The Rest of the Oahu Surgery Trip
Aug. 27th, 2021 04:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aSo it's been a few days and I haven't written about the rest of the Oahu Surgery trip for Kimberly because yeah, it's been exhausting.
TL;DR: Kimberly's surgery went fine. Exactly as expected. The doctor found a nerve entrapped in the scar tissue in her foot from the botched surgery in 2018. He traced it back until he found a safe place to cut it and tied it off into a muscle. It'll take a while to find out if that has a beneficial effect on her pain, but from what she's said so far, the increased deadening of her foot isn't bad. So, plus on that side.
From my side, the surgery was exhausting. We got there at 1.30pm, her surgery was scheduled for 3.30 and actually happened at 5.00. The doctor called me at 6.00 to tersely tell me the results (called me because no one seemed to understand I was in the waiting room right there) and then the nurses called me at 6.30 to say Kimberly was in recovery. At no point was I able to go anywhere except the waiting room due to COVID. And I was only able to stay there because an article had told me to photograph my vaccine certificate and put it on my phone, which I had. So It was six hours of sitting in a chair, trying not to run down my laptop battery, with the constant drone of Hawaiian college sports in the background. (That's right, we're playing sports, but I can't go in to pre-surgery or recovery with my wife, because priorities.) They finally wheeled Kimberly out around 7 and we made it home around 7.30.
The catch was that Kimberly needed pain and anti-nausea drugs picked up. There was fortunately a Longs Drugs at Ala Moana that was open until 9pm which I headed straight out to get the meds from. By 8.15 or so, after several death-defying events of handing over my Driver's License (which I of course needed to get home), I had the meds and dinner became the question, but there was fortunately a Jack in the Box at the Ala Moana where I could pick something up really easy.
Temporarily Closed. Because COVID.
I spotted another Jack in the Box another three quarters of a mile off, started heading there, and my phone died. Because like my laptop it hadn't been charged since we left the AirBnB at 1pm. (Note to self: next time bring all plugs to surgery waiting room.)
Fortunately I've gotten familiar enough with the Waikiki corner of Honolulu that I managed the navigation to the Jack in the Box and to the AirBnB without a misstep. Still, unnerving to wander a somewhat foreign city after dark with no phone.
We came home Thursday. We had first class seats, so I watched the animals in the First Class lounge for a while at Honolulu (lots of Karens, including I-don't-need-to-show-you-my-boarding-pass Karen, who was subsequently kicked out), then we got in our First Class seats. The whole goal of all of that was to make sure Kimberly was as comfortable as possible. She was able to put her foot up in the lounge, then the first class seats at least gave her a little room to put her foot on a backpack, so mission accomplished, though the whole trip home was obviously going to be the most difficult and painful part. My dad picked us up at the airport, and we made out way home. Ordeal ended? Healing begun?
Obviously, Kimberly is still in a considerable amount of pain and needing a considerable amount of help because she can't really move around, but that was all expected.
The big problem is that atop that, Lucy is also still ailing.
She seemed fine enough when we got home, Thursday, other than the fact that she was frequently sneezing. It looks like Paradise Animal Clinic got her sick by insisting on keeping her all day last week rather than just seeing her, testing her, and handing her back.
But then Thursday night she peed all over our bed. Maybe it was just her being angry at us being gone, we said, we hoped.
So today I went out to get a bunch of cleaning supplies for cat urine, hoping to better clean our bed and sheets. (Plus a cooler and water bottle to help Kimberly in her convalescence.)
And then this afternoon Lucy started doing the same thing she did last Wednesday, which is wandering around, squatting, and failing to pass anything.
I called the vet, Paradise Animal Clinic, they said they'd have the doctor call us, and that they couldn't see her. I don't know what the *)(@# the point of a vet is if they can't see an animal in an urgent situation.
We of course had her in last week for this EXACT problem, and they first tried to prescribe something to help with constipation, even though it's increasingly looking like a urinary issue.
The vet still hasn't called back, and they've now closed. (I called over two hours before closing.)
I tried the next closest clinic and they said they could get her an appointment in October. I think I mostly cussed them out after I'd hung up, though I did opine Lucy might be dead by then due to their lack of help.
I messaged C's aunt, whose number he was kind enough to pass on last week, and I'm not really sure if that's a way to go, but why not?
There's one other vet that's reasonably close enough that I might try them tomorrow if Paradise Animal Clinic fails us yet again (and thus far: it looks like it). I decided to wait mainly because Lucy settled down, though she still seems uncomfortable, and is doing lots of circling around and around to try and lay down comfortably, which I haven't seen since our older cats were getting increasingly sick, a decade ago now.
I've still got bed and sheets in various states of cleaning that I need to finish with.
At least we've got Kimberly setup with lots of snacks and her devices, but her foot was still hurting a considerable amount this afternoon.
And we won't even talk the incomplete nature of my writing projects for August, since we've been in Oahu three times. The actual mini-vacation, at the start of the month, seems a long long time ago.
It's a little much, all together.
TL;DR: Kimberly's surgery went fine. Exactly as expected. The doctor found a nerve entrapped in the scar tissue in her foot from the botched surgery in 2018. He traced it back until he found a safe place to cut it and tied it off into a muscle. It'll take a while to find out if that has a beneficial effect on her pain, but from what she's said so far, the increased deadening of her foot isn't bad. So, plus on that side.
From my side, the surgery was exhausting. We got there at 1.30pm, her surgery was scheduled for 3.30 and actually happened at 5.00. The doctor called me at 6.00 to tersely tell me the results (called me because no one seemed to understand I was in the waiting room right there) and then the nurses called me at 6.30 to say Kimberly was in recovery. At no point was I able to go anywhere except the waiting room due to COVID. And I was only able to stay there because an article had told me to photograph my vaccine certificate and put it on my phone, which I had. So It was six hours of sitting in a chair, trying not to run down my laptop battery, with the constant drone of Hawaiian college sports in the background. (That's right, we're playing sports, but I can't go in to pre-surgery or recovery with my wife, because priorities.) They finally wheeled Kimberly out around 7 and we made it home around 7.30.
The catch was that Kimberly needed pain and anti-nausea drugs picked up. There was fortunately a Longs Drugs at Ala Moana that was open until 9pm which I headed straight out to get the meds from. By 8.15 or so, after several death-defying events of handing over my Driver's License (which I of course needed to get home), I had the meds and dinner became the question, but there was fortunately a Jack in the Box at the Ala Moana where I could pick something up really easy.
Temporarily Closed. Because COVID.
I spotted another Jack in the Box another three quarters of a mile off, started heading there, and my phone died. Because like my laptop it hadn't been charged since we left the AirBnB at 1pm. (Note to self: next time bring all plugs to surgery waiting room.)
Fortunately I've gotten familiar enough with the Waikiki corner of Honolulu that I managed the navigation to the Jack in the Box and to the AirBnB without a misstep. Still, unnerving to wander a somewhat foreign city after dark with no phone.
We came home Thursday. We had first class seats, so I watched the animals in the First Class lounge for a while at Honolulu (lots of Karens, including I-don't-need-to-show-you-my-boarding-pass Karen, who was subsequently kicked out), then we got in our First Class seats. The whole goal of all of that was to make sure Kimberly was as comfortable as possible. She was able to put her foot up in the lounge, then the first class seats at least gave her a little room to put her foot on a backpack, so mission accomplished, though the whole trip home was obviously going to be the most difficult and painful part. My dad picked us up at the airport, and we made out way home. Ordeal ended? Healing begun?
Obviously, Kimberly is still in a considerable amount of pain and needing a considerable amount of help because she can't really move around, but that was all expected.
The big problem is that atop that, Lucy is also still ailing.
She seemed fine enough when we got home, Thursday, other than the fact that she was frequently sneezing. It looks like Paradise Animal Clinic got her sick by insisting on keeping her all day last week rather than just seeing her, testing her, and handing her back.
But then Thursday night she peed all over our bed. Maybe it was just her being angry at us being gone, we said, we hoped.
So today I went out to get a bunch of cleaning supplies for cat urine, hoping to better clean our bed and sheets. (Plus a cooler and water bottle to help Kimberly in her convalescence.)
And then this afternoon Lucy started doing the same thing she did last Wednesday, which is wandering around, squatting, and failing to pass anything.
I called the vet, Paradise Animal Clinic, they said they'd have the doctor call us, and that they couldn't see her. I don't know what the *)(@# the point of a vet is if they can't see an animal in an urgent situation.
We of course had her in last week for this EXACT problem, and they first tried to prescribe something to help with constipation, even though it's increasingly looking like a urinary issue.
The vet still hasn't called back, and they've now closed. (I called over two hours before closing.)
I tried the next closest clinic and they said they could get her an appointment in October. I think I mostly cussed them out after I'd hung up, though I did opine Lucy might be dead by then due to their lack of help.
I messaged C's aunt, whose number he was kind enough to pass on last week, and I'm not really sure if that's a way to go, but why not?
There's one other vet that's reasonably close enough that I might try them tomorrow if Paradise Animal Clinic fails us yet again (and thus far: it looks like it). I decided to wait mainly because Lucy settled down, though she still seems uncomfortable, and is doing lots of circling around and around to try and lay down comfortably, which I haven't seen since our older cats were getting increasingly sick, a decade ago now.
I've still got bed and sheets in various states of cleaning that I need to finish with.
At least we've got Kimberly setup with lots of snacks and her devices, but her foot was still hurting a considerable amount this afternoon.
And we won't even talk the incomplete nature of my writing projects for August, since we've been in Oahu three times. The actual mini-vacation, at the start of the month, seems a long long time ago.
It's a little much, all together.