A Solid View of the City of St. Paul

I've been at home for about a week now post-hospital and all the details of my stay have started blending together into a single blob-like conception of confinement, morphine, tubes, needles, beeping machines, friends, family, movie-watching and an unexpectedly exciting Vikings-Packers game. Which is to say, if I don't write this entry now I'll probably forget too much of the stay to sketch out any vague indication of my stay.

As you may recall from pre-frame updates, my stay was projected to last between two and four days. As you may recall from post-frame updates, my stay actually lasted six days. Why? Complications, in the form of the previously-discussed pressure sore which took over my foot.

In short, because of my holiday season surgery date, rooms and beds at the hospital were not in high demand, meaning that there was little to no pressure to get me back home on an abbreviated schedule. The benchmark for my return home then became whether or not I was comfortable on oral pain medications alone. Which took about six days.

The room I stayed in was, all told, not half-bad. My mother, a former ICU nurse, estimated that the thing could hold three patients and a baby, though I was the sole occupant. And then there was the view. My room, you see, was rather well-situated to behold the splendor of St. Paul, Minnesota (which, to be fair to St. Paul, is actually pretty impressive).

While the image quality here isn't the best, at least this picture gives some indication of the view from my hospital room (which, I probably ought to add, has by now surely found itself a new occupant).

Another indication of the views from the room. As you can tell, lots to see. For example…

…the Cathedral!

My main complaint with the view, for the first few days, was the fact that my bed and the windows were on opposite sites of the room and, given the large, bulky device attached to my leg, I could not get up and appreciate the views everybody else was commenting on.

My other main complaint was that I spent a large chunk of my hospital stay sporting an impressive number of tubes going into and out of my body. There was the epidural, for one, which stayed in for about seventy-two hours, as well as the catheter, which stayed in for a few hours after the epidural departed. Then there was the IV. Actually, two IVs. The first IV went bad (that site is still healing and still visible) and had to be changed out for a second.


Once the tubes were out, the amount of freedom I felt was astounding. Those were, however, the big moments.

In many regards, the littler moments were even more remarkable—like when I figured out what became my favorite hospital stay trick: raising and lowering my right leg, frame and all. Or, a more recent post-hospital moment, waking up after sleeping all the way through the night for the first time since the surgery (in the hospital, the nurses woke me every few hours to take vitals and reposition me, leaning me left or right to keep circulation functional or something along those lines).

Perhaps the best part of all was finally getting showered. I've discovered through the experience of going (for reasons of practicality) multiple days without showers that I'm really very fond of feeling clean. Cleanliness is one of those things that just makes you feel like a more complete, functioning member of society.

Having breakfasts which look like this, on the other hand, does not have that particular effect:

From my final day at the hospital. Yes, I ate it all. No, most of the meals were not this bad.

But still…I'm done with that part of the experience. For the most part. You see, I have two scheduled post-op appointments, one of which I've already gone to (x-rays, a look at pin sites, being wheeled around, then back in the car for home), the other of which is this Friday. Both appointments are at the hospital where the surgery and my subsequent stay took place.

But hey, I don't have to spend the night anymore. Progress (though that view sure was nice).