Thursday, June 2, 2022
I got up a 4 am. I had to apply the antiseptic soap, leave it on for two minutes and then shower. Shivani was there shortly after I got up to help me apply it. She helped with the first application last night. I only applied the soap to the left side of my body then. I hoped it would be enough. This morning I washed my hair and did a full-body shower. Then I walked Elsa. It was still before 5 am when I got home. It was too early to feed her. Shivani would do it when she got up.
Lutz was in my driveway promptly at 5:05. He was born in Germany. When a German says 5:05, they mean 5:05. His son, Brian, was in the car, too; he was on the same flight. His destination was Thailand. He would be flying out of Honolulu, which was my last stop. Brian was sitting in the back seat, leaving the passenger seat for me. He had to get out and put the walker in the trunk.
Both Brian and I had our boarding passes on our phones. We went directly to the TSA entrance. The gate was still closed by 5:30, and there were cases of bottled drinks right behind the gate. We wait for a while, expecting someone to come and open up. Brian said, “This doesn’t look right.” He got up to check. While he was gone, a pilot walked past me. I asked him when TSA would open. It was no longer there.
Brian returned with the same information. We both went in search of the new area. Neither one of us had the vaguest idea where it was. The whole airport had been reconfigured. The boarding areas were different as well. I hadn’t been to the airport since the fall of 2019.
The flight over to Honolulu went smoothly. I went to the taxi area. I had a voucher from Kaiser for the fare. I got into a cab with my walker and directed the cabby to take me to Kaiser. It cost me $22. Before this, Mike had always taken care of transportation. I discovered that I had to call a particular company and wait until my name was called. That was the only company that accepted the Kaiser vouchers. I suspected the cabby knew he was taking advantage of my ignorance. It was the only down moment of the day.
The admission process was a breeze. Someone called yesterday to take care of most of the process. I went up to the surgery waiting room. I fell asleep while I was sitting there. I heard someone calling “Elizabeth” repeatedly. I wondered why they were saying it over and over. I finally roused. The preop nurse said she felt bad about waking me up.
I told her she was lucky she roused me. No one calls me Elizabeth.
She walked me to the preop room. After wiping myself down with the antiseptic wipes, I had to change into a hospital gown, don their socks, and a surgical cap. The phone rang while I waited. Jean, my hanai sister, called to wish me well. The anesthetist came by to consult with me. I told him I slept for 14 hours after taking one Zanax. He said, “You’ll make our job easy.”
The atmosphere in preop was terrific. The nurses all laughed with each other. It looked like a great place to work.
At 11:30, the nurse anesthetist, accompanied by someone else, wheeled me out of preop. I assume she dropped something in my IV because I was out before we got to the operating theater. He told me I would have a spinal block and a mild total anesthetic which would leave me awake and able to communicate. I asked if I would hear all the construction noises of orthopedic surgery. He said yes, but I wouldn’t care. I was out cold until I had been in postop for a while. The surgeon had already been by to check on me.
They wheeled me to a private room on the second floor. I mostly slept. The postop didn’t offer me crackers and juice, saying I would get a complete meal. The only thing I got was a liquid diet. Yuck! Tasteless chicken broth, shaved ice, and something else I can’t remember. All of it was unsatisfying.
The PT came by to get me on my feet and walking. I was too dizzy to stand. She would get back to me the next day. Since I couldn’t get up, I had a choice of a bedpan or a catheter. Neither sounded great. Then the nurse told me the catheter was external. Wow! Totally painless. A joy to use. I wondered why they didn’t use it with Mike. It had just become available sometime during the pandemic, long after Mike was gone.
I did some reading, but I watched TV news shows.
