When I woke up from surgery, I was, as you often hear, "hooked up to tubes."The most annoying of these, of course: the urinary catheter. I heard a few theories on why it's used: "We don't want your bladder distending and undoing the attachment to your new kidney" and "We have to keep track of how much fluid is going through you." Regardless, it's uncomfortable, especially when the exit bag fills up or the tube gets kinked -- starting to fill the bladder despite all intentions. When that thing came out, it was a GOOD day.
I also had oxygen coming in through a tube with double prongs going into my nostrils. The main annoyance with this was that I'd been intubated during surgery, and so had a dry, swollen throat -- to the point it would feel like it was flapping "closed" at times. However, it took a while for me to keep my O2 rates up above 96 percent on my own. After they removed that tube, I could use a tip a nurse gave my dad -- thanks, Pete from Marquette! -- of keeping a wet washcloth over my nose and mouth to help moisten the air and ease the swelling.
Most unexpected: the "pressure pants" they put on my legs prior to surgery and kept on at least 2 days. These inflate every few minutes, first one leg, then the other, to help prevent blood clots. What does it say for my drugged, recovering state that I was basically able to sleep through all this?
But the best intervention ever, diagrammed above, the external jugular catheter. It entered about 2 inches below my ear and 2 above my clavicle, and extended for a good 5-6 inches down my jugular vein. As you can see, the end comes out quite close to the heart. With this, they could not only take blood samples without a needle stick and run multiple lines of IV fluids and drugs into me, they could also measure venous pressure.
If you've ever been hospitalized with the classic hand-located IV, you know how uncomfortable it is. Every movement affects it, whether you're trying to eat, shift positions in bed, get up or just fall asleep and have the misfortune of moving then. When sitting up on the edge of your bed is an existential challenge, the last thing you need is this thing hooked to your hand that you have to make sure doesn't get caught, tangled or kinked.
Though they put it in while I was asleep, they took it out while I was awake. It was stitched in -- the only place I did have stitches, and the nurse carefully snipped and pulled those out. She then told me to take a deep breath, let it out all the way and hold there -- and pulled the catheter out.
This is where I love professionals -- at the intersection between "This is just my highly-trained, demanding job" and the layman's "It's all way cool, isn't it?" Nurse Beth turned to Randy and said, "Do you want to see it? Are you OK with looking?" He rather reluctantly agreed. I, of course was anything but reluctant. Way cool, Beth!
I had what looked like a pretty little bullet hole in my neck for a few days, but that's healing up nicely. Even if I end up scarred, it was well worth it.
