My day…in considerable detail
Jun. 15th, 2011 07:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterSo, here I am at my parents' house. It's been a busy day.
Since writing that last entry, I dozed off and on through the night, probably not getting quite a full night's sleep as I noodled around on the Internet instead of dozing. Over the course of the evening, I had progressed from Jell-O to graham crackers and peanut butter, to a cup of chocolate ice cream, and by the morning I felt ready for some solid food.
But first, I had a visit from the orthopedic surgeon who discussed the surgery with me, and what he wanted me to do next. It turned out that even though it had been two weeks since the accident, my bones had not started healing it, suggesting that the surgery was, indeed, the wisest course of action to have taken at that point. Not that it makes my arm sting any less.
Inputting my arm back together, he had to use a bigger plate than he really wanted to, and suggested that it might cause me some discomfort even after the arm heals, when it comes to resting the arm on things. He suggested that I might want to consider having it taken out in nine months, after the bone has fully healed.
Apart from that, he prescribed a bunch of painkillers, including OxyContin for 12 hour relief, some hydrocodone/acetaminophen 7.5/500 for "breakthrough" pain relief, and naproxen 550 every 12 hours for pain and swelling. He also prescribed phenergan for nausea control, though I don't think I will really need it – the main times I used it during my leg affaires were when I was on morphine, which made me horribly nauseous. I don't expect to have that problem now.
He wants to see me back in his office on Friday for a follow-up – he'll take the dressings off my arm at that point and fit a waterproof dressing that can be showered with. Until then, I'll be using the old expedient of a trash bag and rubber bands to protect it when I shower.
All through this morning, the wound hardly hurt at all – probably because of the painkillers they gave me through my IV, although they did start me on the OxyContin too. Those were off this afternoon, and even with the OxyContin and the hydrocodone, I'm still feeling a low-level ache that will probably be with me for a while. Ouch. It's not going to be pleasant waking up in the middle of the night, I can tell you that right now.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. After the doctor's visit, a nurse brought a "house tray" of breakfast in: pancakes and sausage, grape juice, 1% milk, oatmeal, and regular coffee. The oatmeal was terrible, but the rest of it I hastily devoured. (The nurse was kind enough to cut the pancakes and sausage up for me. I could've managed by myself, but I decided not to look a gift knife in the mouth.) After that, despite the caffeine in the regular coffee, I dozed right off again.
I was woken by my parents getting in at about 9:30, already to take me home – but the hospital wasn't already to release me yet. The nurse still had to do about an hour and a half of paperwork before they were ready to let me out, while my parents chafed in impatience. After that, we headed on up to my apartment to pick up the stuff I put together for my stay down here until Saturday.
As we arrived, my parents discovered a black and white kitten sitting on my front steps, mewling piteously, and my dad took a sudden liking to it and decided to adopt it to be a new barn cat – their current barn cat is getting on in years. It turned out to be female, and it's black and white coloration suggested the name Domino. I found a cardboard box that we could use for temporary cage, though we ended up just having it in either my or my mom's laps most of the way home after it wriggled out to the flaps the first time we tried to shut it up for a while.
After that, we headed down to Ozark, to stop briefly at a gift shop I had wanted to look in on for a while, and then eat lunch on a $20 Groupon at the Riverwalk Jazz Café. We all three had their "B. T. A." sandwiches – bacon, lettuce, tomato, onion, and avocado sandwiches – and the parents had cream of asparagus soup and I had a potato salad as side dishes. It was very tasty, and we only went about three dollars over the Groupon (not counting the five dollar tip Dad left). We all enjoyed the experience, and came to the mutual opinion that if we were ever in Ozark again, we would not find eating there again disagreeable. Then we headed west to Marionville and south to Aurora.
We stopped at the Aurora Professional Pharmacy to drop off my prescriptions, and then went by a local farmers market for a while to give them time to fill them. We went back half an hour later, but it still took a bit of time to get everything failed. And, to my annoyance, it turned out that they weren't able to charge it to my health flexible spending account card, so I had to pay it from my checking account and apply to Bank of America for reimbursement from the card funds for the prescription fees. (On the bright side, I had been meaning to get around to doing that for my chiropractor's bills for quite some time. On the less bright side, this broken arm has pretty much eaten up all the $500 I assigned to the FSA at the beginning of the year, so it looks like I'm going to end up eating the chiropractor's bills. Oh well; at least I had the money on hand when I needed it, which is a good thing.)
We then headed on home, by which I mean the parents' home, where I'll be staying through Sunday, with the exception of a Doctor appointment visit on Friday. As we got out of the car, I handed Domino off to Mom – and since they're golden German Shepherd, Golda, was right there, Mom had the "bright idea" of introducing them to each other. As you might expect, this did not end well for Mom, who was subsequently bleeding from a cat bite on her hand. They decided to keep Domino confined to a cage or lockable barn for the next 10 days, to make sure she doesn't develop rabies, and then have her spayed.
Anyway, we finally got here, and I got my stuff set up in the belvedere upstairs. The parents served an early dinner, as they were heading out to church this evening, whereas I will be staying here and working on the computer and stuff. My arm is still hurting a bunch, I'm still confined to a sling and splint, and I'm still having to dictate this using Dragon NaturallySpeaking – but it's only going to get better from here on out. All the same, I think I'm going to be going to bed early tonight.
And that sums up today's activities, probably in more detail than you really wanted to know. But someday, I get the feeling I'm going to want to look back on this time and remember it. And that's why I'm writing this all down. Hope you enjoyed it, as well.
Since writing that last entry, I dozed off and on through the night, probably not getting quite a full night's sleep as I noodled around on the Internet instead of dozing. Over the course of the evening, I had progressed from Jell-O to graham crackers and peanut butter, to a cup of chocolate ice cream, and by the morning I felt ready for some solid food.
But first, I had a visit from the orthopedic surgeon who discussed the surgery with me, and what he wanted me to do next. It turned out that even though it had been two weeks since the accident, my bones had not started healing it, suggesting that the surgery was, indeed, the wisest course of action to have taken at that point. Not that it makes my arm sting any less.
Inputting my arm back together, he had to use a bigger plate than he really wanted to, and suggested that it might cause me some discomfort even after the arm heals, when it comes to resting the arm on things. He suggested that I might want to consider having it taken out in nine months, after the bone has fully healed.
Apart from that, he prescribed a bunch of painkillers, including OxyContin for 12 hour relief, some hydrocodone/acetaminophen 7.5/500 for "breakthrough" pain relief, and naproxen 550 every 12 hours for pain and swelling. He also prescribed phenergan for nausea control, though I don't think I will really need it – the main times I used it during my leg affaires were when I was on morphine, which made me horribly nauseous. I don't expect to have that problem now.
He wants to see me back in his office on Friday for a follow-up – he'll take the dressings off my arm at that point and fit a waterproof dressing that can be showered with. Until then, I'll be using the old expedient of a trash bag and rubber bands to protect it when I shower.
All through this morning, the wound hardly hurt at all – probably because of the painkillers they gave me through my IV, although they did start me on the OxyContin too. Those were off this afternoon, and even with the OxyContin and the hydrocodone, I'm still feeling a low-level ache that will probably be with me for a while. Ouch. It's not going to be pleasant waking up in the middle of the night, I can tell you that right now.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. After the doctor's visit, a nurse brought a "house tray" of breakfast in: pancakes and sausage, grape juice, 1% milk, oatmeal, and regular coffee. The oatmeal was terrible, but the rest of it I hastily devoured. (The nurse was kind enough to cut the pancakes and sausage up for me. I could've managed by myself, but I decided not to look a gift knife in the mouth.) After that, despite the caffeine in the regular coffee, I dozed right off again.
I was woken by my parents getting in at about 9:30, already to take me home – but the hospital wasn't already to release me yet. The nurse still had to do about an hour and a half of paperwork before they were ready to let me out, while my parents chafed in impatience. After that, we headed on up to my apartment to pick up the stuff I put together for my stay down here until Saturday.
As we arrived, my parents discovered a black and white kitten sitting on my front steps, mewling piteously, and my dad took a sudden liking to it and decided to adopt it to be a new barn cat – their current barn cat is getting on in years. It turned out to be female, and it's black and white coloration suggested the name Domino. I found a cardboard box that we could use for temporary cage, though we ended up just having it in either my or my mom's laps most of the way home after it wriggled out to the flaps the first time we tried to shut it up for a while.After that, we headed down to Ozark, to stop briefly at a gift shop I had wanted to look in on for a while, and then eat lunch on a $20 Groupon at the Riverwalk Jazz Café. We all three had their "B. T. A." sandwiches – bacon, lettuce, tomato, onion, and avocado sandwiches – and the parents had cream of asparagus soup and I had a potato salad as side dishes. It was very tasty, and we only went about three dollars over the Groupon (not counting the five dollar tip Dad left). We all enjoyed the experience, and came to the mutual opinion that if we were ever in Ozark again, we would not find eating there again disagreeable. Then we headed west to Marionville and south to Aurora.
We stopped at the Aurora Professional Pharmacy to drop off my prescriptions, and then went by a local farmers market for a while to give them time to fill them. We went back half an hour later, but it still took a bit of time to get everything failed. And, to my annoyance, it turned out that they weren't able to charge it to my health flexible spending account card, so I had to pay it from my checking account and apply to Bank of America for reimbursement from the card funds for the prescription fees. (On the bright side, I had been meaning to get around to doing that for my chiropractor's bills for quite some time. On the less bright side, this broken arm has pretty much eaten up all the $500 I assigned to the FSA at the beginning of the year, so it looks like I'm going to end up eating the chiropractor's bills. Oh well; at least I had the money on hand when I needed it, which is a good thing.)
We then headed on home, by which I mean the parents' home, where I'll be staying through Sunday, with the exception of a Doctor appointment visit on Friday. As we got out of the car, I handed Domino off to Mom – and since they're golden German Shepherd, Golda, was right there, Mom had the "bright idea" of introducing them to each other. As you might expect, this did not end well for Mom, who was subsequently bleeding from a cat bite on her hand. They decided to keep Domino confined to a cage or lockable barn for the next 10 days, to make sure she doesn't develop rabies, and then have her spayed.
Anyway, we finally got here, and I got my stuff set up in the belvedere upstairs. The parents served an early dinner, as they were heading out to church this evening, whereas I will be staying here and working on the computer and stuff. My arm is still hurting a bunch, I'm still confined to a sling and splint, and I'm still having to dictate this using Dragon NaturallySpeaking – but it's only going to get better from here on out. All the same, I think I'm going to be going to bed early tonight.And that sums up today's activities, probably in more detail than you really wanted to know. But someday, I get the feeling I'm going to want to look back on this time and remember it. And that's why I'm writing this all down. Hope you enjoyed it, as well.
