Sunday May 13, Waking up in ICU

I woke up in ICU aware of three things--I was unbelievably cold, Ramiro was there, and my bad breath was gone. I kept asking for more warm blankets, and eventually got 8 of the straight out of the warming oven, but all to no avail. Finally, one of the nurses took a warm blanket, rolled it into a cylinder, and wrapped it around my head and shoulders. Ramiro said I looked like an Eskimo baby, but it seemed to do the trick. The nurses had been trying to take my temperature, but it didn't register either in my mouth or under my arm. I think they deliberately lowere the patient's body to minimize bleeding, but I had trouble warming up because I am so anemic. I learned later that they gave me a unit of blood before the surgery; my hemoglobin count was 8.6 (normal is closer to 12). First transfusion I've had in my life. I kept trying to check my breath to see if the absence of the uremic breath was real or just temporarily masked. I tried breathing through my mouth, my nose, breathing deeply, breathing hard--my breath as sweet! I did get a wave of nausea, and was afraid I'd throw up, but they gave me something through the large IV in my neck--of which I was quite aware--and that seemed to calm the heaves. Not an unsual syptom from anesthesia, I was told. I drifted in and out of sleepiness, but was aware of how large my room was, and the fact that they let Ramiro stay there with me throughout the day. Not like the old ICU where they shooed family out except for 15 minutes at a time. I know that my friend Debbie called, and Ramiro passed me the phone, much to her surprise. I don't remember the conversation, nor do I remember talking to my sister. As I'd been told, I was extremely bloated from the waist down. My legs and feet were so swollen they were all the same size--you couldn't tell where leg ended and ankle began, or where the ankle turned into the foot. I oould not bend my knees for the swelling. My skin was so tight it was shiny. I was swollen in the abdomen and midriff, enough so that I had trouble breathing deeply. However, I notied that my toes did not cramp like they used to. Another symptom gone. I sent Ramiro home around 8:30, and he drove to Mary Margaret's house on the NE side of Ft. Worth. She is a friend of my childhood, and she was kind enough to offer Ramiro a place to stay--and offered to have us both stay with her once I'm out of the hospital. But it's enough that Ramiro will stay with her; I will need some space and privacy once I'm released. I spent the rest of the night trying to sleep, but it was mostly futile. The ICU is noisy and active, not conducive to sleeping for any length of time. In addition to the Foley catheter, the IV in my neck, two IV needles in my left wrist, one in my right wrist, and EKG wires all over my chest, the nurses and technicians constantly come into the room t conduct other checks--vital signs, check the IV bags, ask how you are, etc. Every entry requires them to turn on the overhead lamp and ask you to state your name and date of birth. They need to be sure that the patient is the one that the paperwork says it is, but it gets mighty dang tiring. At 4 a.m. I was awakened for my sponge bath! Not a time I'm ordinarily interested in a bath, or anything else but sleeping, but the nurse on duty had it on her list of things to do before she quit her shift. So she woke me up and by rolling me back and forth, was able to get my gown off, and wipe me with a damp cloth. She managed somehow to change the pad under me too, although my incision is such that I'm not supposed to bend at the groin, so I could not help her much. I couldn't bend my knes beause of the swelling, so I just sort of lay like a beached whale and let her do what she could. Then I was allowed to rest until 6 a.m., when the whole new shift came on duty, and all the checks and tests and blood draws began in earnest.