Post surgery, the resident doctor who assisted the surgeon, came out to tell me that Erika's surgery went exactly as planned. As expected, her hip was dead. Upon severing and removing the ball of her hip, a piece of cartilage was loose, hanging off the joint. So not only was she dealing the pain of the collapses joint, but it was also bone on bone for a year and a half.
On the bed, nurses rolled Erika into her room where she would be staying for the next three days. As she got closer I noticed in her face that she was dealing with immense pain. The pain she was feeling, she described, was as bad as her most painful day before surgery. The doctor came in and was as surprised as we were, that she was in pain, for he had said many times, "The pain you feel will disappear immediately after the surgery. You will feel so much better." Not exactly. He rushed for an immediate injection of a "femoral nerve block" from the anesthesiology team.
All night nurses worked hard to get her pain managed. Thanks to the nerve block, she was able to rest part of the night.
This morning Dr. Pelt, the orthopedic surgeon, wanted to take another x-ray to make sure there were not any damage to the bone, such as a fracture caused by the surgery itself. The results came back negative. He believes because her hip collapsed for so long, her nerves may have adjusted to the shortened length. Because she now has the corrected length of hips in place, her nerves now have to learn to adjust to the stretching, 5mm to be exact, immediately. Combine this with the fact that Erika has been tolerating very high doses of pain medication for the past two years, the standard dosage of pain medication they have been giving her may not be adequate.
So for now, unfortunately not like other patients, Erika still has to deal with more pain post surgery, but at least we have an idea that things should get better from this point. She has not taken her first step yet with her full weight on it. Erika most likely will be admitted into a rehabilitation hospital for aggressive physical therapy and with 24 hour support, located in South Ogden. On her spare time there she would spend plenty of hours mastering the game Bingo among other elderly patients also going through rehab.
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| Always in good spirit. |
