Back Home and Final Recovery Blog

Let Me Go Already!

So waiting to be discharged from the hospital was probably the most eager I've been for anything to happen.

List of waiting periods that almost drove me crazy (or might still drive me crazy):

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book published.
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II in theaters. (Dear God please get here faster)
3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I in theaters.
4. Going home to Houston every summer.
5. Getting out of the Hospital.
6. Pokewalker hitting 1,000,000 steps.
7. The end of Chapel.

So I guess it was more like the 5th most eager I've ever been.  Either way, I had spent 10 nights and 10.5 days in there including surgery day and as much as I loved the comfy bed, I was starting to feel like a useless mass and was tired of being checked up on every hour by nurses.

March 18

March 18 should be a holiday.  I finally got to go home because my bone had stopped bleeding enough that they could take out the drain that was connected to my femur.  Once they got that hole patched up, they said I could go so I made my way down the hallway on crutches (which was pretty hard considering the lack of exercise I had experienced).  We hopped in the car and drove back to Clear Lake.  I got home and set up base in my bedroom.  Being home definitely made it more comfortable to try and get up and move around plus I had way more privacy.

Weak Week

It was still pretty tough to try and do too much because I was still exhausted and hadn't regained my full appetite.  I laid low for a few days just sitting around in bed or on the couch in the living room watching Netflix or playing Pokemon.  I was slowly getting my strength back to the point where I ditched the walker completely and just stuck to crutches.

However, later that week things went downhill and I started losing my appetite again along with my desire to get up and move around.  I ended up waking up one morning to find that I could hardly move and that breathing was tough.  I ended up back in the hospital for most of the day to get more fluids put back in me.  At that point I decided to be more on time about eating food and drinking fluids because seriously, I'm so tired of the hospital.

Improvements

After that crappy day things got better quick and I was eating and drinking more regularly.  I was able to go out to eat with my parents and Phillip and Gary at Ghengis Grill (Mongolian stir fry *drool*) as well as get around the house more than before.  I'm slowly putting less weight on the crutches and more weight on my leg in order to build the muscles back up.  Just yesterday I even went to Best Buy to get the classic controller for our Nintendo Wii so that I could play the 64 games without stretching cords across the living room.  I'm also back to regularly attending my Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology class and my Geochemistry class through the use of Skype.  I'm trying to get as much done as I can because there's definitely no time during my senior year of college to be making up missed classes and I definitely don't have the funds to attend the school for a 5th year.  Besides, 4 years is way more than enough time to spend at Olivet to get the full experience of what living in a Puritan colony is like.

Now What?

Well, I want to go back to school as soon as I can.  This mini vacation has been semi relaxing but I miss being on a schedule and the thought of getting behind in my school work is a science student's worst nightmare.

I also miss people so badly it hurts.  I hated the fact that I had to cut my semester short when I was having such a good time with my friends and roommates.  The summer after my freshman year I missed the biggest field trip my geology department takes which goes out west to some of the coolest parks and landforms in the US.  I have regretted that fact ever since.  I never wanted to miss out on a geology field trip again.  Unfortunately I missed two really good ones this semester.  One to Pittsburgh for the Geological Society of America meeting, and the other to Missouri as part of the Petrology class.  This will probably bother me for years to come.  I was particularly looking forward to the Petrology field trip because of all I had heard about it.

It is great having the tumor out of my leg and being able to sit without pain but the cost was definitely a major blow that I'm still pretty upset about.  The worst thing in the world would be to get caught up in the disappointment so I'm trying my hardest to not just recover my walking but to get on track to graduate on time and finish this semester as quickly as I can.

Sorry, that section was kind of sad and whiny...

No More Surgery Talk

This will probably be the last blog about my surgery and recovery but I will return this blog to its intended use for discussing my favorite things in life.  Now that you all know about the blog I'd love it if you continued to read and share if you find it interesting.  I've also got links at the top right to some other blogs I follow like my roommate Todd's blog on critiquing food places in the Chicago area, and Buddy Stark's video blog that I have actually appeared in numerous times.  Check them out if you have any interest.  I definitely swear by both of them.

Finally...

Thank you to everyone that stuck with me through all of this.  For checking up on me to make sure I was doing alright.  For texting and calling me to keep me company and up to date with what was happening up north.  For sending me cards and snacks.  Thanks also just for reading my blog.  It definitely felt wonderful to know so many people missed me and that you all would help in any way you could.  Continue to be the great people you are and know that I thought of all of you during this time.

Your Grateful Friend (who can walk straighter now),

Brian

or

Schrock

or

Texas

or

whatever else you call me.

Surgery and Recovery Blog

BEWARE: Lots of surgery talk, and squeamish subjects/photos.  Don't puke.

3/16/2011 UPDATE: RECENTLY ADDED TUMOR PICTURE! SCROLL TO END TO VIEW!

The Surgery:

On Tuesday morning I had to wake up at 4:00 AM and report to the MD Anderson hospital at 5:15AM.  After signing in, the other surgery patients, myself, and our guests were taken to a room full of beds where we were hooked up to all kinds of monitors and changed into hospital clothes.  At 7:00 AM, they wheeled me back into the surgery room and positioned me on the table.  At that time I was given the anesthesia and don't remember much other than them apologizing for the table being cold.  According to reports, the operation started around 8:20 AM and finished around 12:45 PM which was much quicker than they anticipated.  Originally they thought I could be in there for about 7 hours or more.  Apparently, the procedure itself went very smoothly, none of my nerves or major arteries were damaged and I now have about an 18 in. incision on the outside of my right leg, a dynamic screw and side plate, and one less osteochondroma.

As you can see above, the osteochondroma is gone but I have a permanent giant screw and rod holding the upper half of my femur together.  The osteochondroma measured 18x14x10 cm in size.  There is a picture of the removed tumor but I still have to get it from the doctor so I havent seen it yet myself.

Post Surgery:

I woke back up around 2:00 PM in the patient recovery room.  My mom was there and I was hooked up to even more IVs and monitors than before.  I felt almost completely painless though considering the operation because of the amount of morphine I was taking.

I was more worried about being strangled by tubes at this point.

Unfortunately, the amount of blood loss due to cutting into my bone had caused me to become extremely week.  My heart rate was really high and my breathing was slow.  At around 6:00 PM I felt pretty nauseated and began to pass out.  My resting heart rate hit 139 and set the alarms off while my blood pressure dropped to as low 33/20 before the staff rushed into the room.  They pushed more fluids into my IV and waved ammonia under my nose to get me back to normal.  After the initial scare, everything returned mostly to where it was supposed to be but my blood level was still low.  So instead of having a 3 hour stay in the recovery room, I was there for 7.  Eventually I was assigned a room and wheeled over to it.  My mom spent the night with me in order to keep me company.  If you happen to be in the neighborhood today or tomorrow, I'm in room P423.

Recovery Day 2 (Wed)

By Wednesday morning, I was still pretty weak and having to take a lot of morphine.  It was really hard to talk and move around.   My mom and stepdad were visiting in and out since they work at MD Anderson.  Since I was very weak and pale, my doctors and nurses decided to give me two blood transfusions in order to get my hemoglobin level back up.  My level was at 6.9 while normal range is typically 14-18.  After the transfusions they got my hemoglobin level up to 8.0 which is still low but I had much more energy and was able to get on the computer and phone and update some folks.  My dad and stepmom came by that afternoon too, as well as my youth pastor Josh who came by earlier in the morning while I was still pretty out of it.  Later that evening, my first big step on recovery took place as I was able to get up using a walker, move towards the door, turn around, and sit on a chair.

Carl Fredricksen still has me beat.

Recovery Day 3 (Thurs)

On the third day of recovery, I felt better in the morning but still fairly weak.  The doctors decided I should get one more blood transfusion which brought me up to 9.6, which is as good as I'm gonna get anytime soon.  They also got me off of my morphine pump and onto a new pain killer.  I got up to walk a lap around the hallways using the walker and did well with that.  Later I was able to clean off in the sit-down shower in my room.  As far as regaining my mobility, I'm doing very well.  Unfortunately, I'm still waiting on my bone to stop bleeding which is the main issue that could be keeping me here longer.  The food here is pretty bad, and the internet doesn't work half of the time I try to use it.  It's almost like being back at Olivet actually.



Recovery Day 4 (Fri)


Now that Friday is here, all my doctors are going on their spring breaks (since MD Anderson is affiliated with University of Texas) and I wont be getting much information from them.  However, I'm still here with nurses and physical therapists helping me get back on my feet.  Today, I was able to shower on my own, shave, get dressed and use crutches to do a lap around the hallways.  Phillip will be joining me shortly for an evening full of Pokemon playing.  All day I've been watching the coverage of the Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan.  It's definitely a scary situation for them and it makes mine feel very minor in comparison.
Like I said, I'm hoping I won't be here too much longer.  I'm basically here until my bone stops bleeding which may take a few more days.  After I leave, the doctors expect I will have a pretty long stage of regaining my ability to walk and run and stuff.  As far as I'm concerned, I'm going to try to heal as quickly as I can since I have lots of stuff I want to do this summer.

Also, I'll probably update the blog once I get a couple more pictures loaded and sent to me from the surgeon.  For now, I can just post this picture of the lower half of my incision:

For reference, thats my right arm lying across my chest in the upper 

left part of the picture.  The scar continues up my butt a ways but I

didn't want to post that for obvious reasons.  That red tube leads down

to my bone and is working on draining the blood down there.

Tumor:

I managed to acquire a picture of the tumor outside of my body!

EWWWW.  I'm glad this thing is no longer a resident of my right leg.  As you can see it measures over 6 inches long on its longest axis.  Don't be fooled by the soft appearance either; that is just squishy tissue stretched over it.  That thing is rock hard.  As of right now, it should be at a lab where it will be examined thoroughly for signs of cancer.  It may even spend some time under study by researchers or something.  Who knows, I'm sure they'll figure out something good to do with it if they don't incinerate it immediately for being so hideous.