evacuation which I will not go into. You can imagine.

Recovery has been like baby steps. You mark every significant newly gained ability. I can reach up to put food in the microwave. Yay! I can bow my head to look at the computer screen. Yay! I can carry five pounds. Yay! I walked a half-mile neighborhood loop up and down hills. Yay! Now lately I have been able to do a bit of cooking and Holly’s telling me she appreciated the several weeks when I was not leaving messes in the kitchen. Most recently I tried cooking rice pudding with some 2% milk that had been substituted for half-and-half by our Instacart shopper. I guess some people think there’s no difference? Anyway it turned out fine except, while I was resting, it burned the bottom of two pans. Milk is a binder, once used in paint, and my brother said that in his activist days they used evaporated milk for postering. You can never get it off, he said. Stuck milk sucks! So at least for the time being I’ve ceded most of the cooking back to Holly. 

I Grew!

The first week of April I put my shoes on to go out for a walk, looked down at Holly and said “I feel taller!” Looking up at me she said “You’re right. Alice, what was in that bottle you drank?” 

A month after the surgery Holly drove us back to Kaiser Oakland to get my stitches taken out and to let a physicians assistant, Jose, have a look at the incision on the back of my neck. Protocol had changed since we were there for the surgery and when we tried to walk in the door we were met by a phalanx of workers in protective gear. Holly was told she couldn’t come with me; she waited in the car. I had to get a special pass and then sanitize my hands before they let me in. There had been two coronavirus patients in isolation in the hospital when we were there for the surgery. Now there were 12. 

The receptionist at the spine surgery desk confessed that he was bored. Kaiser was dead. All elective surgeries (the most lucrative procedures for hospitals) had been canceled and he was trying to find ways to look busy.

Jose looked terrible. A loquacious guy who sometimes is a little too cheerful for me, he was very glum. I asked him if something was wrong and he said he just had a death in the family. Oh dear.

Am I really taller? And why am I dizzy?

Jose explained that there is a part of my brain that makes and regulates spinal fluid and because my spinal fluid has been so cut off for so long it’s having to readjust. That can make you dizzy and it might be six months before things get back to normal. Also he said your spine is kind of like a spring. I guess they sprung it. He implied that might create more height. Anyhow I am delighted by this side effect. I’ve been losing height as my spine compresses and osteoporosis has its way. I used to be 5‘8“ and the last time I was measured I was only 5 foot 5 1/2 inches. Perhaps I’ve regained a half inch!

In which I Encounter a Wizard at Kaiser Oakland

Before leaving the hospital I was directed to the lab to have blood drawn. The  masked phlebotomist was an older black man with a gray beard and  stylish glasses with filigreed hinges. He settled me in the chair, looked me in the eye and said, “You know a squirrel.” I said, “Why yes I do. There’s a squirrel outside my window that entertains me endlessly. What kind of sixth sense do you have?” He said he didn’t know exactly but that he was particularly prescient with pregnant women. He could tell what the physical traits of their babies would be. He told me about one woman who came back in after the birth and told him that he had correctly identified everything about her baby including that she had eyes of two different colors. 

They tell me it takes six weeks to recover, (but a year for the bones to knit fully) and so I have less than two weeks to go. Then I’ll join the rest of you—bored in lockdown. 

Take care of yourselves.