Post Surgery

The surgery was difficult, but Dr. Tarbox said that he was conservatively optimistic that Dee would recover with full use of his shoulder. The surgery took longer than expected because they weren't able to do it arthoscopically, and it was so bad that his tendon had retracted up under his neck, forcing the doctor to have to fish it out, traumatizing his muscles in the meantime. God be praised for nerve blocks. Dee didn't feel any pain until about noon the day after surgery.

Thursday morning, however, he decided to do his exercises and asked me to unhook him from all his contraptions (he's immobolized and wears a cooling system over his wound) while I was getting ready for work. As soon as I did and had gotten to the bathroom to dry my hair, he became overwhelmed by the pain and started yelling for me, but I couldn't hear over the hair dryer. By the time I finally did hear him, he had moved to the recliner and was dripping in sweat and not white complected but yellow. He said he was going to throw up and wanted me to put his immobolizer back on. This task can not be done while he's sitting in the recliner, but he couldn't stand up, so we were at an impasse. I went to go get him something to throw up in, but he then said he was going to pass out. Iran to the bathroom to wet a washcloth for him, and when I returned, his eyes rolled up into his head, he started breathing shallow and hard breaths, and he was totally unresponsive to me. I started screaming, "Dee! Dee! Breathe!" over and over, but he just worsened. Finally after nearly a minute of this, he went limp and lay there like a dead man. About ten seconds later, he opened his eyes to find me standing over top of him screaming at him to wake up, and he says in all innocence, "Why? What's wrong?"

Boy, was it hard to go to work after that. I called the surgery center who told me that was not a normal response and to take him to the emergency room, but before hanging up, the nurse decided to try to contact the doctor herself and put me on hold. After speaking with Tarbox, she changed her advice and said that it was a more common reaction than she had thought. When someone is in such intense pain, their body goes into a vagul (sp?) response that causes your blood pressure to drastically drop and your body simply goes into shut-down mode to compensate for what's happening. I seriously thought he was having an aneurysm or some other terrible thing and that I was helplessly watching him die. I was so shaken up that I could barely function at school. I took four nerve pills (not all at once), but they didn't seem to faze me. I worried about him all day.

But, all is good now. His pain is waning and he's able to move around pretty well. So, that's all for now. Merry Christmas to everyone.