michel’s achilles blog

The surgeon called me Friday night and told me to be at the hospital Saturday morning at 7:00am for surgery.

Was stressed about being 5 minutes late, but turned out that nobody talked to us for about 45 minutes because, you know, that’s how government bureaucrats run an emergency room in Quebec… when my wife finally talked to someone that deigned to show up behind the reception desk, and told them that the surgeon was operating on me this morning, she was told “the doctors don’t decide what happens in this place, the administration does…” and people wonder why the health system is so screwed up here…

But everyone else was really nice and efficient. Had a quick ECG, then undressed, put on a really good looking hospital gown (not) and got in the stretcher and went into the operating block.

Met the anesthesiologist, who explained that she preferred doing a general anesthesia as they were going to flip me on my stomach to perform the surgery.

Also saw my surgeon, who laughed as I was telling the anesthesiologist that it was my first fall in the last 10 years, and told me I should fall more often to learn how to do it properly so I didn’t end up under the knife every time I do! The man better be good :)

Rolled in the O.R. a bit after 9:00am. Told the anesthesiologist that I was a bit nervous as this was my first time, while she was inserting the needle in my arm. She told me to relax, that everything was going to be all right…

… and I woke up in the recovery room! Holy cow I never went asleep so fast!!! :O I mean I didn’t have time to start my second sentence, I was already out. Didn’t feel a thing!

Stayed in recovery for a bit. Already had the half-cast/bandages on my leg, and didn’t feel any pain. I was so relaxed I was actually drifting in and out of sleep, and as I would drift in, I would skip a breath and the darn machine would start beeping and wake me :)

They rolled me out of there around 12:30pm and into a room where my wife was waiting for me. I was scheduled for another dose of I.V. antibiotics at 5:30pm, so we had to wait it out. I don’t know what they gave me, but I was feeling no pain the entire afternoon, and was still drifting to sleep, feeling good… and hungry!

I need to say that having my wife there with me the entire day was very reassuring, and I can’t thank her enough for what she did… and is still doing! If you have to go through this and someone offers to help and go with you, don’t refuse!

Had the antibiotics around 5:30pm. Was told they need to keep me 2 hours after giving me anything so I asked if I could eat while I was waiting.
After they gave me supper around 7:00pm was about the time the ankle started to be painful. I guess the pain killers were starting to wear off. I asked if I could have more, and they told me that if they gave me something they would have to keep me an additional 2 hours again. They also said that they wouldn’t give me anything different that what the doctor had prescribed and that my lovely wife had already picked up at the pharmacy.

So I took a pill and we finally left the hospital around 9:00pm. It was so noisy on that floor that I didn’t think I would sleep any better at the hospital than I would at home, especially since they wouldn’t give me anything different or more powerful than what I would have at home. An hour later I was in my own bed, still feeling ok. But now let me tell you something: I don’t care if the prescription says “take every 4-6 hours”, if you’re in pain, take something again even if it’s only been 3 hours. I didn’t dare do it last night, and didn’t sleep a wink because the pain was EXCRUCIATING!!! also I had a splitting headache to top the ankle pain…. Called my father this morning and asked him what to do and he said not to wait for the pain to be too much before taking a dose again. Don’t double the dose mind you, but if it’s unbearable, take a pill. Talk to your own doctor *before* you head home and try to go to sleep and ask him if it’s OK to not wait the duration indicated on the little label on the prescription bottle…

Long story short: for the rest of today I’ve been taking 2mg of hydromorphone about every 3 hours, and the pain has been quite manageable. I’m keeping the leg up most of the time, as every time I get up the blood goes down and I can feel every heartbeat in my ankle, and not in a nice way :)

Tomorrow I’ll start making phone calls to get my hands on a VACOcast boot and Millenial crutches. I contacted VACOcast in the U.S. and can’t believe they don’t ship to Canada. They gave me a distributor in Ontario but I have yet to hear back from them. Millenial hasn’t replied to my email either.

If anyone knows where to get these in Canada, please let me know!
I will update the blog with my findings.

aaahhhh 9:10pm - time for my friend hydromorphone to help me meet Morpheus tonight :)

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