Two Years Ago...

Well, hard to believe that it was two years ago yesterday that I checked into NYU to have brain surgery. And, at about this time 2 years ago, I was finally getting ready to be transported from the Recovery Room to what is called a Step-down ICU room. As near as I can tell, the step-down room is pretty much like any other room only with more roommates and a lot more tubes, wires, beeps and buzzers.

I spent the first night after surgery in the Recovery Room instead of Neuro ICU simply because NICU was full up. So, the other Acoustic Neuroma patient and I were tucked into a corner of the Recovery room with our own Neuro nurse. It wasn't the most pleasant of nights, but that probably was as much to do with waking up with a big incision in my head than with the accommodations.

I would be hard pressed to describe what that first 24 hours felt like - other than to say that it was unpleasant to the extreme! Funny thing is that the thing that bothered me the most was the pressure dressing on my head - that friggin' thing was wrapped completely around my skull so tight that my ears were smashed against my head. I remember my damned ears hurting more than anything else - which is actually funny when you realize that I had a 6 inch incision in my head and a 2-inch incision in my belly. In fact, I remember trying to slip a finger between the pressure "turban" and my head to allow my poor ears to get some room - naturally, I did this when no one was looking. I am pretty sure that this was not on the list of recommended activities.

When I was being transported from RR to the step-down "suite", one of the orderlies who was wheeling me suddenly stopped, got a horrified look on her face, yelled something at her partner about the "patient coming unhooked" and bolted back to the RR. Now, as I am laying on my little gurney in the hallway, I started to get just a little concerned. Even in my morhpine-induced haze, I intuited that something was amiss. And, when I was able to rotate my head just a few degrees to the right, where the other orderly was fumbling around, I noticed one of the tubes that was attached to me dangling, dripping blood on the floor. Yikes. That can't be good. Well, soon enough a gaggle of nurses and doctorly-looking people scurried up, conferred, and quickly got the runaway tube back where it was supposed to be. Gee, they will do anything to make sure the patient is entertained, won't they? I am happy to say that the rest of the day was uneventful.

Ah, what a difference two years makes...