Sooooooooo the day after surgery.....I wake up, feeling ok, groggy, but ok thinking "Yes! I'm on the road to recovery and of my surgeries are done!!" So, I get up, grab a bowl of cereal with a half a banana cut up in it and turn on a movie and take a Norco (pain be gone!). Well, within 20 minute or so my left hand starts to tingle, very lightly at first and then starts becoming more intense. At this point I mentioned it to my husband who was asking me what it felt like. As I was explaining, my right arm starts getting tingly and intensifies to pain and then my hands cramp up into little claws that I can no longer move. The tingling and numbness travels down into my legs and it's at this point that I grab the phone and hand it to my husband telling (more like yelling) him to call the doctor or 911 or someone. But as the pain got worse I thought "forget this," and pretty much grabbed my husband and ran out the door to his car saying that we needed to get to the ER.
And that's what we did. On the way there, the tingling/numbness went up to my stomach, back and into my face where my jaw locked up. I focused on my breathing all the way to the ER, hardly able to talk or move, my only thoughts were "just get there, just get there." When we pulled up I stumbled out of the car and a woman saw me and ran inside to get help. They put me in a wheel chair and told me to start taking deep breaths and so I did as they cut one of my arm bands (still on from the surgery the day before) to get my information. As they wheeled me into another room, feeling started to come back into my limbs and as a nurse put an IV into my arm the tingling decreased as well, thank goodness!!!!
After that they got me into a bed, hooked up an EKG to me and drew some more blood to do some tests. I was then wheeled into another room where they hooked up a bag of fluids to my IV (I was dehydrated) took a chest x-ray and let me rest while they ran some tests. The results came back....great!! My lungs looked clear, heart rate was good, everything looked good except for my potassium levels which were a little low, but not crazy low. They had me take these 2 giant horsepills of potassium to get my levels back up. I have never taken such giant pills before in my life, ugh! I hung out there for a while and the doctors came in and said that they think I just hyperventilated and maybe the low potassium had something to do with it. The only thing is, I don't feel like I was hyperventilating while I was at home, so I have no idea what to think.
When I got home, I went on a 100ft walk (which felt like a half marathon), ate and took another Norco and what do you know, the tingling started to come back, so I lied down and focused on slow breathing. About 20 minutes later the tingling reduced and I fell asleep. When I woke up I felt better, but still groggy. I took Norco that night but felt like I had strange dreams and woke up at 2:30am having hot flashes. That was the last time I took Norco. The weirdest part is that I took 2 Norco pills for my last surgery every 4-6 hours and was fine!!! I still have no idea what really happened or why but I'm glad it's over and I'm feeling better!!
Pain today:
- sharp stabbing pains in the left shoulder
- very sore chest
-uncomfortable bubbly feeling inside of tummy
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