Taking Care of a Loved One After Surgery

Friday was a long day for me and my significant other. I took the day off work to go be with her at the hospital for her surgery to remove a very large ovarian cyst. We got up at 5am to head over to the CHUM hospital (Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal). Arriving at 6:15 on time, we waited 5 hours before she was taken away for surgery. She left the 1-day surgery area on the 4th floor, and was expected to stay over night in a private room.

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I was on my own to wait for her return, hoping nothing went wrong. I went to find the room. I was told to go to the 12th floor to find out if the room was ready. The first women I spoke too said it wasn't. Then she went on break, and another women was there to take my SO's bags while I went out to eat a bit. I asked her, and she said the room was available.

When I returned from eating, I got the bags back, and went to the room. It was nice, with 2 big comfy chairs for visitors, and and big hospital bed for the patient. There were very large windows. While I was waiting, I was lightening to music on my phone, reading a book on MEAN programming, and slept a bit too. I was tired from sleeping 5-6 hours each night to wake up early to travel to my job.

At one point, I heard a "code blue" on the intercom about a surgery on the 4th floor. I was worried it might be her, as I had heard nothing about the status of her surgery yet. I had to tell myself it wasn't about her, she was fine.

Eventually, after over 4 hours in the room, I was wondering what was going on. So I headed over to the nurses station to ask for a status update on the surgery. They then told me my SO wasn't in the system anymore for having a room reserved. I got worried. But they told me the surgery went very well, and she was expected to leave later that day. They told me she was in the 1-day surgery area, where I last saw her. I ask if they were sure, and the nurse said yet.

Off the 4th floor I went with all the bags. Upon arriving, I asid I was looking for my SO, and they said she wasn't there yet, but would be soon as she had been in the post-OP waking-room for 1:10h waiting to wake up before being moved to the room she left from.

I waited, and she soon showed up.

She was in pain, and had 4 incisions in her abdomen. The dilodil hydromorphine mad her nauseous, and it just made things worse. She didn't want it anymore. She tried to bear with the pain, but eventually took some more hydromorphine with anti-nausea medication, with no effect on reducing the nausea.

The laparoscopic surgery normally has people leaving he same day, which is what they expected of her. But it wasn't happening. She could hardly walk, and was walking slow and with pain. A night shift doctor was called to assess her condition. He said he expected her to leave too.

The nurses and doctors don't seem to understand when someone is in pain and can't follow the standard expected routine that others maybe able to. They just kept saying she needed to get up, and that she would be better at home. But she had no energy, having not eaten since the night before, and was not able to drink water due to the anesthesia and hydromorphine effects of nausea. The pain exacerbate when she moved. She had to not move.

At 10pm, everyone else had left the 1-day surgery area, except us. After some time of trying to get her to feel better, they realized she wasn't going to be able to, and ordered a room again for her to stay overnight. It was the right thing to do, as she wasn't able to make it home. She was able to sleep a bit.

In the morning, things were better. She had some vegan protein powders and I made some for her to drink. The hospital food was wholly inadequate for eating after a surgery where soft or liquid food was preferred. The lunch was better, as someone came to talk to us to see what would be a better meal to eat. Fruits and oatmeal with a soup broth went well.

She slept some more, and had more energy later for us to leave. She was given some naproxen for the pain, but it didn't really work, and only seemed to make her sleepy. At least there wasn't the nausea. Before leaving, she took some hydromorphine again, with some anti-nausea meds, but when we were on the first floor waiting for a taxi, she was sitting in the wheelchair and felt the nausea coming on again.

The taxi was another problem. The driver missed the exit (which I told him about after eh missed it), and had us take 2x longer to get home. He ended up on the highway that was being replaced by a new one, so this one was super bumpy. Bumps weren't good, as my SO felt them painfully in her stomach. One was so bad that she cried, having not cried from the pain since last night. The driver had stopped the meter at 7.2km into the ride, after I asked him how long we had been driving and asked him to stop it. The original GPS route was for 13 minutes, and 6.5km. It took about 30m in the end.

Once home, I didn't give him a tip, since he overcharged us for 0.7-0.8km. Plus he made the ride longer when all my SO wanted to do was get home, and instead she got hurt more with a crappy bumpy ride that took longer.

Things are going better, but she still has pain. Now she has pain in her chest when she's breathing. I gave her some hydromorphine from my past clavicle surgery at the end of 2017. But she was nauseous again. She won't be taking more. Her prescription is for Tylenol and naproxen, with option to have hydromorphine, but she will only get the Tylenol and naproxen.

The surgery went well, but she is suffering. It's a burden of suffering for her, and I can't help her other than try to make her comfortable. I made some soup which she liked a lot, despite not being that hungry. I try to fix up her pillows to get a comfortable position. She can't get out of bed alone easily, as it hurts too much to use her abs at all. She just has to bear with the pain as it gets better each day that goes by. She's doing much better today than yesterday, and will be doing better tomorrow.

I wrote one post yesterday while at the hospital on my mobile, which is a first for me. But I haven't been replying to comments from the last few posts. Being busy with a job, then taking care of my SO has kept me even busier. I will be catching up on comments and replying tonight and tomorrow.