April 26, 2017
The back pain I was having was unbearable. My lower back felt like it was on fire. My wife brought my into the ER which was so full that they started to turn away patients shortly after I arrived. The minutes of pain that ticked by seemed like forever. I was experiencing nerve pain from the mass in my abdomen, and it was nothing like I had felt before.
I finally got back and started getting some much needed pain meds. I was also nauseated and had started to vomit from the pain. They gave me dilaudid for the pain, along with benedryl to help with the nausea. To be honest, I don’t remember much after that. I woke up in a observation room and thought that it was morning, but realized it was the only around midnight after looking at my phone. LeeAnna had gone home to be with the kids, and it took me a while to get my bearings after being knocked out cold by the meds.
Originally my surgery to remove my right testicle (right radical orchiectomy), was scheduled as a outpatient surgery for April 27th as a outpatient surgery. I was not sure if me being in the hospital changed the plans for the surgery. The nurses were talking that my surgery might get moved up to first thing in the morning instead of later in the evening as originally planned. However, the surgery time did not get moved up, and actually got delayed until later in the night.
Night of April 27th – Surgery
It was finally time to get prepped for the surgery. Someone from the OR came and got me and brought me down. They made me explain, in my own words, what I was having done. They also made me mark and initial the side for the removal, along side the Dr’s mark and initial. They brought me back into the OR and transferred me onto the operating table. It was not long after that they started to put me to sleep. I was not back there awake for very long.
I don’t really remember coming out of the anesthesia. I have a memory of being in the recovery room with LeeAnna at some point, and I think I had already been somewhat awake, but not really with it up till that point. The incision site felt really swollen, and it hurt a lot to move, cough, or sneeze. They decided that it was going to be best to admit me for the night, as I was also still having back pain from the abdominal mass. I remember not eating anything all day while getting ready for the surgery. It was just a little after midnight when they got me a room, and I was starving. The floor had a turkey sandwich available, which was super delicious in my current state of hunger. I was in a semi private room, but thankfully I was the only one in the room. I had anticipated it staying that way since it was so late at night, apparently I was wrong. Around 2am, they brought in another patient who had just arrived from Egypt and did not speak English and was in need of dialysis. It was really interesting listening to the whole thing unfold next to me with the nurse getting a translator on the phone and trying to figure everything out. Aside from that, it made me really nervous that they stuck me with someone who came from out of the country and not knowing what they may be carrying and not needing any more medical problems.
The next day, I talked to Dr’s from the surgeons team, and the PA from my oncologist, and none of them wanted to give me any stronger pain meds than the norco that I was already on. It was really frustrating because they kept saying that if I was not currently in pain, there was no need to prescribe anything stronger. However, they were giving me morphine!! Of course I was not going to currently be in any pain while they were sitting there talking to me. After getting released from the hospital, I was able to see my oncologist, who wrote me a script for morphine and acted like it was no big deal. It was quite frustrating!