Hip Joint Replacement Surgery

My Hand, Festooned With A Needle and an Electronic Doo-Dad

Left the house at 5AM yesterday morning and got home around 7PM with a new hip joint. Dr. Elizabeth Lieberman from the Orthopedic and Fracture Clinic performed the operation at St. Vincent's Hospital in Beaverton. While I was there I was almost entirely under the care of women. I think I only had two guys dealing with me. Let's see how many I remember:

• the receptionist greeted me, collected $455, and started putting data in the computer,
• the nurse who guided me to the surgery preparation room
• Rosh prepared me, which seemed mostly to making sure she had the right person and the right operation, i.e. lots of typing on the computer
• a vampire to stick the needle in my hand so they could pump me full of drugs
• Dr. Li, the anesthesiologist came by and introduced herself,
• her assistant, a man, came by and talked to me,
• I think Rosh wheeled me and my stretcher to the operating room. I can't be sure it was her, but then lying flat on my back I couldn't see who was pushing my stretcher.
• Did Dr. Lieberman's surgery nurse come by before I got to the O. R? Probably, but once I was in the O. R. she got me on the operating table (carefully covered with a sheet) and got me in position so the anesthetists could stick c spinal tap needle in my back.
• And that is all I remember before I woke up in recovery, where another man checked my vital signs and entered more data in the computer. I was still pretty out of it, I don't recall anything else about that, I wasn't there long.
• Then it was off to Short Surgery Care Center / Unit (?) where I spent several hours sleeping and occasionally eating Kellogg graham crackers. That was a high point. I've been working on losing weight for a while and cookies are pretty much verboten. When you have been deprived of cookies for a while, even graham crackers are a treat. I ate at least six.
• Kathleen was my primary nurse in the SSC. Rosh also came by. She got to insert a catheter into my urethra to drain 560cc of urine out of my bladder. I had no sensation down there. Not draining the bladder could cause big problems.
• Around 3 or 4PM Jerri, the Physical Therapist came by and ran me through various exercises for the feeble, like getting out of bed, walking across the hall to the restroom where I was able to urinate by myself (only 250cc this time), walking down the hall with a walker, and climbing the world's shortest staircase (3 steps). She seemed to think I should remember all the rules from last time as it was only three years ago that I got my right hip joint replaced. I vaguely remembered going through the motions, but the rules? Not a clue. The big one is 'if in doubt, knees out'.
• While we were out of my room (number 7), someone came by and stole my stretcher, so they had to activate the movers, a crew of, I dunno, half a dozen lovely young women to pull a bed out of another room and wheel it into mine. I suppose there is some difference between a 'bed' and a 'stretcher' but the only difference I noticed was that the safety rails were chrome steel tubes on the stretcher and plastic panels on the bed,
• Next was the Occupational Therapist. I think the big deal here was getting dressed.
• Now I get one more nurse to go over my rules for when I get home. Fortunately my wife was there to absorb all that so all I had to do was smile and nod.
• Lastly, a cute young woman (a CNN maybe?) got me in the wheelchair and wheeled me to the Phil and Wife Nike Entrance where my wife was waiting with the car. She gave me a little help getting my feet in the car.

Every time I met a new person I had to tell them my name, birthday and why I was there. Then they collected my vital signs (pulse, blood pressure and temperature) and entered it into the computer.

That's all for now.