Boredom and Thai TV

Since the key to recovering from bunion surgery is keeping your feet propped up, lying in bed, watching tv, and boredom play a big part in recuperation as well. As you are all aware, we've undertaken this adventure in the Kingdom of Thailand. I do not speak or understand Thai so I am limited to a handful of English TV channels on the TrueVision cable system. So here's what we have CNN International and Al Jazeera International. The war is still raging in Syria and the news from there is on a continuous loop or so it seems. The good news is I have an old colleague Lisa Verch Fletcher who is a Washington bureau anchor/reporter so I get to see her. Yay!
I used to think I loved movies, but I figured out many years ago that I like knowing about movies and not actually watching them. It's the ADHD in me that makes it difficult to sit through a movie from start to finish. But when you're stuck in a hotel room with your feet propped up and a handful of English language channels, you watch movies. Here's the hit list and my reviews.
Batman and Robin 1997, really it came out 15 years ago? Un-fricken-believable. I'm not really a big fan of superhero flicks but that George Clooney is something else to look at. Ah-nold before he was the Governator was the bad guy Freeze. Not a horrible way to spend a couple of hours.
The Rundown 2003 starring Dwayne Johnson formerly known as the Rock. The premise is Johnson is a bounty hunter hired to get a kid home from somewhere in South America. It's a bang bang shoot 'em up as Alan might say. I wouldn't watch it again too many guns and too much blood. But that Dwayne Johnson isn't bad looking. Christopher Walken is the bad guy and he is so good at being the bad guy he is always scary.
JAWS 1975, the original. It makes mean anxious just thinking about it. Alan wanted to watch so it's on. He's been so good to let me control the remote, I've given in. There's not even a hottie to look at in the movie. I do remember when I first saw the movie, it was on a date with Doug Bennett.
The King's Speech 2010, Colin Firth is tremendous in this Academy Award winning film. I watched while Alan was out on a bike ride. I love history and this movie was great. I'd watch it again and I never do that. Helen Bonham Carter was great as His wife and the woman who would become the Queen Mother.
Valentine's Day 2010. I love romantic comedies and cameo appearances. This is a Garry Marshall film and as he says no one dies in a Garry Marshall film. And it is filled with hotties, Eric Dane, Bradley Cooper, and Patrick Dempsey, there are even hotties for the guys, Jessica Alba, Julia Roberts, and Anne Hathaway. It's a feel good movie filled with stars for the young Taylor lautner, Taylor Swift, Topher Grace and for the older people Shirley Mclaine and Hector Elizondo. I'd watch it again to check out how the stories touch one another on one Valentine's Day in my home town of LA.
I've also caught up on a few episodes of some of my favorite TV shows, Glee and Modern Family in particular. But one thing I've enjoyed are the TV shows I've never heard of that they are showing here. Mostly short lived US programs I've missed while living abroad or in Hawaii with no TV.
Chase a 2010 NBC series. The only people I recognized are Eddie ciproan and Jesse Metcalf. It's a Jerry Bruckheimer procedural drama. Petty good.
Glade 2010 A&E series. Set in Florida, the main character is a super sleuth with a very sharp wit. But the the person that caught my eye was Kiele Sanchez who I loved in the 2009 movie A Perfect Getaway.
There have also been the odd Discovery Channel documentaries on the fall of Singapore and the Japanese in WWII.
So there's my completely ill informed review of the TV viewing I've been doing while stuck propping my legs up in Thailand

Ouch!

Note to self- walking hurts.
I got myself cleaned up and decided I needed to go for a walk today. I got the boots on grabbed Alan by the arm and started walking down the sidewalk. Went a block before the burning hot pain became unbearable and Alan said he thought this was a bad idea. So we turned around and I'm back in bed with my feet propped up. I'll try again tomorrow.

Surgery and post surgery

So now I'm checked into the hospital, wearing a hospital gown and sitting in the bed. It short order the nurse came in to start my IV. A couple of hours before the surgery they brought in a tray a food, clearly marked "for relatives only". Yay for Alan, boo for me.  About an hour before surgery time they wheeled me into the pre-op area. I was so bored, eventually I asked for something to read and they brought me a newspaper. This is also where I met with the anesthesiologist. Most ofter bunion surgery in the US is done by podiatrist and in an outpatient surgical center. Here it is an inpatient procedure done by an orthopedic surgeon. As a patient there's not much to decide. But one thing I did have to decide was whether to go with a general anethesia or a spinal block with sedation. Alan was voting for general and Miranda wanted me to go for the spinal. She was afraid. I have done both before. After talking to the anesthesiaolgoist I decided to go with the spinal and sedation. I think it was a good choice. When I arrived in the operating room, the doctor gave me the sedation. After I was asleep she did the spinal. Not going to offer an opinion on which option is best, that is something that only you and your doctor can decide together. I don't remember anything else. The first thing I remember after that is being back in my room. I think I asked someone to take my phone, Ipad, and purse out of the safe. Oh, that's something, there is a small hotel style safe in the room to keep your valuables while you are in surgery. One thing that didn't go as planned was a call to Alan when the surgery was done. I had specifically asked them to call him and tell him that I was ok and that I would call him when I woke up all the way. They didn't call and he ended up calling me about 2am to check on things. I was hooked up to an IV with morphine and dramamine to fight the nausea. That was probably my biggest complication, the nausea. I was plesantly surprised about the pain, not nearly as bad as I thought it might be. I was pretty sick to my stomach though. As soon as I complained about that they gave me anti-nausea medication and that helped. Because of the nausea the doctor wanted me to stay one more night and take me off the pain meds and make sure I felt ok. 
Food assessment: Wide variety from Halal, vegetarian, Western, or Japanese. I chose Japanese. One complaint by the time I got the food it was cold. Otherwise tasty. 

And that leads me again to the roommate situation and why if there had been availability I would have paid for a single occupancy room. I so wish I had a photo of this.  I was in the bed closest to the door and bathroom. A relative can stay over night with the patient, however, when you are in a double occupancy room the relative is supposed to be of the same gender. Apparently they don't really enforce that policy. My roomie's husband stayed in the room the entire time. This included using the bathroom for his showering and toilet routine. I had the bed closest to the door and bathroom so I got to see the parade of visitors. The evenings were quite loud and rowdy. At one point there were six people in there. Lots of laughing and telephone calls. I usually don't have a problem with that sort of thing but I had just had a four hour surgery and couldn't walk. Good thing I brought my earplugs, and sleeping mask. I actually ended up sleeping with podcasts playing in my ears to cover the sounds of the talkers. In the morning the parade began again when friends and family arrived on their way to work. But this takes the cake, about 8 in the morning, the husband shuffles past my bed, barefoot, in his undershirt with newspaper in hand into the bathroom, oh and he had his phone. He was in there for 45 mins, doing his morning routine and taking phone calls. Alan has now adopted the man's walk whenever he's headed to the loo. It is funny. Every US hospital I've ever been in had a notice on the door saying that the bathroom in the room was for patients only. Again, pay the extra and get a single occupancy room.
 Another choice I had to make was whether to repair one foot or two.  I had tentatively planned to do both feet but after talking to the orthopedic surgeon I decided I would go with the bi-lateral surgery. He allows walking in a boot the day after surgery. But all walking is not created equally. The first trip to the bathroom and back took about 15 mins. By the time I got back to bed the nausea was so bad, well no need to describe that.

Hospitality Suites

One important thing we did is to stay at the Bumrungrad hospitality suites just a couple of blocks from the hospital
The all efficiencies have room service and offer porters ans wheel chairs to get back and forth to appointments of you are not fully ambulatory div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">

Warning: Graphic Photos

Three days after surgery the big reveal...oh my gosh...that is ugly. As you can see from the photos the doctor did two incisions per foot. The one between my toes was to release the ligaments and tendons. The larger one on the outside of the feet he cut out some of the bunion and put in a screw or two to straighten the great toe.  When he talked to me after the surgery he said the tendons were very tight so the wrapping will be very important. 
The pain wasn't as bad as I expected on day three.  I also met a woman who had the surgery 18 days before and she was very happy with the surgery and her mobility.  I took that to mean she was walking and doing great.  So on day four I went for a short walk...big mistake. 
Today when I went in for another check my foot was more swollen and the doctor told me maybe I shouldn't be walking so much.
So I will be laying with my feet up for a few more days. Oh and I ran into that woman again and got some clarification. She was in bed with her feet up for 10 days before walking much. Now she tells me. 

All day at Bumrungrad

Bumrungrad International Hospital is a great place to people watch.  It turns out that people from all over the world come here for a head to toe physical. During the four hour program as they call it here, I met people from United Arab Emerites, Holland, China, Korea, Japan, US, Myanmar, and Australia. Of course there were lots of Thais around as well. There are several levels of physicals available, our insurance covers the "regular" physical. It includes a complete blood panel, chest x-ray, mammogram for the gals, urinalysis, stool occult blood test, prostate check for the guys, At the end of the exam, you have a consult with a GP who goes over the results and you go home with a packet of the results. The place was very well organized and when you left one location someone made sure you knew where you went next.  For any of you who've had a blood panel, you'll remember that there is a fasting requirement. The blood work came first and once that was complete, the clinic provided a light breakfast that included cereals, bread, juices, yogurt, and coffee.

 If any issues or concerns came up during the physical the clinic set up a follow on appointment right away. In my case, I had a neurology appointment set up to check in on my trigeminal neuraligia. Now, having fasted since 8pm the night before, and having to start a new fast at 1pm for the bunion surgery I really wanted to eat lunch. So I set up my neurology appointment for 1:30 after I ate a big lunch. I even suspended my low carb diet for the day. I ate a hamburger, fries, soda, and pizza bread with a yummy marinara. That morning the hospital had called and told me I needed to go to admissions at 1pm to have my intake blood test, and EKG. But during the physical they could see the order for those tests so I had them earlier in the day. I figured, I'd check in with admissions and then come back at 7pm for the surgery. Nothing doing. It turns out that my surgery was scheduled for 9pm and that once I showed up at admissions I was theirs. No going anywhere. So at 1pm I was in the hospital. A nice porter took us to room 935, a double occupancy room (that's what my insurance pays for). I could have paid out of pocket for a single occupancy room but they didn't have one available. Looking back at the whole experience I think I would pay the difference if the room had been available. More about that later.

Little Loopy

Feeling fine post op. likely the meds talking. I'll have a complete description when my head is clearer, I feel quite like this blurry self-portrait.