Rotator cuff surgery... UPDATE... WOW

My wife was having a little trouble with her left arm. She went to the Bone and Joint people. She was going to get a steroid shot, like once before. This doctor said "no, we need to see what's wrong". One tendon or ligament or whatever attaches the shoulder muscle to the shoulder bone was completely detached, the other was mostly loose. They didn't understand why she wasn't in more pain but anyway... Tuesday early afternoon they did surgery, then they did a nerve block and sent us home. The nerve block wore off Wednesday AM and it started to hurt. She had natural childbirth and said it was like having four at once by mid afternoon Wednesday. This while taking meds every two hours Percocet 10mg, then Dilaudid 2mg, alternating. She is opiate naïve too. I've never seen her in so much pain. Then if that wasn't bad enough, yesterday morning she woke up with a stomach bug... both ends. Toilet and bucket. That lasted about 2 hours and I got some Imodium to stay down, then got a Percocet to stay down. She drifted off after that and just had a bit of yucky feeling in the tummy but no more problems. Started to eat more. Taking 1/2 Percocet every four hours now and still sleeping a lot. I'm glad they didn't tell her how painful this surgery is before she had it. She will be in a rigid sling for at least 6 weeks then ongoing physical therapy, up to a year to complete... she said that the PT will probably be HELL... I assured her not to worry, it will be slow hell, lol.
I've been tired, I am tired and I sure am grateful to have a daughter in town.... and this Deathwish coffee! 
OH, and now the roofers are getting ready to do a house not right across the street but just down. These people did our house. They send a big crew and do a house in a day, multi gables and pitches... will sound like a war for most of today and they have a sign in the next door neighbors front yard too, si I assume they will be there tomorrow. Wonderful... and life goes on.
 
The surgeon said to remove the bandage today and that she could shower etc today. She got up and we ate a little at the table then went to the bathroom to get started. Long story short (short for me anyway) we got her tank top off, got the sling off, then I started to pull the bandage off. It was patches of gauze under this rubber like wide tape. It took a bit and was on tender places like the underarm front. It hurt, I could tell. She then wanted to sit on the side of the tub, it is a bit tall so was ok, then she leaned on me.. started to say she felt dizzy, made a sort of urrrghh noise four times and fainted, slid forward as I tried to hold her without holding her shoulder. She went down like a child, on her kneea with her feet tucked under. She had her arm with the surgery straight out and hand on the floor. When she started to come to she had to get off her knees and feet, managed to get on hands and knees, then to roll over and scoot back to the tub... all the while pretty much out of it. I got some pillows in case she fell over so she wouldn't hit her head. Called our daughter 5 times... voicemail, called her husband and asked him to get her. She was doing laundry. I had to prop cbow up in the corner between the tub and cabinets until daughter got here. We were able to get her up and back in bed. Foot is bruising a little but not much ankle swelling. It hurts between the ankle and toes on top, she may have fractured a bone in there.
This is hard. cbow is a difficult patient, does not want to keep taking pain meds but has to take some. I wish she would take them and sleep, and heal. This is like parenting, learn as you go.
 If we ever do something like this again I'm going to hire someone to come during the day who knows what to do. I'm surprised at my kids. If this is an indication of the care they say they are going to give us when were older... we are in trouble. One comes when I ask and was there at the hospital with her husband and kids. The other one worked on setting up her surround sound, asked "how is mom"? then went on to tell me what she needed to finish and said she was going to BestBuy...  I'm not one to whine or ask for help but I'd think that people would know that someone almost 65yo might need some help taking care of someone who just had a pretty big surgery. Am I expecting too much?
Well, at least we aren't still laying in the bathroom floor! I guess we need those Life Alert things... (no, I wont say it).
 
All is OK for now, still need to get her that bath but we are both scared. If you pray, we could use it.. we need it and thanks. If you don't pray... I'll take good thoughts too... and thanks. Her name is Cindy.
 
Julien

I don't remember my rotator cuff injury being more painful than others...  I mean, with the knees you kind of have to put weight on it while you can avoid using the bad arm.  Now my shoulder is hurting in sympathy!  (And I still have a little bit of a tweaked knee from a car accident two weeks ago...)

Good luck Jbow and Mrs Jbow!

Hopefully things will go better after the first day or two. Good luck to you both.

Thanks... still here, still tired. She got up for maybe an hour and a half today. Pain put her back in bed. I got the Falcons game on the computer and went and we watched it in the bed. No TV in the bedroom, only one TV in the house. That reminds me, back in the early/mid 90s I put the TV in the storage shed for over a year. The kids played games and made do. Surprisingly, they remember the time fondly.
This has been hard on her. I do all I can but feel a bit helpless... but I'm here.
 
J

Roses?  Mosh you're a creative talent.  Do you really believe straight womyn like roses!  They like daisies and black eyed susans and creative gifts.  Just a tip from my queer eye for the straight guy