Day 1 Post PAO

I woke up feeling pretty decent the morning after surgery. I slept quite a bit this day. I had great nurses and every time they asked my pain level, I would say zero or 1. Dr. Peter's crew came in to check on me and they were concerned about the degree of numbness in my right quad. The epidural completely numbed my right leg and only slightly my left leg which was great, but they were concerned that I had feeling below my knee and in my hamstring. When they tried to have me flex my quad, nothing happened. I wasn't too concerned at first, having had 4 previous epidurals and having similar ability to move my feet and lower legs. I was getting nervous after awhile though when they kept coming to check it and saying it wasn't very common for the epidural to work in that manner. During PT that day, I stood up and took a couple of steps and my knee buckled. My quad apparently wasn't working to stabilize my knee. My body was not happy to be trying to walk. I heard all kinds of nasty popping sounds in my hip but didn't have any pain. In the evening around 5 I started having weird feelings in my leg. It felt like when you stick your feet in a bucket of ice and it becomes so cold that it feels hot. Anyway, that was going on for probably an hour and then all of a sudden my pain level went from a zero to like a 7. I felt floored. So I paged the nurse a few times, no response. I was starting to get pretty ticked off that the nurse had not come in the room. So finally, she came in and the shifts had just changed so I had a brand new nurse...great, I loved my old nurse! This lady comes in and the very first thing she does is start talking with her hands and smacks my operated leg. I could not believe it! I wanted to yell a ton of profanities at her but instead just gave her a look that could kill. So, we were off to a great start! Then I started asking if my epidural had somehow come out or was turned down because the pain level had gone way up. She said, no everything is the same, and said it should be working. Well, it's not working anymore! What can we do about it. She just kept saying, I don't know and it should still work. So she left the room to check on getting more and said she would be back soon. Of course she wasn't back soon so we started hitting our button again. She finally came in with "special permission" to give me more oxycodone. That's great I said, but it hasn't done much for me in the past so I'm not sure it will this time. I took the meds and immediately felt nauseous so I asked her for some meds for that and some crackers. She leaves and doesn't come back. Finally I am totally breaking down crying and hurting and my husbands asks, "Do I need to do something about this?" Yes you do, I said. I was in so much pain. So he walks out in the hall and she is sitting at her desk. "Where are the crackers?!" "What?" "Where are the crackers?!" "Oh, I'm sorry I forgot." "Well, you need to not forget. My wife is sick and hurting and you need to pay attention and not forget next time!" So she finally comes in with the crackers and I tell her we need to do something else for the pain because the oxy is not touching it. So she leaves to call the pain team. 20 minutes go by and they can't get a hold of the doctors. My pain is about an 8 but if I even twinge or shift it immediately blasts to a 10. The nurse was not helping my mood. My husband walked back out in the hall and there she was again, talking to a different nurse. "Have you heard back from the doctor" "No." "Why not?" "Well, I am not your nurse anymore. The charge nurse is taking over." "Oh, good." So basically, my pain is totally out of control now and the charge nurse comes in to tell me the doctor is coming. He tells me that he thinks my sciatic nerve is probably inflammed and that is the cold/hot feelings and that as far as the pain, they don't know why the epidural can be so picky sometimes. Even the slightest change, can cause the meds to shift and not be as effective. So he put some meds into my IV and upped my epidural. The pain stayed about the same for the next hour and then got a little more tolerable. The charge nurse gave me a Xanax with my next dose of oxy to help me relax and not fight against the pain. I was skeptical about that helping with the pain, but it really helped and allowed me to get some relief to sleep that night. Needless to say, I wasn't too excited to be waking up to the neurologist the next morning saying, "Julie, we've got to take out this epidural."