Having major surgery Nov 3 - please send thoughts of healing @ 12:30 PM EST!

My discharge meds were screwed up again and again and again. I encourage anyone getting surgery to have discussions about discharge meds in writing and considerably before the second you are discharged, which is when I got my paperwork.

For example, well, I will wait until I can sit in a chair comfortably for long periods of time before giving examples, as there are a lot of them.

Ok, I will do the pain meds, the most important one, as venting about this may be helpful

My incision was 13 inches long. After the epidural came out, I was taking 10mg of oxycodone. Because I am with the VA and was being discharged on the weekend, I asked to be sent home with a few days worth of meds. They agreed to do this the day before discharge and the morning of. However, they mistakenly thought the pharmacy would deliver my meds to my room, and didn't realize the pharmacy doesn't do that until after 12 PM, when the pharmacy closes on Sunday. They also hadn't put it in as expedited so it would be ready before noon - I got a robocall at 1:30 PM saying it was ready (at a facility that was closed until Monday.)

So we decided they would send the scripts to CVS, where I would have to pay out of pocket, as I am with the VA and do not have other health insurance. Fortunately, this wasn't a lot. BUT when I picked it up I learned the script was for half the Oxy I'd received in the hospital, and was only for 20 hours worth. I recommend people ask to see details of pain meds well ahead of discharge.

My VA Community Care coordinator had given me the fax number for the multiple days scripts. She called me yesterday AM and said it had been received BUT scripts for Schedule II drugs need to be hard copies and cannot be faxed. Now, you would think she'd know I'd be getting a Schedule II drug as she was coordinating all this...She is able to write scripts and so wrote it herself as a one time thing.

Somewhere along the line I learned the so-called multiple days script for oxycodone was only for 2.5 days, when I had been told I'd be on the opioid for two weeks. I can't just call the hospital if I am still in pain at the end of 2.5 days - the script has to be hand delivered to the VA and the hospital is 90 minutes away OUTSIDE RUSH HOUR and the VA pharmacy is 45 minutes away and not on the route back from the hospital. And I cannot drive for two weeks so my boyfriend would have to do this.

My surgeon's nurse is working on this. I'm not sure exactly what she is going to do. It may not have been decided plus I am on pain meds. I think what we are going to do is send a script to CVS, which does take them electronically, I will pay out of pocket and attempt to get reimbursed, which is by no means a sure thing, as VA members can only use community pharmacies in an emergency.

I stretched out the oxy timing almost two extra hours two days ago. (Accidentally, due to a nap.) It did indeed wear completely off and the pain went up to a 9, the highest it's been. Since then I've been setting alarms for it. However, just now I successfully stretched it out 1 hour.

That's it for the pain meds drama. Going to post now before I lose what I've written.

kharpole8 wrote: »

@kshama2001, have you had pain during all of your health challenges mentioned? The reason I ask is that I struggled from the time I was a young teenager with excessive bleeding during menstrual cycles and went on through the years having all kinds of tests done. The pain I had in my thirties and leading into my forties was so bad, I finally had a partial hysterectomy in 2003. However, (at least up to 2003, and prior to my surgery, my specialists said the condition could be adenomyosis but it cannot be confirmed until they remove the uterus. Now I don't know if you've ever heard of adenomyosis but it had never come up in all my years of dealing with this. The uterus becomes engorged with blood increasing it's size and therefore cannot contract when you're having pain so there's no relief. Please keep this in mind as another possibility. Sending love, light and prayers. Take good care!

Today, I went back to the hospital to have my 41 staples removed. The surgeon is happy with my progress. And she said the pathology report noted adenomyosis.

This can also be diagnosed via MRI and endometrial biopsy. I’ve had three of the latter and numerous of the former and I am annoyed at the VA for not picking this up. By the time I first heard of the NovaSure procedure, my uterus was way too large for this to be an option, but it certainly was back in 2005 when I first started with the VA. However, no VA provider ever informed me of this option.

On the plus side, my progress is such that we talked about tapering off the opioids.

Thanks to encouragement from you all and other sources, I have made walking a priority and will probably hit 5000 steps today. And I’m now walking faster than my cat! (We walk him on a leash.) My surgeon got a kick out of that post-surgery goal – walking faster than the cat