The Professional Patient's Lessons Learned

I had a hole in my nose. To be exact, a perforation in my nasal septum, the cartilage that separates the two airways. A person gets comfortable with the way certain parts of the body function, and this part of me just hadn’t worked right ever since Dr. Nasty’s life-saving transphenoidal brain surgery. Sparing the gory details, my efforts to breathe freely (like the old days) had resulted in more than I bargained for – a noisy extra air passage.

I once watched a TV show on plastic surgery where the surgeons were repairing a nasal septum that had a big hole in it as a result of the patient sniffing too much cocaine, so I was a little defensive when given this diagnosis. Even though I knew my ear, nose and throat doc was aware of my brain surgery, I imagined him thinking “Yeah, right . . . the hole developed as a result of what? SURE it did. . .”

Called a “septoplasty”, the surgery was scheduled for Christmas vacation so it wouldn’t interfere with my studies. It was miserable. It would be an outpatient surgery where skin would be taken from the cartilage of my ear to mend the perforation. At least I knew about this extra procedure prior to surgery, unlike before when I woke up wondering if the wrong part of me had been operated on (see post of 1/06/10 – “Postoperative Nightmare”). Once again, my nose was packed, but for only a week or so. And unlike before, I didn’t have to worry about brain fluid shooting out if I sneezed, but still had to be careful. It would take some time before it really became part of me. But, most importantly, it wasn’t whistling anymore.

Spring semester at school started the next month. Still taking 18 hours a semester, I was optimistic that it would be smooth-sailing now. But by late February I started developing lower abdominal pains which made it impossible to find any comfortable position, let alone try to stand or walk straight. I went to a couple of doctors that couldn’t figure it out; nothing showed up on tests. Finally one OB/GYN said he had a hunch and would do some exploratory surgery to see if his guess was right. He said pelvic adhesions were one-dimensional and didn’t show up on ultrasound or x-ray. Sure enough, the March 9, 2007, laparoscopy removed multiple adhesions that had my intestines so twisted to my side, he said it was a wonder I was still able to eat. (You can insert your own joke here). This was an outpatient surgery and I felt great within a couple of days.

But the hurdles weren’t over yet. Just a couple of weeks later while cleaning my room one night, I had an unusual pain that felt like it was coming from my heart. I thought it had something to do with my shoulders, since they never became completely pain-free after both surgeries. My emergency room experience taught me that women often presented with shoulder or back pain instead of chest pain when having a heart attack. So, was this it? Was this what a heart attack felt like? I knew a heart attack caused constant pressure, and didn’t let up with respirations- and this pain didn’t change. Oh my. This was it! I panicked and tried to remember the important things. How much aspirin should I take? Should we call an ambulance? How do I look? Should I finish my homework first? I don’t remember if it was my husband or me who called 911, but within minutes I heard the wail of the sirens and the firemen were at my door.
Cheers!
TPP

I felt like a leper the last week at the community college. My old nursing “friends,” fearing guilt by association, steered clear of me at school but would occasionally call me at home. “Hey, we heard that the next nursing classes are going to get the nursing skills lab you wanted. How ‘bout that!” A lot of good it did me. I also was denied the ability to drop my nursing classes and was given an F in both them. Nothing like kicking a girl when she’s down.

I didn’t attend my graduation, but got everything done in the house that I would need both hands to do because my left hand surgery date was close by. On the day of surgery, my husband took me on the 1-1/2 hour drive to my doctor’s surgical center. I felt reassured that I was in good hands. Every orthopedic surgeon at this facility had their own specialty. My doctor specialized in hands, another specialized in feet and ankles, another in knees, another in shoulders, and so on.

I remembered to ask the anesthesiologist to give me the extra dose of Solu-Cortef so I wouldn’t experience any unpleasant crashes. The surgery went well and I was home that day with my immobilized hand and wrist. I could start hand therapy in three weeks.

About that time I started my online studies at the university taking 18 hours; something I thought attainable since I wasn’t working, wouldn’t have to commute or listen to boring lectures, wouldn’t have opportunities for coffee with classmates, and could do in my pajamas. I figured at this rate I could graduate in 13 months, then go on to an accelerated nursing program. It went well that summer, so I took another 18 credits for the fall class. Then something strange started to happen. A whistling noise was coming out of me. I swore it happened every time I breathed. It got louder every day. The whistling was coming from my nose!

This was one of the most ridiculous things I could imagine happening –and embarrassing. I’d be standing in a grocery line – and whistling. I’d be talking on the phone – and whistling. I’d be lying in bed, and whistling. It would even wake me up. I would have dreams of the wind howling and I would wake up to find out IT WAS ME! I’d be doing ANYTHING, and whistling. It wouldn’t stop unless I quit breathing, or kept my mouth open. I made an appointment with the nice ear, nose and throat doc who had rescued me once before (see 1/20/10, “Dr. Nasty Leaves a Souvenir”). What else did Dr. Nasty leave with me?
Cheers!
TPP

The hanging occurred on a Friday afternoon, so my family saw no reason to disturb my catatonic state for the weekend. I don’t think I was capable of doing much more than sitting in the same chair I had dropped into after returning from my latest life-shattering event. By Sunday night the saying “success is the sweetest revenge” came into my head, and I decided that I would go back to school the next day and take care of business. That included dropping the rest of my nursing classes, and finishing up my transferable statistics and nutrition classes so that I could graduate with a general studies associates degree and transfer to a university where I could get a bachelor’s degree in nursing instead of just an associates degree – so there!

This was another time I would realize that stress would cause me to have to increase my prednisone dose; something I found dreadful to have to do since it would set my withdrawal back, but I had to be able to get out of the chair (or bed) somehow.

I also decided to try to get back to work at the hospital, but working as an EMT in the emergency room with the likelihood of working with evil Kittie again was out of the question. I talked to the ER director and she agreed to transfer me to the surgical unit where I would work as an orderly. It wasn’t nearly as fun as being an EMT, but at least I was far away from Kittie.

It was funny how I wanted to be a nurse; how I really wanted to be one of them, even though I really didn’t like the way most of them behaved. One day a nurse who knew I was well qualified to monitor patients and take vital signs decided I would be better suited cutting breathing hoses with scissors. My damaged hands (from too many years as a typist) became more damaged and painful and I saw my doctor. She prescribed hand therapy where the therapist said that therapy wouldn’t do any good for my advanced damage, and I was referred to a “top-notch” hand surgeon who visited my area once a month. He said the bones at the bases of my thumbs (called trapeziums) were arthritic and should be removed with some kind of tendon transposition. Recovery would be three months.

About the same time a pre-surgical nurse accused me of deliberately withholding an oxygen tank from a child’s recovery bed. Now why in blazes would I (or anyone for that matter!) deliberately withhold oxygen from someone’s bed, let alone a child’s? I guess I had “failed nursing student turned serial killer” written on my head. Now on a higher dose of prednisone, it was more difficult for me to control my temper, especially with this ridiculous accusation and responded with anger rather than an explanation. When I was called into the supervisor’s desk (what a surprise) I explained the truth – that somehow the gurneys got mixed up and I had nothing to do with the stupid nurse using a gurney that didn’t have an oxygen tank on it and I realized I hadn’t handled the situation professionally but, oh well, and by the way I needed three months off to have left hand surgery. I think she was glad to get rid of me, and she readily granted me leave.

I was able to finish my community college studies and graduate with a general associate’s degree which was fully transferable to the local university. I wasn’t sure about my rehabilitation after my hand surgery even though my hand surgeon said I would be able to type cautiously, and since I would have to have my right hand done three months later, I enrolled in an online program in health sciences at Northern Arizona University to start in June. But first I had to have a left thumb ligament reconstruction tendon interposition surgery.
Cheers!
TPP

Per instructions by the nursing school director, I made an appointment to see my counselor to find out what kind of trouble I was in. She told me it was her obligation to represent me in a hearing which was being called to determine whether my difficulty with the nursing instructors had merit or not. The idea sounded professional enough and the two of us prepared my formal complaints and what we thought would correct the situation (like a skills lab to learn how to do a blood transfusion, for instance).

The day of the hearing came about and Olga, the director, sat at the head of a huge maple conference table, with Cruella seated to the left of her and my counselor and me at her right. Cruella sat across from me with no expression at all while I explained my problem with the threats and lack of skills lab and even outlined how well I had done when I attended the over-the-hill branch of the nursing school. Unmoved, Olga denied my request to transfer back to the other school, “We just don’t do things like that,” but said she would look into having better skills training done before we got to the hospital to do the real deal on real people. However, she said “all” the instructors were on the same page with questioning my ability to be a nurse and I would have to undergo intense observation and testing. The noose had been placed around my neck.

My counselor and I walked out of the hearing not sure if it went well or not. We were happy that the skills lab situation would most likely be improved, but questioned what was in store for me. I knew I could take the skills test because I had passed them all before, but at this point I didn’t really trust any of them.

Sure enough, my suspicions were confirmed at the skills test set for me. The once friendly skills lab instructor suddenly turned cold during my test, and had set up tubes and vials totally unfamiliar to me (and no longer used at the hospital). I was given outdated syringes and watched and timed while I tried to figure out what went where and what it was called. The intensity of the test caused me to totally blank out on medication names that I otherwise knew by heart and my nervousness and prednisone jitters got the best of me. I flunked the test and the noose tightened

Going back to the clinical floor of the hospital while Kittie watched me like a hawk didn’t go any better. While my peers got to spread out and work on their own, Kittie scrutinized every move I made. I finally forgot to check a name band on a patient before giving her a med, and that was it. Kittie went wild with “What am I going to do with you? I’ve tried so hard to get you trained and you just can’t cut it!” Right. She tried really hard at something, but it wasn’t at training me to be a nurse.

Kittie brought me inside the break room and said a hearing would have to be set up for me to be expelled from the nursing program; that I just wasn’t nursing material. It took every ounce of strength I had to sit there and listen to her. It was apparent that I wasn’t going to win this battle. I have a personal policy of not being where I’m not wanted, and I clearly wasn’t wanted in this school. So I got up and said, “I’ll save you all the trouble – I QUIT!” And I left the room, then the hospital, then the parking lot. I didn’t have the strength to fight it anymore. The noose had been tightened all the way.

When I got home I sat in a living room chair and couldn’t move. I wasn’t sure what my next move would be since the dream I had been chasing for several years was over. Now what?
Cheers!
TPP

Anyone who has been on prednisone for any length of time can tell you sleeping is an unobtainable luxury, and I couldn’t have done it without my counselor’s suggestion that I try an SSRI (anti-depressant). Now I was the type that thought one has to be depressed to take an anti-depressant, but I was told they are also very effective for pain and sleep issues. The drug took a couple of weeks to kick in, then I had one blissful week of extreme elation (nothing could upset me that week), but then things changed. At night I was actually sleepy, and could get a decent night’s rest, and my pain was less. But I didn’t like the side effects – dizziness, dry mouth, headaches, vegetables making me nauseous, blurred vision, decreased coordination and concentration, more irritability than I already had, and ringing in my ears. This was much like the drugs they advertise on TV, then rapidly list the horrific side effects (“may cause erections lasting over 9 hours, or death” – oh yeah, sign me up). But weighing the risks and benefits, I had to decide that having a good’s night sleep was more important – at least for now.

Setting aside my medical status, the main focus now for this 52-year-old nursing student was getting through nursing school. I was given special permission to attend the state nursing association meetings, but a couple of times they fell on my clinical days. Kittie, my clinical nursing instructor, didn’t share my enthusiasm for the student nurses’ association, and didn’t give me any accolades for being involved in it. As a matter of fact, there was only one other nursing instructor showing much of an interest in the organization, but she wasn’t very influential in the nursing politics at that time (she would later get her well-deserved position as the director of the school, but that would be too late for me).

Another nasty clinical instructor would be assisting Kittie with nursing clinicals. Let’s call her Cruella. She looked just like Cruella de Ville, only her whole head was white and she wore wire-rimmed glasses. But she had the same scowl all the time

Cruella and Kittie would assign us to different nurses working the medical-surgical unit for training, and it was the luck of the draw on what nurse a student would be training under. Some students were fortunate and had very helpful nurses; nurses they had developed a relationship with while working the previous summer as nursing assistants (and I was recovering from shoulder surgery instead). I was never that lucky. Remember the nurse who wouldn’t give me a paper bag when I had to be readmitted to the hospital with complications? (See January 11th post, Back in the Hospital). Yeah, I even had to shadow her one day. To say she offered me no help at all would be a supreme understatement. Kittie was also supposed to be rotating us to different areas of the hospital for different experiences. But whenever my turn came up to be rotated to the ER (where I knew I’d find an old friend who would help me learn the required skills), she would always find some reason not to let me go. Yep, Kittie held a grudge.

A clinical day missed because of a student nurses’ meeting had to be made up with a different instructor on another day. I thought this would be my big chance to get trained where Kittie was blocking me. But it didn’t work out that way and my treatment by her wasn’t any different. She criticized me for inadequate medication knowledge; criticism that only a handful of us received. While we were never given a formal pharmaceutical course, the “handful” was expected to have a pharmacist’s knowledge of medications. This expectation seemed to get overlooked with most of the other students.

One day Cruella and Kittie said that we would have to perform three particular skills under a nurse’s supervision, and the third time would have to be perfect or we would be out. I asked for clarification (being the oldest, most bold, and after all, the vice-president of the student nurses’ association). Cruella repeated that we would have to demonstrate our competence performing an IV push, IV piggyback and blood transfusion on unsuspecting hospital patients – without a skills lab – or we were out of the program.

If only I had not been rehabilitating from brain surgery, on steroids and anti-depressants and not had so much disdain for Cruella, I would have behaved a lot differently. I’m sure I would have thought this out calmly and intelligently and realized that this request was so unfair and unbelievable, no public college president would support such a threat. But hearing this and knowing what a difficult time I was having getting trained blunted the voice of reason and diplomacy. And the rage took over.

I honestly don’t remember what I said to Cruella and Kittie, but it got me in enough trouble that I was sent to my counselor to prepare for a hearing before the Director of Nursing. And that’s a story for next time.
Cheers!

TPP

So many things went wrong with my second year of nursing school that I’m not sure where to begin, so starting with the lab instruction is as good as anywhere. At the other campus I enjoyed almost private instruction as the ratio was about five nursing students to one teacher. Our instructor was a wonderful older woman. She had been an elementary school teacher and took the kindly approach of teaching; that of patiently working with students until they got it right, no matter how long it took and with no pressure. When I left her classroom I felt confident that I had learned how to master all the things required of first-year nursing students, like how to give an injection and gag patients with a tube put through their nose and down their throat and into their stomach to suction nasty things out.

Lab at the new campus was a whole different story; for starts, there were about 50 students in it. It was huge. No more personal attention. When the lab instructor gave a demonstration of something we were supposed to learn at the dummy patient’s bed, all the hotshot students would race over and huddle around to watch in awe the nursing skill of the day, leaving out us older, slower moving (and much more polite) students. We’d wait until they’d left and tried to figure out what we were supposed to have learned. Just about the time we’d manage to get in position, we’d usually hear, “Time’s up! If anyone didn’t get a chance to try it, come back between classes and you’ll get a chance to practice all you want.” But that didn’t usually happen. Not because I didn’t need the extra help, but my free time never coincided with the free time of the lab room, and many times when I’d go back there, the lab was locked. Or, it may be unlocked, but no one would be available to help me figure out what it was I was supposed to know.

The week following the lab when we had learned the new skill, we would be tested to see how well we knew it. There were so many of us, we were broken up into groups and given designated times to check in. There were usually several other nurses, (some instructors, some not) who would take part in the testing to help out. These nurses were unfamiliar with us students, and it was hit or miss on whether they were going to be kind and helpful, or critical and only interested in showing how brilliant they were and how dumb we were. For the first time since starting nursing school I dreaded nursing labs and nursing lab tests.

I was also still nibbling peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and withdrawing from prednisone, so the stress of the nursing lab compounded my nausea. My shoulders also were still bothering me, and I continued to return to the surgeon for cortisone shots which he gave me without hesitation. He even didn’t question my activities in the hospital on my clinical days when he’d see me hustling away, pushing gurneys and wheelchairs and lifting patients. I was also becoming increasing aware of pain in my thumbs and wrists, especially my right; and my problems with my nose and breathing never ended with the packing being removed; I was now left with a deviated septum which caused practically a totally obstructed nasal passage.

In the meantime, I was working off some of the steroid jitters and energy by keeping busy with the state student nursing association meetings and preparing to attend a national conference with the other officers. I was also holding student nursing association meetings at my own school which included motivation sessions for pre-nursing students on the virtues of nursing school and if I could do it, they could do it. But I didn’t yet realize the politics at this nursing school would make that untrue; that a nursing student’s success here was dependent on the wishes of the teaching staff, not the students’ accomplishments. This I would learn very soon.
Cheers!
TPP

I was having so much pain in my right shoulder that by May I would have already returned several times to my surgeon’s office for cortisone shots. Had I known better, I would have realized that this signified something was wrong; that you aren’t supposed to need more cortisone shots months after surgery. After all, the whole reason for the surgery was to stop the pain. Repeated cortisone shots are also bad for your bones. But I didn’t know any better, and while still in pain from the first surgery, went ahead and had the left shoulder surgery as scheduled. I just wanted to get it over with and move on, a mantra I would repeat many times over in the future.

My past shoulder surgery gave me the experience necessary to know the extra things I needed to prepare for this upcoming event. A visit to the medical supply store provided me with hospital no-rinse soap, a no-rinse shampoo cap and the adult equivalent of baby wipes. I also bought spray deodorant and a dental flossing pick. The pillows were all set for the recliner, and most importantly, I knew to inform the anesthesiologist that I was adrenal insufficient so as to not repeat the last surgical blood pressure crash. So bring it on!

The surgery went off without a hitch, and I spent the whole summer recovering (again without formal rehab) and trying to put colorful tabs in my nursing drug handbook. Since we weren’t given a pharmaceutical class, the nursing students were instructed to have a hand-held computer with all the meds listed, or a nursing medication book with all the meds tabbed and classified. Since I couldn’t afford a hand-held computer, I worked all summer on that book (and still have it), but would be hassled over my lack of pharmaceutical knowledge anyways (more on that later).

School started and I would now be able to do my Friday clinicals at the nearby hospital where I had worked as an EMT. No more commuting! And not only was I vice-president of the state Student Nurses Association, I had been voted my school’s president of the local chapter. This was beginning to be as great as last year – but not for long.

While in the college library one day, I ran into “Kittie” the nurse. I must digress and describe the significant history Kittie and I had together. It went back to a time when I had been an EMT, and while working at the hospital ER one night, I was asked to help out Kittie because she didn’t have a technician. I was already assigned to another nurse and would be devoting most of my attention to her patients, but I said I’d help if Kittie needed me. It was before I knew I had Cushing’s disease and was experiencing a particularly bad night. We were short staffed, the end of my six-day-in-a-row rotation, and my short temper was very short. Kittie was in the room with a patient. She called me in to do something quickly, so I ran into the dark room and switched the lights on. Holy cow – you would have thought I had committed a major crime! Kittie starting yelling about how she didn’t want the lights on because the patient had a migraine and why was I so stupid not to know this and why couldn’t I do the procedure in the dark and if I was competent I wouldn’t have had to turn on the light and. . . . . . . whatever. I was just helping out. I didn’t know the patient had a migraine. I had a hard enough time keeping track of my own patients. And I should have never been expected to do the procedure in the dark anyways.

After I did whatever I had to do, Kittie came over and finished her lecture. She offered no apology for being rude and embarrassing me in front of the patient and her family, just excuses. I was about to boil over. The volcano inside me was about to erupt and I couldn’t do anything about it. She finally finished with a perky little voice saying, “So, . . . are we good?”

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they hear something so ridiculous coming out of someone else’s mouth that its occurrence is beyond belief. This was that kind of time for me. Did she think we could possibly be “good” after this? Restrained, I looked her in the eye and replied, “No, we are NOT good, and I will never be working with you again. I have no respect for you.” And after that, the charge nurse made sure we would always be kept far, far away from each other.

So fast forward to me being in nursing school and seeing Kittie in the library. I went up and said hello to her. After all, this was the new me! The evil brain tumor that made me say bad things was gone, and I would be forgiving and nice to Kittie. I thought with Kittie’s medical knowledge and understanding of what I’d been through, she’d also forgive and forget. Let bygones be bygones! So she told me that she was going to be a clinical instructor for the nursing school, and would probably be my instructor. She was glaring at me with a creepy little smile, and I wasn’t sure if it was the “I don’t understand endocrine disorders” glaze or “I hate your guts” glare, or a combination of both. But whichever it was told me that it didn’t matter if I’d gotten over our little incident, because Kittie hadn’t. I had burned a bridge that was going to be difficult to rebuild, if at all. A really bad feeling came over me; a feeling I was all too familiar with – the threat of impending doom.
Cheers!
TPP

The second semester of nursing school began much the same as the first. Most weekdays I would fight nausea with PB&J sandwiches nibbled throughout classes, and on Fridays I’d wake up at 4:30 a.m. for the long commute to training. The local hospital which I had worked at put me in an “on-call” status, so I could work whenever I wanted (which wasn’t often). I was even offered a contract that paid me $900 a month while I was in nursing school, providing I worked for them after graduation.

On the Fridays while doing nursing clinicals, I tried to avoid any heavy lifting as much as possible without anyone noticing. Otherwise, I might be asked to leave the program until next year. I had worked too hard to get this far. But let’s face it – nursing is a hands-on business. Inevitably I would be in a position where I would have to push a gurney or a wheelchair, lift someone up or roll someone over. I found weaning off steroids now was too much to handle, so I didn’t try very hard to cut back my dose. The withdrawals caused my body to ache all over anyways, and the healing shoulder made it worse. The prednisone helped in reducing the pain, but it didn’t do much for my nerves or anxiety. Fortunately, my clinical instructors seemed to understand and encouraged me with constant coaching, “You can do it; we know you can.” Even when I’d make a mistake, they would tell me to put it behind me and do better next time. They believed I could succeed.

I met so many wonderful patients in those hospital rooms. One unforgettable young lady was hospitalized for a urinary infection. She had been in a car accident several years earlier which completely paralyzed her, making her a quadriplegic for life. On the table beside her were several statues of little angels. Her favorite, she said, was called a Hope Angel. It symbolized hope and strength, and a reason to keep fighting. So while diligently taking care her, I banged into the table with the statues on it. I heard a crash. The only angel to hit the hard tile floor was her favorite Hope Angel – now with a shattered head.

We both just stared at the floor. Did I really just destroy a sick quadriplegic woman’s symbol of hope, or was this just a really bad dream? She told me it was okay; that she liked me and she didn’t want me to worry about it. But I think she just said that to keep me from crying. I probably had just done one of the lowest things a nursing student could possibly do.

It was probably against hospital and school policies (I didn’t try to find out), but I took her address with the intent of somehow finding a replacement. So I did – on eBay. Believe it or not, there is such a thing as a Hope Angel, and they all look alike (pretty much). I bought one that I looked like the one that I had decapitated, and drove a million miles on a dirt road into the desert one day to find her home. Her mother greeted me at the door, but seemed very suspicious of the reason for my visit. I was escorted to the bedroom, where my patient laid surrounded by cats. She said she couldn’t remember the last time someone had driven out to see her, and we spent a lovely hour together. The frail little person told me of the life she once had as a healthy, happy teenager, and how it abruptly changed not so long ago. It made my own aches and pains seem pretty insignificant.

Back at school, the semester was coming to a close and those of us who traveled on Fridays were told there were some extra openings at the nearby hospital, and we wouldn’t have to continue the long drive anymore. About three of us thought it would be a great idea not to commute – we would actually be able to sleep late – to 5:30 a.m.!

The thought of leaving a place with great memories and excellent clinical instructors was a sad one. They had convinced me that I could succeed, and had taught me so much. But I thought I’d do the sensible thing and accept the offer to transfer close to home. This was a decision I would soon regret.

There was a ceremony at school to celebrate completion of our first year of nursing school. It was held at the auditorium, and each one of the nursing students was called up to the stage and given a first-year pin. We all invited our families to watch the big ceremony. My daughter and husband were there to cheer me on. They were so happy for me. My dream of graduating from college and becoming a nurse was only a year away. But first, while all my friends would be working at hospitals all summer, I would have to get through another shoulder surgery.
Cheers!
TPP

The first semester of nursing school was over and rather than vacation somewhere or work, I was getting ready for right shoulder surgery. I had learned from others experienced with shoulder surgeries that there were many things my doctor hadn’t told me.

First, the pain after shoulder surgery is so severe that you can’t lie down – for weeks. The best idea would be to have an adjustable hospital bed waiting for you at home after surgery. If that isn’t an option, the second most popular suggestion was to have a comfortable recliner available in which to spend the next 3-6 weeks.

The problem was that my recliner at home had the lever on the right side – the side in which my arm would be unusable. I thought a great idea would be to purchase an electric recliner in which I could just push a button to go up and down. Have you ever priced these things? They are about twice the cost of a non-electric recliner, and half as comfortable. The seat feels like a piece of heavy cloth was stapled over a concrete slab. Well, I found a good deal on one and bought it anyways with a plan to put lots of foam and pillows on it.

Another thing I wasn’t warned about was that my right arm, my dominant arm, would be totally good for nothing. This meant that anything I did with my right hand, I mean ANYTHING, would have to be done with my left. You may think that is not a big deal unless you try putting your dominant hand behind your back, and do everything with the other hand, such as: Brushing your teeth, putting deodorant on, styling your hair, putting your clothes on, and going to the bathroom, etc. Another problem would be the inability to successfully take a shower. Plastic protective covering can now be purchased in drug stores to keep body parts dry, but in 2004 such things didn’t exist. You had to make do with sponge baths, or cover the whole side of your body with plastic wrap and hope for the best.

So the date of my surgery finally came around and I took my regular dose of prednisone with an allowed “one swallow of water” and checked in. It had never occurred to me to tell my endocrinologist about the surgery, after all, why would I? What did shoulder surgery have to do with Cushing’s disease? I was about to get another hard lesson on the intricacies of glandular disorders.

After the surgery I learned that half-way into being cut into, my blood pressure had bottomed out and surgery was halted. The fast drop in blood pressure would warrant the anesthesiologist to administer an injection of 100 mg. of Solu-Cortef, an injectable high-dose version of steroid similar to the prednisone I took daily. The stress of the surgery had been too much for my adrenal glands to handle. However, after the steroid kicked in, surgery was resumed. I later woke up nicely in the recovery room.

Once home, I was real happy to have my recliner awaiting me, all fluffed up with cushions and pillows. It took less than a week to get sick of sleeping in a recliner, but the alternative was impossible. The surgery and postop pain had also caused a setback in my prednisone withdrawal, and I actually had to slightly increase my daily dose. At my three-week postop appointment, I was allowed to shower without a sling and given a couple of pages of exercises and diagrams, but no physical rehabilitation was ordered. This would not serve me well later. The surgery would also leave me with a permanent itch in the spot where the anesthesiologist had injected a pain block. (For years I have talked to doctors about this, and attempts to cure this condition have proven unsuccessful).

Four weeks later, with Christmas break ending and still slightly in pain, I resumed classes as the second semester of nursing school began.
Cheers!
TPP