It worked!

I had the hand surgery on Monday, and everything went fine. I was a little apprehensive about it, although I don't really know why. I guess just going under general anesthesia is kind of scary. But it was fine.

We got to the hospital at about 8:00 Monday morning and checked in, and were almost immediately met and taken to a room. A nurse came in and took my history again, checked medications, and told me to take everything off and put on the hospital gown that was left for me. Bob liked that, and thought it was kind of funny that she didn't ask (or tell) him to leave. I guess she figured I could do that if I wanted to.

I put my clothes in a little locker/closet, and pretty soon another nurse came in, then the doctor, then the anesthesiologist. It was kind of a parade through the room, and everyone that came through checked to be sure that they had the correct hand. The doctor wrote her initials in Sharpie on my palm, with an arrow pointing at my right thumb. Then we waited a little bit more, and she came back and said they were going to take me early.

The surgery was originally scheduled for 10:10, but she said that the surgery she was going to do before mine had been postponed because the instruments that she needed hadn't arrived, and she was going to do me first. So they started an IV, Bob gave me a kiss, and they rolled me into the operating room.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the recovery room, with a HUGE bandage on my hand. Bob was coming back from the cafeteria where he had gone to get some breakfast, just as they were bringing me back into the room. Bob helped me get dressed (he liked that, too), then he went to get the car while a nurse came back with a wheelchair and took me outside.

We went to Target to fill my prescriptions, and I actually felt pretty good, and was hungry, so we went to Panda Express and Bob got me Chinese food. We went home, I ate, then went to bed, and slept the rest of the day. I never really had any bad pain, but I had to go into the office for a meeting on Thursday (didn't have to, but thought I should), so I stupidly took a pain pill that day, and it made me HUGELY sick. I think it was a combination of the pill, and not really eating very much--I have a hard time actually having meals when I'm on my own--and I felt awful the rest of that day and on into the next. It's only today that I'm feeling good again.

And then this morning Bob took off for California to help open up a new store in Manteca. Tonight he and his friends are hitting Chinatown in San Francisco for dinner, the only night they'll probably be able to get away for a nice evening. So it's just Dinah and me for the next ten days. I'm going to do my best to try to eat well. I went to Target tonight and got stuff to make macaroni and cheese, but by the time I got home, I didn't feel like it, so I microwaved a potato and some green beans.

I got a few other things -- melba toast and cream cheese, some Chex Mix, a couple of frozen gourmet pizzas (chicken caesar and roasted vegetable), chocolate croissants, cheese streusel muffins, some bananas, and a lot of cranberry juice, which is my favorite right now. I'll try to make macaroni and cheese tomorrow night, although I wouldn't count on it. I always have good intentions, but when it comes right down to it, cooking is way down on my priority list.

I could probably have taken off the bandages -- when I called to make a follow-up appointment for next week the nurse said I could take them off in "24 to 48 hours," then put on a smaller dressing, but I think I'll try to leave them on until my appointment on Tuesday. It just makes me feel a little better to have that protection on there a little while longer. I can bend my thumb now without that horrible click! The surgery worked!

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