BG = Back in the house

Crew,

Sorry for the lengthy absence, but I am finally back home. Here's the story - had surgery on Monday. Was a success. Got all the hardware you can think of. 1 long plate, several pins, and one long screw that goes all the way through my ankle joint to tie back on my ligaments. Surgery lasted about 2 1/2 hours. I had a spinal block (much the same as an epidural), a nerve blocker in my leg, and then general anesthetic to knock me out. When I woke up from surgery, I was in some pain, but for the most part, everything felt pretty good. So, they sent me home at about 10:00pm on Monday night. Big mistake. I woke up at about 2:15am on Tuesday morning, and realized that my nerve blocker in my leg had worn off, and I had excruciating pain in just about every part below my knee that I was aware of. I tried to tough it out, and wait until my pain pills kicked in, but they ended up doing nothing for the pain. At 1:00pm, Tracy got home from work, and brought me into the emergency room, where they shot me up with just about everything you can imagine, morphine, valium, this stuff called delotted, and about 10 other things to try to get ahead of the pain. After 9 hours in the emergency room, they admitted me for 2 days. They set me up with this Patient Controlled Apparatus (PCA) that gave me a steady stream of this drug, and then every 10 minutes, I could hit the button, and it would give me an additional shot of the stuff. I pretty much hit it every 10 minutes for about 4 hours. It was sweet. Finally, I got some releif.

Wednesday all I did was pretty much sleep all day long, because I had pretty much been up for 2 days straight. Got a meathead bodybuilder salesman roommate on Wednesday afternoon that came complete with a loud voice, a blackberry, lots of business to do over the phone and some skank girlfriend. That was lovely. What a turd that guy was.

Made it through the night fine. Pain was pretty much under control, and I was trying to not have any more injections after about 8:00pm on Wednesday. Roommate kept me up all night long, along with people coming in every hour or so to check your vitals, etc.

Checked out of the hospital at about 3:30 on Thursday, had to pick up a few perscriptions, and then was home by a little after 4 yesterday. Spent the majority of the evening on the couch while Tracy got caught up on some work stuff, and then made a pizza and watched a romantic comedy - it being valentines day and all.

So that brings me to today - it being Friday for most people in the working world, but to those of us on Short Term Disability who are laid up, it is just another day flat on my bizack. I am on the road to recovery though, having the surgery almost 5 days behind me, so that is good. Trying to enjoy a little Percoset and Oxycontin, and a movie here and there. I'll try to get my hands on some pictures of the stuff they did to my leg, which is pretty amazing I hear. Hope everyone is well.