So me and a friend of mine left my upper east side apartment and took a 2 minute uber ride down to the hospital at 5:30 am. When you arrive, there's a patient check-in area. You give the gentleman your last name, he types it an ipad, and sits you down at one of the registration cubicles to go over last minute details like emergency contacts, etc. They give you a wrist band and send you up to the family atrium where your friends can wait for you if they wish. No more than 3 minutes later, a nurse calls my name and whisks me into a room where i remove all clothing and put on a gown. You can have a friend in the room with you so he comes with me. Soon after, another nurse enters, takes my height (5'9), weight (170), bp (123/77). Then the nurse inserts an IV in my hand that's dripping saline.
A little later, two of Dr Rozbruch's assistants come in to chit chat and make you feel comfortable. Then a nursing assistant comes in to shave your legs. Then the anesthesiologist comes in and reassures you that the worst part of your day has already passed (he’s referring to the IV in the hand… We’ll come back to this to see if he was right). He shakes my hand and heads out.
Fast forward to 7:45, the legend himself (Rozbruch) comes in to see you. We catch up and go over the procedure, he tells my friend he’ll personally give him a call when it’s over. He reassures me that this will be a smooth procedure and heads out as well. Then an army of nurses and assistants come into the room, give me a cap, and wheel me out on the bed towards the OR. As we get there, I hear awesome music playing. One of the assistants is DJing in the OR! Hahah. I give him a high five and compliment him on the playlist. I transfer myself to the table. Then my friend the anesthesiologist reappears at 8am and says he has a cktail for me. He puts it in the IV, I laugh at a joke he made…..then I wake up, it’s almost 1pm.
I’m in a bed, my right leg is on a machine that’s moving my knee from full extension to bent position (and toward my chest) in slow motion (its pretty cool). 5 minutes later, a nurse brings in my friend and he asks how I feel. Honestly I felt great, a little hungry and a little stiff, but no discernible pain. A few nurses then move my bed to the room I’ll be staying in. The nurse then switches the extension device to my left leg.
A few minutes later, a lady comes in to take my dinner order. I chose the grilled chicken with basmati rice, Caesar salad to start and apple crumble and vanilla ice cream for dessert. This place is like a hotel. I’m lying in bed, in no pain (spinal epidural is in feeding me painkillers), catheter in (it’s not uncomfortable), exercising my legs and chatting with my friend. I’m in a good place.
One of Dr Rozbruch’s assistants comes in to check on me and says the procedure was fantastic. He explains that I’ll have 24-hour supervision by the nurses so whatever I want, just ask. As he’s speaking, one of the nurses comes in to give me my first dose of Dr Rozbruch’s post-op medical regiment (calcium, vitamin D, etc). I’m taking that and now we’re just waiting for dinner. The anesthesiologist was right, worst part of this day was a needle between my wrist and knuckles.
Will update later.