Baking Beaucoup

Here is my recount of bunion surgery (foot number 1)

I also had by long second toe shortened and the tendon behind my calf muscles lengthened.

Also is a before photo of my foot:

Friday 6/21/2013 Age 24

Day of Surgery:

That night before I could not sleep, in general the upcoming days before surgery I could not sleep! These days included many tears, even as a said good bye at work for a month as well as the saying "I'm scared” quite often. I knew that for the next two months I would literally be one legged.
On the bright side I rented my knee scooter (which I am allowed to decorate) and my disability parking pass.

Well, I guess I had I premonition because damn this whole experience has been SCARY!

Luckily my boyfriend’s dad, Jeff, who use to work with Dr. Mankey in the OR before he worked as an ER nurse, walked me through what each step of the process would be like. I went to bed feeling MUCH better and more aware of the next day’s happenings. The fear of the unknown is what mainly spurs my high anxiety and fear, but the night before surgery this lifted-just for the night.

At 7 we woke up (my mom, my dad, Simon and I) to get to Seattle Surgery Center by 8 am.

We were early. I wasn’t allowed to eat so the only sayings coming out of my mouth were:

"I'm hungry," and "I'm scared."

My mom and I were taken to another room for prep, it was a room with a bunch of little cubicles separated by sheets, it was the room where I also changed into scrubs and the only thing I could take with me was my monster stuffy that Katie, one of the girls I nanny had made for me last year. It was only the two of us in this little area secluded, away from my other support Simon and by dad. By 9 I had been checked in and I was waiting for the anesthesiologist and my doctor (Dr. Mankey) for about 45 min.

He was late so my anticipation continued to build. One of the receptionists came in and talked to us and apologized on behalf of Dr. Mankey and said they were sorry be he was running late and had started surgery at 8:45, all I could think was wasn't that when I was supposed to be in the table? Luckily by the time he came in I was SO HUNGRY I no longer could focus on my fear and anxiety of the surgery. So it was all for the best because or else I probably would have had an anxiety attack (more to come on this thought).

The anesthesiologist came in and took me back to the OR, we had a talk about types of anesthetic after Dr. Mankey came in to greet us and answered our questions. We decided on injections in my back instead of general anesthetic because I have a tendency to get nauseous. I asked hesitantly if this 24 year old could bring her stuffy to the OR, and she kindly said yes even after Jeff had warned me the night previously that they may say no because baby monster wasn’t sanitary enough. The OR was just like Jeff said it would be, but without the Rock and Roll music he has anticipated the day before, which was kind of a bummer—the rock and roll music made me doctor seem more human and less like a serious robot. Dr. Mankey reminds me of most of the doctors I have seen in the past: calm, collected, and always on to the next—even when I was expressing my concerns to him about how to lie down and sleep with a mutated foot. The OR was cold like Jeff said it would be they gave me hot blankets like the said they would. Then the somehow they anesthesiologist (the nicest person I’ve ever met at a hospital thus far) created I diversion and stuck me with an IV. Then I looked up at the bright lights on the ceiling, squeezed baby monster, and I was out.

I woke up holding baby monster I then looked down at my leg which was not in a splint and my leg and what I could see left of my toes were now spray tan bright orange due the iodine the surgeon used to sanitize my whole leg. I then listened to the nurses express their own desires to take my case so they could go to lunch early. I guess I was an easy case, great. They gave me my breakfast, a food that I would not eat again, gram crackers, and some pills that included an anti-nausea pill. The first nurse was obviously rushed she gave me food, took out my IV, brought in the troops and left. I was confused until another nicer, yet also hungry, nurse replaced her and gave me apple juice, more gram crackers and some sprite to go. She then she went to lunch but was nicer than the first nurse.

I was then wheeled to the car and was given the hospital blanket to keep. I already was feeling doted upon. I somehow managed to get into the car and hobble up the 15 stairs to get to the first level of my parents’ house where we has set up a make shift bed in the dining room.

Honestly I don’t remember much more of Friday. I was very happy that day and was greatly enjoying reading my books I had checked out from the library. I worked on a book I borrowed from a friend “Cradle to Cradle,” Simon read “Inferno” by Dan Brown to me, and later my mom helped me finish “Me Talk Pretty One Day” by David Sedaris. I’m I slept well and woke up every 3 hours to take some of my meds and woke up with some moderate but manageable pain. Little did I know that the pain meds were not really managing my pain but the anesthesia from the day before was, this led me down the path of not taking very may meds the next day, along with a whole other mess of revelations about myself, my loved ones, the medical field.

Saturday 6/22/13

The day before we had invited Simon's parents (who are both nurses) over for dinner. This would literally end up saving my ass—for lack of a better phrase.

My mom and I spent the morning hang out, I read more and she read more to me. Simon left for two birthday parties. I was jealous because I wanted to go!

I spent the morning taking my anti-nausea meds on time for the fear of throwing up my pain meds and losing any portions of my current comfortably level… which didn’t last long ha ha ha. Only later did I read the box, which read: used for chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. Well this made me believe it would do a good job and also that I didn’t really deserve to take this medicine. My mom and I thought that these pills would work best if I took them right before the oxycodone I was supposed to take. They prescribed me a cocktail of pills that were impossible to manage for a fist time patient. I was to take three pills at once every 3 hours. We decided that taking multiple at once with the least amount of water possible, so that I wouldn’t throw up, as well as at the same time as my anti-nausea pill was the best plan of action. If I wasn’t such a naïve, ignorant, negligent patient maybe at this point I would have had the pain under control. Well I started feeling nauseous pretty soon after this regiment got under way. By 3 pm I had thrown up about three times had not kept my any medicine down for the past 6 hours or so. Nor had I been taking much of the pain medication because I thought I foot felt pretty good and that I didn’t need that oxycodone much thanks to the illusion of the medicine I had received during surgery. We hadn’t gotten a confirmation from Simon’s parents and I could not get a hold of Simon, sooooo I just kept calling and nagging all three of them. This lack of communication get me all huffy but it turned out none of has had been receiving each others texts and phone calls. I guess that Sprint and ATnT we not getting along that day.

Finally we got confirmation after attempting to call Simon 10 times, which I am not proud of… they said they were on their way. I am pretty sure my mom and I were being super annoying, but it turned out we really just needed his parents to be at my house—and it was not just due to the wonderful fancy chicken shwarma salad my mom served. At around 6 Susan and Jeff came over, I already felt pretty shitty to say the least. Susan brought in the most beautiful bouquet of flowers, I really wanted to get up and show my appreciation but, of course I cannot stand up, PLUS I was in the most pain I had been in so far. They sat down for dinner, I expressed my feeling of shittiness and stayed lying in my bed in the dining room, the place I had been since Friday. We had been consulting Susan for a while now about my pain and how to use the pain pills—I should had listened better.

By the time dinner was underway I am sure they were tired of my whining and moaning. They came into my room and tried to help me figure out my pain. Unfortunately at this point I was crying and moaning. I was a mess, now all I would say was “MY TOE HURTS.” I couldn’t keep anything down and I was almost hysterical, my foot was seething with pain. We tried to call the on-call doctor but there wasn’t much he could do, no one was allowed to prescribe me level 3 over the weekend, and defiantly not on the phone, and he suggested taking Advil (which Dr. Mankey said was taboo because of some debunked study that says Advil prevents bone growth). Susan talked to the on call doctor who said they could take me to the ER and get me a nerve block. She works at Ballard Swedish so she called to make sure that there as an anesthesiologist at Ballard on duty so we didn’t have to go all the way to Capitol Hill. They had convinced me this was really the only way to get rid of the pain but I refused to get up because this would make my foot hurt more. I Somehow my parents and Simon's parents got this crying mess down 15 stairs, into the car, and to Ballard without throwing up again. BUT I threw up once we got to the ER. Good job Alexis, avoiding my mom’s leather in her precious Mercedes! To say the least I was exhausted. I was having hot sweats, throwing up, crying, snappy, mean, and just down right disheartened. I kept saying well, this better be worth it in the end but at this point I didn’t know if I believed it anymore.

I barely know what happened in the ER. I know once I got some one grabbed by puke bowl because otherwise I would had been stuck in the car without a free hand to exit, once my hands were free I was super protective over my foot—which will come to haunt me later—and a man helped me in a wheel chair. I was holding baby monster, yes he came to the ER too. He was really my comforting angel, every time I yelled he got a suffocating hug, this helped ease my pain because I just transferred it to something else (don’t tell Katie).

The people in the ER must had thought I was nuts. I wouldn’t let them touch me, I have no idea how I got into the ER bed. What I do know, it the ER people were not even remotely as nice as the people at the Surgery Center—not that they were extraordinarily very nice to begin with. They were very stern and cranky, not that I wasn’t cranky either, I think it had to be a quality on their job application because once I was in that bed I would not let them touch my foot. They have me an IV which hurt much more that the first time. Simon arrived, thank god. Started balling and continued to say my one liner “MY TOE HURTS.”

They then took FOREVER to get any medication added to my fluids so I then became hysterical. I no longer could handle the pain. Honestly this was the worst pain I have ever experienced, and so I’m sure baby monster felt the same way (he may had had hand indents by the end of that night.) At the end of my 20 minute long yelling and screaming fit that EVERYONE heard for the ER nurse whispered in my ear “I think you need to tone it down, I don’t want you to scare the children down the hall.” This put it in perspective, I had totally lost it. Then thought of Katie and thought if she could hear me now she would be so scared, I held baby monster closer. This made me realize that my parents, Simon’s parents, and Simon had just heard the whole episode and I became embarrassed.

The whole situation was blurry but do also I remember two different doctors came in, they told me they needed to take my splint off, and in my hysterical onset I yelled at them and said “NO DON’T TOUCH MY FOOT.” So they all left pretty pissed off, including the stern nurse.

Finally the medicine made me careless about the pain I was still experiencing and eventually a new anesthesiologist came in. Susan knew him and told me he was from South Africa and he was really good at his job. I felt taken care of and even after I had become so delusional on “dilaudid” and realized I had horrified the people I love most due to my insanity yet they were still there for me sitting dazed in the ER room.

Little did I know that this next moment would be the moment I needed them most through this whole journey. Even though this whole experience has changed my feeling on narcotics, this was the sole moment in my entire life that I appreciated them the most. But thankfully I wouldn’t need to realize this until after my pain had totally subsided.

The anesthesiologist decided to give me nerve block which basically numbed my entire foot. He had me clumsily rolled over on to my belly just tell him when I feel something. He used an ultrasound to look for a few specific nerves that he would “block.” Later I found out he was looking into a blue screen to identify the nerves deep in my leg. He kept saying, “it’s that one, maybe,” which was totally unnerving. Eventually found them after saying this scary phrase multiple times. He proceeded to stick a needle in my leg in order to sever the signal between my nerves and brain for next 14 hours. The “dilaudid” made so I couldn’t feel much except the weird shaky feeling of my nerves when the stuck me, and I would reply “I can feel something.” Thankfully it was more than something. At one point Simon said he could see me foot shake after he stuck me like it was one or those sound pipes. It had to be one of the most bizarre experiences of my life. Simon then told me it was good I was looking away the entire because the syringe was about 4 inches long and he stuck it all the way into my leg.

Simon's account of this night via Facebook “As Alexis was screaming in pain in the emergency room as a 3 inch Long needle went halfway into her thigh to block the nerves to her foot I told her it'll be ok, and with 2 nurses and a doctor in the room she yelled, ‘at least it's not as bad as finals!’”

It turned out the doctors had a very valid reason for taking off my splint, thank god they waited until I had calmed down and could no longer feet my foot. They said they were only going to look at my calf to make sure none of it felt like wood a symptom of compartment syndrome. They said since I was complaining that my foot and calf felt squished and tight that it was a sign of symptoms of the syndrome. Besides not having this condition they also loosed by extremely tight splint which added to my relief.

The nurse now came back in, she has relaxed a bit and so had I. She gave a few new tricked of how to maneuver my cast since I am not one legged, I am eternally grateful to her. After the fact my mom bought to my attention, after I had complained about the ER taking forever to give me pain medicine, she said she thought they didn’t really know what to do since they couldn’t call my surgeon and the doctor on call was the one who said to get a nerve block and the ER had no formal direction to do so.

They gave me some new pain pills that would not make me nauseous but were pretty mild since the ER doctor did not have the jurisdiction to give me anything stronger, and it was still the weekend so no one could prescribe me anything stronger. So we traveled the few blocks to Walgreen's which is thankfully open 24hrs a day. My mom said that “in the old days” there used only be two 24 hours pharmacies in Seattle, and I’m sure none of them had computers that could register a new customer in their system in faster than the 15 min we waited for the “tramadol.”

As this point I felt kind of bad for putting all the people around me in the stressful agonizing situation including the ER staff, but in all honesty I could not have been any more thankful to be falling asleep completely pain free at 3 am.

Sunday 6/23/13

I slept like a log. The next I woke up and noticed this weird blue stuff the anesthesiologist had put on my leg before the ultra sound. I thought that this whole situation was kind of funny and considered to myself that the medical field is totally bizarre in the way it does things. This blue stuff was just slathered on my leg like paint and I left it as a souvenir. I felt like a million bucks until 2 pm when the block started to wear off. I took my new meds, and still tried to take the oxycodone but with no reprieve. By 11 that night I back to moaning and was still using the line “MY TOE HURTS.”

We called the on-call doctor who reminded us that no one could help us except the ER and to go in to Dr. Mankey’s office in the morning to help. To my surprise Dr. Mankey called us shortly to tell us to come in bright and early the next morning right after we spoke to the on-call doctor. It turned out Dr. Mankey had gotten a phone call from the on-call doctor, probably because I had called the guy so many times he felt my surgeon should know that I was going to show up on his door step tomorrow. I didn’t think my pain was as bad as Saturday but it was bad enough that I couldn’t sleep all night so I watch Arrested Development with only getting an hour of sleep before we needed to be up at 6, I was wide awake at 5:30 ready to see Marty Mankey.

Monday 2/24/13

Simon and my mom were kind enough to stuff my knee scooter in the car and take me to up to Capitol Hill for my apt at 7:15. Marty Mankey rushed in at 7:15 in in a pretty trendy sport coat and some cool jeans (looking pretty good for a dude who has been doing this surgery for 20+ years and somehow found this time to go to medical school). I was still in pain when I got into the apt room. They took my splint off to take x-rays. At this point I was crying because 1) it hurt 2) I was scared 3) I didn’t want to see my nasty foot. The assistant was gentile even though he attempted to fool us with a cranky demeanor, he made a joke about this scary looking saw that he was about to cut off my cast with. He said this saw is very loud but does not cut skin, to my surprise he took it up to his hand and showed me by “sawing” at his palm—nothing happened. I was relieved which helped me lighten up. Once he took my splint off I saw my foot even thought I didn’t want to look at first. I had some stitched and it looked pretty swollen. The doctor and the assistant assured me that it was “looking good”—in nasty foot talk—and sent me to get x-rays. My toe nails look weird due to the fake fake tanning stuff, they normally are not yellow folks.

I was afraid to use my scooter with my foot exposed. I had been babying it, even yelling at ER doctors to not touch my foot. The x-ray guy explained to me I only had I hold my foot up over the x-ray machine, which turned out to be a lie. I was still in pain so hoisting it up on a table was difficulty, let alone placing my foot it odd positions when I could barely hold it up without my hand grasping my leg. He asked me random questions about myself which I assumed were or security reason, age, birthday, first letters of my last name but when he asked me my age I told him 24, he told me he was 54. I then said “I guess even though this hurts if I wasn’t doing this now I would be doing it in 30 years when I’m your age” and he laughed and agreed. At this point I had finally come around to this whole crazy surgery thing, especially once I got my x-ray results. My foot looks perfect and I couldn’t be happier.

The casting assistant told all about how he was going to apply a new cast. I started making conversation and he started warming up, we told him he must be the best casting making ever. He was an older man, probably about to retire. I expressed to him that I hoped he would be here in two more weeks when I get another case so he could do it. He said he would be out of town on vacation visiting his daughter who lives in Oregon with her husband. He said he was going down to see their new house that they had just bought. I was bummed some other person would be doing my cast but I think by the end of the appointment we all felt much less cranky and light hearted.

By the time I got my bright green cast on I was already Sounders game ready, with the back of my leg blue, my blue scooter ,and the rest of my leg super tan! We had a mini photo shoot with my scooter and baby monster and headed to get some new drugs.

Now, I was set to take more dilaudid, or as I like to call it “delusional and sedated” as well as oxycontin or “oxytocin.” It took a while to get this new medicine schedule down, 1-3 dilaudid every 3 hours, 1 oxycontin every 8, and an anti-nausea every 8.

Now it is Tuesday 6/26/13 and I barely feel anything. The narcotic made me feel really weird at first but now I just attribute it to my personality.

Now I can finally welcome visitors!

Thank you to Holly for this card.

Conclusions and thoughts:
The people around me can put up with a lot.
I am evil when I am in pain.
Human kind is super amazing.
People truly are forgiving no matter for difficult you are acting.
Arrested Development is awesome, so is The Killing.
Crackers saved my sanity this week and I'm going to avoid them for a very long time after I taking pills...
Narcotics have their purpose, but otherwise are super scary!
I sympathize with anyone take narcotics on a daily basis for pain, horrible stuff. Also that at first the narcotics make you ignore the pain instead of making it go away and truly feel better :( That's pretty messed up.
Overall this surgery has been worth it despite the pain, it has made me stronger, braver, and more appreciative of all kindness and unconditional love and care people have expressed to me.

I love you all!

Alexis and monster baby