Painful nights

So far the days in the hospital were tolerable, but the nights were near unbearable with pain. My blood pressure was more stable and the nurses were able to give me more pain meds, but it would take them several visits to get enough in me to allow me to sleep. Each morning I would wake up feeling great and do really well all day long until the sun went down.

The food was amazing and the nurses were all so good. I only had one nurse that seemed to doubt my pain. I am not sure why. Maybe it was because I tend to joke a lot and I always smile and laugh a lot when I am in pain. Possibly she expected me to be like the other ankle patients my first nurse was telling me about. Well this particular nurse got her wish on her shift, because that night I had to call her several times to get a hold of the pain.

On Saturday the PA came in and took my drain tube out and told me that PT would be in before to long to change my compression wrap. She told me that I would more than likely have some increased pain with this new wrap, but it would only be temporary. Before leaving she told me she would be back later in the afternoon to remove my popliteal block.

Sure enough PT showed up and gave me some new bandages, which actually felt really good to have the increased compression. I was hoping that this meant the warning the PA gave me would not be nearly as bad as she expressed. Later in the afternoon she came back and I was still doing fine with the wrap. She took out the block and told me that it probably had worn off, but I may have a little more pain now with it gone. But once again an hour passed and I was still doing really well.

The sun started to go down and this prickly tingling feeling started to creep into the top, bottom, and outer edge of my foot. Up until now I hadn't felt a thing on those parts of my foot. All the pain I felt had been a deep ache and the stabbing feeling in the medial malleoli. Now this new pain was progressively getting worse and worse. I still had an hour before my next pain meds and as the pain increased I watched the clock more and more. The time came for more meds, but the nurse did not come in. Five minutes passed, ten minutes passed, then fifteen...I finally called.

The nurse came in and I told her about the pain getting so much worse. She gave me the mild pain killer and said that if it was still bad in 30minutes to call her for more. For the next 4 hours I called her every half hour for more. The pain this time around was the worst yet. She gave me everything she could and finally it was enough to put me to sleep.

Once again I woke up just fine and this day was exciting, because I was going home today.