Parkinson’s Surgery – Deep Brain Stimulator
Part 2: The First Night
April 11, 2008 – Part 1 ended with the
recovery room nurse giving me morphine… my husband and children said they came
to see me… All I remember is waking up around 3 in the morning (I guess the
morphine wore off), and having the worst case of restless leg syndrome pain
ever. My legs were still dystonic
(painful muscle cramps and spasms) from 11 hours in the OR without my
Parkinson’s meds.
I don’t think that the nursing staff understood how painful
these cramps can be, or that the only cure is to get up and walk it off. (My
neighbours back home know that I can be seen out walking at odd hours of the
night.)
I insisted on getting up, and the nurse
kept insisting that I was not capable of getting up. It took all the strength I
had left to yank off those tight stockings they put on to prevent blood
clotting in the legs, and untangling myself from as many of the tubes as I
could, wiggling out of bed (with all the rails up to prevent me from doing just
that), but I eventually made it up to a standing position. I made it to the
bathroom and back, then I fell back into bed with the cramps calmed down at
last, and finally fell back asleep – only to be reawakened at 6:00 for the
usual vital signs check.
Next episode: home for a week, then back
for part 2 of the surgery.
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