The computer always locks up when you’re in a hurry.

#Bionic man 2.3.  Wednesday, March 30, 2016.  Surgery went quickly and well this morning.  I will be in Princeton Medical Center until Friday, after which I will go to St. Lawrence Rehabilitation center or perhaps even home, depending on how quickly I recover.  Physical therapy got me out of bed this afternoon and had me using a walker to go about 100 steps up and down the hall.  Moving around actually felt better than sitting in bed.  I’m sitting in a recliner now.

They really want to make sure that I don’t try to get up on my own.  When I made the mistake of leaning too far forward to reach for something on my bed, it set off an alarm that brought the nurse running.  Fortunately she gave me a longer tether so that won’t happen again, but I still better not stand up without help.  She also gave me some Tylenol and IV ibuprofen in anticipation of more pain as the spinal block and novocaine injection into my knee wear off.  Current pain management practice does not use opioids during and after surgery as much as was done during my hip surgeries.  Reportedly I will start taking opioids tomorrow, but I appreciate that right now I’m not doped up, nor nauseous, as I was after previous surgeries.

Some things don’t change.  Every bit of medicine has to be entered into the system scanning the band on my wrist.  Of course the computer terminal in my room froze up just as the nurse was being paged to see to another patient.  She had to resort to the usual high tech solution to a locked computer.   Shut it down and reboot.

Tags: #bionic, #pain_and_disturbance