wrist, phase three, installment one

For those keeping score at home, phase one was me bitching about my wrist. Phase two was the cortisone shot (OW) and brace. Then it started hurting again a couple weeks ago, so I went for phase three, surgery.

It didn't hurt as bad as before. Back in late winter, it would wake me up at night. And it hurt really bad on a large range of motions. After the cortisone, it just hurt really bad on a fairly small range of motions. But I clearly remember how bad it hurt in February and I didnt want the damn thing to get that bad again, plus my Dr promised that the surgery is a low risk low pain permanent fix. I pinned him down on "low pain" and he admitted that yes, the surgery would hurt less than the cortisone shot did - so I went ahead with it.

Of course I couldn't eat or drink after midnight the night before. And I quit smoking (nicotine patches) on Saturday, so I was fairly irritable when I got to the outpatient surgery place.

They didn't know who I was. Yep, I wasn't scheduled for surgery. I pitched a very polite and patient fit and showed them my appointment receipt, and they decided I was right and fit me in at the right time. Apparently the fax machine ate some important communication. But they made it right, so I'm not mad (anymore).

Anyway, they gave me Versed which was fun and then I fell asleep and they chopped on my wrist. I woke up, they gave me a lot of Lorcet, and they kicked me out of there. I felt pretty slow all day. That's the best I can describe it - slow. Once the initial drugs wore off, I filled my rx for a huge honkin bottle of Lorcet and went and bought some stupid groceries* and went home. I have a very professional ace bandage on my wrist, which I can't remove til Saturday.

*cheese, crackers, and smoked wild Alaskan salmon. Tasty, but not much food for the money. Seemed like a good idea at the time :)

My wrist finally started aching some at like 7 last night, so I took two lorcet and fell asleep. Kinda. Hydrocodone and nic patches DO NOT MIX, kids. Nic patches give you incredibly vivid weird dreams - it's a known side effect, and it's usually kind of fun if you're expecting it. But last night - I had apocalyptic hallucinations, which turned out to be dreams, all night. I kept thinking that I was just thinking these bizarre thoughts, then a cat would bounce off of me or the dog would start squeaking a toy and I'd wake up and realize that I'd been asleep so that must've been a dream?

There was a whole series of very scary Dr. Who dreams about the universe falling apart. There was a short and terrifying dream about a woman serial killer who wanted to slice me up, but I forced myself to wake up from that one. And then there was the breakfast-on-the-balcony dream, which was quite pleasant in comparison. I went out on my little balcony and there was a tiny table, with tablecloth, place setting, and chair. I looked around and all the other balconies had tables too! I dream-realized that it was for the room service, so I went and got the menu. You could order weekend brunch (waffles, eggs benedict, OJ, etc) and magical gnomes would sneak it through your apartment and set it up on the table. Of course like all brunches it was expensive, but they just added the bill to your next month's rent.

It was a seriously weird night. I've never been so glad to hear the alarm go off. Anyway, my wrist feels ok but my head is still pretty fuzzy.