Hospital Visit

Meet Adventist Health Portland's Dr. Elizabeth Lieberman
OHSU

Tuesday I had my right hip joint replaced by Dr. Elizabeth Lieberman and the crew at St. Vincents Hospital in Beaverton, Oregon. This is typically an out-patient procedure and I would have been sent home that afternoon. However, something went wrong in between closing the incision and when they took an X-ray in surgical post-op - the joint came apart (dislocated), so they took me back to the operating room and put me under once again. No cutting this time, just Doctor Lieberman getting rowdy and twisting me into a pretzel or some kind of wrestling take-down, and the joint reassembled itself. Because I had proven to be troublesome patient, she decided to keep me confined overnight. She's done over a thousand hip joint replacements and this is the first time she has encountered this problem.

Doctor's initials on my right thigh
Right thigh, not the left

I had no objection, I was fully doped up and having plenty of pleasant dreams. In the middle of the night when it's pretty quiet, I heard this noise. It sounded like the tune Mosquito by Gustavo Bravetti, it wasn't very loud, but it was definitely there. Every now and again I would hear giant dump trucks rumbling by, but that was probably just the service carts the crew was pushing down the hall.

I probably saw upwards of two dozen people in my private room and only three of them were men. One of the men was a vampire who came to suck my blood around 3 AM in the morning, He tells me that he had his hip joints replaced, which I thought was a little odd because he looked like a kid, maybe 35 years old. Turns out he is 45 and had his hip joints replaced when he fell out of a helicopter in Iraq. He was 22, the helicopter was 20 feet off the ground and there was an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) involved.

The ambiance of the of the operating room was noticeably different than any other place I have been. It wasn't any one thing, it was a combination of whole laundry list of small differences. Bunches of machines I had never seen before, the tone of the people speaking and the direct action and lack of waiting. I suppose that's what this is all about. Getting all the ducks in a row may take hours, but once you are there, it's 'once more into the breach' my friends. Kind of like going to war or staging a theater production or making a movie.

Discover the CARESTREAM DRX-Revolution Mobile X-Ray System
Carestream Health

I noticed several new machines. Usually X-ray machines are like permanent installations with their own room. Here they had a portable one that they rolled up to my bedside, slid some kind of imaging tablet underneath me and boom, picture. It took just a couple of seconds. They showed me the image after they got my hip joint back in its socket. There is a small display screen on the back of the machine head. They just swung the it over to where I could see it. I don't recall seeing the one they took immediately after surgery. They may have, but I kind of doubt it, you never want to show the patient ominous images.

Exergen TAT-5000 Temporal Artery Professional Thermometer
This is only one I found that looks like it fits the bill.

The nurses had a thermometer that they used to check my temperature. I never did get to see it. They ran it across my forehead and the down the side of my head behind my ear. It felt like a ball point pen with a a tip the size of a child's marble.

Scanning Technique: Bladder
Clarius Mobile Health

They also had a little ultrasonic machine whose sole purpose was to measure the amount of urine in my bladder. My bladder apparently has a capacity of about 250 cc (1 cup), which kind of explains my frequent trips to the bathroom.

I've been home for a couple of days now and things seem to going okay. My hip is still plenty stiff. I'm taking 5 mg of Oxycodone every five hours and the pain is negligible.