Post-Opertation Update

Saturday morning, the morning of the operation, Ryan, myself and Nitzi, our Costa Rican landlady, arrived at the La Catolica Hospital at 7:00am. I asked Nitzi to come with us to help with the Spanish translation. I figured it would make the check-in process go quicker. I was right, between Nitzi and the super professional staff at the hospital I was in the surgery prep room within an hour of arrival. I must mention this was not an ordinary public Costa Rican hospital it was on the contrary a Gringo Resort Hotel Hospital. Ryan and I were shocked how nice it was yet glad as well. The lobby was filled with comfortable lounge chairs, there was a fine dining restaurant and the corridors on the first floor were glass window that shown through to full planters.

Anyways back to the surgery. I was taken to a small room to change into my stylish hospital gown, you know the ones that tie in the back and let your butt checks peek out when you walk. Yeah, in order to avoid this embarrassment the nurse sat me in a wheel chair and rolled me to the entrance of pre-surgery prep-room. She stopped and let me give lots of hugs and kisses to Ryan before going into the restricted patients, nurses and doctors only area. At this point I was still totally calm and had a smile on my face. (Probably giggling like most of you know I do when I am nervous.) On the other hand, Ryan told, later after the surgery, at this point he almost lost it. As soon as the nurse rolled me through those restricted doors he felt an urge of emotion and just about started crying but turned around and saw Nitzi standing there so he composed himself. Ooohhh….I told him this was so sweet and affectionate of him.

So back to the surgery again. I was in the pre-surgery room for about half hour waiting for the nurses to get my charts ready, take blood samples and hook me up to an IV. The first time the nurse put the IV in my forearm and the vein clasped. So she removed it and started over in my hand. I thought ok not so bad but let me tell you that IV was probably the worst part of the whole surgery experience, but I’ll get to that later.

Next the nurses put me on the rolling gurney and took me to the surgery room. I was in there probably 3-4 minutes when the anesthesiologist shot me up with the 1.2.3…goodnight, knocked out, sleepy drugs. Actually I don’t even remember counting to three. I was just out. I woke up, I guess a few hours later, in the recovery room and for another hour or so I couldn’t quite keep my eyes open; I was up and down. In the meantime, after surgery Dr. Dam told Ryan everything went well with the surgery, I was alright and should be out of the recovery room in about an hour and half.

So Ryan went to my hospital room and waited for me. Unfortunately, and I have no clue why or what was going on, the nurses in the recovery room kept me in there for like 2-3 hours, though I had no concept of time at this point. They kept pointing and talking about me, then helping other patients, then pointing and talking again. Since I was still not all there, due to the anesthesia, I was like WHATEVER!! But finally one of the nurses pushed me in a wheelchair to my hospital/ hotel room where Ryan was anxiously (and starting to get worried) waiting for me.

Debb post-surgery

Ryand and Debb haning in the hospital room

Like I said before this hospital was pretty nice so it was no surprise that I had my own private room with bathroom, couch, flat screen HDTV and very comfortable bed, which was good cause I was in it for like 24 hours. Ryan and I just hung out and watched TV for the rest of the day while a team of nurses came in every few hours, even throughout the night, to check my status. The nurses kept asking if I was in pain and need medicine but surprisingly I wasn’t; I felt pretty good beside the horrible IV in my hand that I mentioned. It was really starting to bother me and I annoyingly couldn’t stop thinking / complaining about it. So here’s a picture:

stupid IV in my hand

Anyways, Sunday morning we waited for the doctor to come around like 9:00am to release me. Then we headed home. Since then I have been doing about the same thing….sitting around watching TV, reading, doing some lesson planning and enjoying and appreciating Ryan taking such good care of me. Of course he has to keep reminding me to take it easy and relax.

Post-surgery relaxing at home

Ryan's fruit and peanut butter breakfast creations

So the moral of this story is…surgery in a foreign country isn’t that bad. One thing for sure it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than the States !!!!!

written by  ryan & debbrial on August 3, 2010 from San Jose, Costa Rica
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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