Dick Zuberer met Alice and I at the hospital registration desk yesterday morning, walked us through the process of signing in, led us to the lab for tests, and accompanied us to the heart center where I had an EKG.
Then he went with us upstairs where I signed in for my torn rotator cuff surgery...
Bro. Russ was waiting there, and after I got led back to the room where they stripped me of my dignity, and everything else, they put me on a gurney, and allowed Alice and Russ to come into the room with me. He prayed for me and the surgeon, William Sligar, then they had to go back out to the waiting room and I was wheeled into surgery.
The anesthesiologist came running down the hall, the surgical team gathered, and shortly after being blasted in my hand by a hot coal, I was under...
I did come out of the surgery having a dream. Don't remember what about.
They wheeled me into a recovery room where I balled up in pain and started groaning and crying out. I could hear a woman at the other end of the room in the same fit of pain, so I then tried to suffer in silence as much as I could.
Don't remember much of how I got to my private room. Kelly came by to see me, Alice's mom Opal dropped by while I was eating supper, but whatever medication I was put on after the surgery kept me pretty groggy and pain-free.
Alice spent the night on a cot, and I called the nurses in about once an hour for help throughout the night. They weren't always prompt in coming. I was glad to get out of there and back home this morning. I spent most of the day asleep. At one point I realized I had dozed off with my chin on the computer keyboard. The pain has been worse in my shoulder today than at any point before the surgery, but I have a few prescriptions to help with that now.
The doctor came by this morning and told me the recovery time would be frustrating for me. My arm will be in a sling up to four weeks. Rehab after that will take up to another two months. It could be mid-February before the shoulder gets back to some normalcy. And I'm told it could take longer than that till it's completely pain-free. But we've taken the first few steps toward recovery, and hope it's all better soon...
