The surgery went well and after some time I was called in to the recovery room to see my mother. She was still quite out of it from the anesthesia.
While my mum was getting her bearings, the nurse went over all the steps with me for the coming recovery period.
Automatic Ice Box
We received a ice pack machine that circulates cool water around the wound dressing. The machine is a small box with a handle and a tube. You put ice and water inside and then plug it into a power receptacle. The tube connects to a shoulder attachment wrapped around the injured section.
The surgeon swung by to confirm the operation went well. Afterwards, the nurse instructed me on how to manage the arm sling and other equipment. Then she helped my mum get dressed.
I went back to the car and circled around the hospital to the pickup area on the ground floor.
A staff member wheeled mum out to the car and we got her in with little effort.
Back at Home
After we arrived back home, I got the ice box set up and checked the cushions on the sofa mama will be sleeping on.
It was late in the day, so for a snack, mama had some Jell-O, while I started cooking one of the meals we prepped in advance. For lunch we had Chinese Seafood Congee, made with broken rice and shrimp.
All of the ingredients were prepared ahead of time, so I only needed to follow the instructions:
- Shrimp shells
- shrimp (4oz)
- olive oil (2 tbsp)
- cooked rice (1 cup)
- ginger (3 tsp)
- water (2.5 cups)
- Lobster bullion (optional, to taste)
The first step was to toss the shrimp shells and some julienned ginger in a pan and stir fry them with oil until they got crispy.
Next, I put 2.5 cups of water in the pan and brought it to a boil, then turned it down to simmer for about 15 minutes. Once the timer went off, I removed the shells from the broth and added in the rice, cooking it for 15 minutes again.
It was a slow boil but the consistency wasn’t quite right, so I used a hand blender to grind the grains to give it more of a rice paste texture. I also added just a touch of Lobster bullion for taste.
Mama didn’t have a big appetite, so I ate most of the Congee myself.
Prescription Medicine
We picked up the pain reliever meds last week at the Walmart pharmacy down in Wake Forest.
I opened the bottle of Hydrocodone once we got home and gave mama one pill to start. The nurse’s instructions refer to it as “narco.”
It’s one narco pill every 4 hrs plus one ibuprofen every 6 hrs.
After she finishes all of the 18 narco pills, then she will take 1 aspirin daily, the ibuprofen, and a Tramadol.
The Hydrocodone has aspirin in it already, so she can’t have any more aspirin until the hydrocodone is finished.
Bedtime
Since we arrived home in the afternoon, there wasn’t much day left over. Bedtime came fairly soon and we got mama all settled in her sofa chair for the night and hooked her up to her CPAP device and the ice box.
Since the anesthesia was still in her system, she fell asleep very quickly.
