Submitted by Kaare Askildt
On May 21/13 at the Saskatoon City Hospital during the admitting and pre-operation process, I overheard the surgeon Dr. Shannon whispering to my wife that for a few extra dollars that are not covered on Medicare, he could insert a GPS transmitter with an everlasting lithium battery in my new hip joint, that way she would always know where I would be. He continued with what I would call the selling feature: "Men at your husband's age may lose their sense of direction as they are getting older," he said, "and with the GPS installed, you will always know where to find him and can just go and pick him up."
Can you believe it, an electronic husband sitting device!? No more sneaking away to play poker with the boys!
However, just to be clear, my wife declined the offer of the GPS, stating that she always knows where I am. I firmly believe that it must be a new sense that gets activated when women give birth to their first child. Besides the fact that the mothers instantly get a new pair of eyes in the back of their heads, they also develop a homing device in their brains. My dear mother always knew where her twins were, and usually also what we were doing. When the child gets of age, the women's new, but now old sense will transfer the focus on to their husbands and the sense is then active for the rest of their lives. At least that's my belief and I'm sticking to it!
Dr. Shannon wrote his initials on my left hip with a magic marker. Which I believe he did to make sure that he operated on the right hip located on my left side. Now stay with me, the right hip (as in the hip to be operated on) was the left hip, so he would be right to operate on the left. Everybody knows that left is where your thumb is on the right, thus it would be right to operate on the left. Isn't that right? Wait a minute, wouldn't a right and a left cancel each other out? Never mind, he wrote them on the left hip!
We then discussed the reason for marking my hip with his initials, and I suggested that perhaps it might be a warning to another hospital staff member, who by mistake would come by and roll me into a different operating room to take out a bad kidney, so by marking the hip they would certainly realize that Dr. Shannon has first dibs on the left hip and rightfully so! Dr. Shannon kept a straight face and agreed that it could be one of the reasons, but with a wink of his eye he confided in me that it was for his own purpose, just to remind him when they wheeled me into the operating room.
Coincidentally and without prior consultation between us either, my identical twin brother Kjell was getting a left knee replacement procedure at a hospital in Norway, on the very same day as I was scheduled for my left hip replacement. During our last telephone conversation prior to my surgery, I told him that my doctors and other medical professionals had all strongly suggested that I consider a spinal freezing for the procedure, rather than being fully knocked out.
My twin brother Kjell strongly and vehemently told me not to take the spinal freezing, but rather ask to be put out altogether. "The pain associated with a spinal is excruciating," he said, "almost unbearable!" Well, after conferring again with my doctors, I elected against my twin brother's advice, and asked for the spinal. The young anesthesiologist, a nice chap with Scandinavian roots, marked the starting time of the procedure as 2:15 p.m., and suggested to me that I inquire with my twin brother during my surgical recovery period, if he had experienced anything in his left hip at that particular time.
The spinal freezing caused me to feel absolutely nothing from my bellybutton on downwards, but I was still awake during the procedure. It was an eerie experience that I have never encountered before. The anesthesiologist hooked me up and gave the rest of the team the start signal. At the beginning of the procedure I could sense some movements by the members of the surgical team hovering over my hip and leg, and I was wondering to myself as to when they were actually going to start! That's when I suddenly and without warning heard the buzz of the saw, followed by some hammer tinkering sounds and then the "sledgehammer" finale. To me it sounded like I was in the middle of a machine shop! I also heard the surgeon at one time say to somebody: "careful, don't break it!"
Though I was still somewhat awake and full of "happy juice," I let go of the opportunity to ask why the surgeon had said that. Instead I just silently giggled as I conjured up in my mind a picture of a person passing the new titanium steel hip joint to the surgeon! How do you break titanium steel, I thought? Trust me; it was funny at the time, at least to me! I guess you had to be there.
As they wheeled me out after completion of the operation, I could see that perspiration was dripping down the faces of most of the surgical team members. The good Dr. Shannon told me that one surgical member in particular got a good work out, as he had to hold my leg up during the entire procedure, and it was the heaviest leg they had encountered to date. I guess it must have been developed by all the muscles I had built up when many, many years ago I was training for and running seven marathons, plus all the cross country skiing I had done since childhood, combined with my heavy bone structure. I was still in "happy land," and started to giggle again as I pictured in my mind this poor individual shifting my leg from one hand to the other, placing it over his shoulders to rest, alternating between left and right shoulder, and finishing off by balancing my leg on top of his head.
My wife, bless her stayed in Saskatoon and was with me all the time, but could not accompany me into the operating room. She acted as my ears, and she learned all the exercises that I have to do post-surgery. She will assist me and coach me at home as I do them.
Shortly after my surgery, she received a telephone call from my twin brother while she was asleep at 2:30 in the morning. Kjell was obviously in "happy land" and feeling no pain. He hung up with a giggle when he realized what time it was in Canada, and promised to phone us back. He must have forgotten, so we tried to call him back. He was apparently in great pain when he answered the phone, and promised to call us back again. I must have transmitted to him the great pain that I had experienced that morning. I had obviously shifted my weight while sleeping, causing me to wake up with excruciating pain in my hip and leg, which was quickly remedied with pain killers.
Then my brother finally called back. This time we were both pain "coordinated," so we engaged in a long brotherly chat. You might not believe it, but Kjell had actually been convinced by his surgical team to take the spinal freezing as well. It took some talking and a lot of persuasion, but they succeeded, and he was glad that they did. We calculated the time difference between Canada and Norway, and found that we both received the spinal freezing at the same time, give or take a minute or two. To quote the famous Montreal born actor William Shatner: "Is that weird or what?"
The post-op nurses were for the most part really proficient at plying their TLC. There were of course times when my mind was blurred by pain and I didn't quite see it that way, but at the conclusion of my stay, I must say that I felt very much taken good care of by nurses that cared.
This "report" will get too long if I were to discuss the hospital food in detail. Let me therefore just state that the quality of the food is for the most part very good, especially when it comes out of a cereal box, and some of the entrees were surprisingly of fairly good quality and tasty as well, however, the execution and delivery was not there. The biggest negative food encounter I had was with the "food assembly line." Every morning I would get three printed menus outlining the menu options for the next day. I would follow their directions and circle my choices. Some items were marked with an asterisk, indicating that they would be delivered as part of the meal regardless of other choices. It became a game of "mark and see." I lost! As an example: I would circle scrambled eggs, only to receive cream of wheat, or I would circle a cup of milk to be added as a beverage, only to lose the cup of tea that was marked with an asterisk etc.
The Physio Therapists and the Occupational Therapists were all wonderful, caring professionals. They were working with Marion and I, putting me through all the post-op exercises that I have to do, including showing me how to put on my socks and pants without bending forward, and how to get in and out of a bathtub, or how to walk up and down stairs with the aid of a cane.
My healing process is progressing nicely - a big thank you to all involved!
