Recuperating at a Resort

Our driver from the hospital delivered us safely to the Fisherman’s Cove Resort, which is just a beautiful place on the Bay of Bengal just on the south end of Chennai.  Like many places with a large disparity between poor and wealthy, the boundary is rather abrupt between life outside the resort, and life inside.

We drove along the main road south, which looked like this:

And then we turned down a side street, went past security guards, and it looked like this:

We walked into the lobby area with our luggage, they showed us to a seated check-in area, and then brought us chilled, scented washcloths, and fresh juice.  There is one person at the resort, Patrick, who is the contact for all the hipster patients who stay here post-surgery. He met us at registration and informed us we’d been upgraded from a room in the hotel to a cottage (score!).  It’s just beautiful – a circular cottage, with a king-sized bed, a closet and bathroom in the back, with a private outdoor shower in back of that.  I think that shower may have been even more wonderful than my first shower post-surgery.

Our Cottage

It was quite hot and muggy for us Oregonians - temperatures in the mid-to-high-90s F and humidity around 80% - though our cottage and the main restaurant were air-conditioned.  It was a 5-7 minute walk (crutching) from the cottage to the restaurant in the main building, so I just breathed as best as I could and kept moving to the next air-conditioned area.   

Ted did get in the pool, which would have been a lovely respite.  I can’t get in until I’m fully healed but I put my toes in the wading area.

While we were at Fisherman's Cove, Hillary Clinton was in Chennai for two days, and she didn't even call us!  (I was a little disappointed.)  However, apparently the resort was on the way for a number of Indian dignitaries or politicians or public servants to the place where she was holding her meetings.  Ted saw a number of well-armed police strolling the grounds and asked about it.  He was told that they were just conducting more surveillance than usual.

I didn't want the opportunity to touch the Bay of Bengal to pass me by just because I was post-surgery.  Well, and also because they weren't allowing swimming on the beach while we were there due to a rip current.  So I just crutched out on the sand, and let a wave wash over my feet.  It counts!

The day we had planned to go out on a little shopping excursion, my stomach had a bit of trouble. So we never made it to a market to purchase souvenirs.  Luckily, there are many importers of India goods online!

Recovering from Surgery

The day of surgery I was fairly loopy and slept a lot.  The next day, I got to get up and walk with a walker. 

Walking was great in that twice a day I got up and walk around and it felt better than the last time I got up and walked around.  By the next day, I'd made it out the door and down the hall though, and on day 3 post-surgery, I graduated from a walker to crutches.

Physiotherapy!

By day 3 I was off all the drips and tubes, which was good. I also got new x-rays so that Dr. Bose could see the positioning of the implant, and all looked well.

In the meantime, my husband Ted was great about adjusting and fixing the bed, the blankets, the pillow, hoisting my leg back onto the bed, opening jelly packets, all the important stuff that I couldn't quite do on my own.  He was able to stay with me in the room - there was a 'companion' cot in the room as well as my hospital bed.  We apparently don't have a photo with his bed made (which is surprising to me, as he did make his bed every day), so you'll just have to excuse us - this view is standing in the doorway.

Companion cot, door to bathroom, my bed off to the right

Here are a few pictures of what we could see out our windows.  The large white building is the Rain Tree Anna Salai hotel, where we would have stayed our first night (had the flights gone according to plan), but also were we would stay on our last night in Chennai.

By this time, I was amazed at the progress I'd made and in some ways I was wishing I felt better; I think that's normal.

I called Day 4 post surgery a 5-star day!!  We had many achievements.

First, my PT (we call it "physiotherapy" in India) told me he was very pleased with how I'd done. I could do all of the exercises that he'd been doing with me twice a day without any assistance, and then... I got to do stairs with the crutches.  I'm only sorry that Ted was not there to document it.  This was the final milestone I had to pass to be discharged!  So the next day we could be on the way to the Fisherman's Cove Resort until we come back to the hospital on Saturday for a final checkup.

Day 4 is ALSO the day they give you a waterproof dressing for the incision, so I was able to shower for the first time in four days.  The nurses were laughing and touching my hair once it was clean again - I had just been pulling it back into a ponytail, and after washing it, it was kind of frizzy/wavy/air-dried.

Ted had an adventure to the immigration office to get one more piece of paper we allegedly have to have to leave - some sort of "exit permit".  Only this trip was only the first one, he had to go back the next day to GET the paper.  He was gone for a bit longer than two of hours, and describes it thusly: "Think of the DMV. However it included no ticket numbers, just a poorly organized seated sort of line up, where chairs were placed tightly together, and when the person ahead of you moved, you were supposed to move, before someone else sat down.  Also up at the front of the line were always four or five people either returning with new information or just plain cutting in line.  Oh, also, there were no writing surfaces – no tables, counters, clipboards, so you had to manage filling out all your papers on your knee, while you were defending your spot."

This sounds exactly like driving in India.  There are lanes drawn on the road, but the object really is to cram as many vehicles into the width of the road as possible – trucks, vans, cars, little three-wheelers and motorbikes with anywhere from 1 to 4 people on them!  Actually we only saw 4 twice – small child in front of dad driving, mom side-saddle on the back, holding on to dad with one hand, holding the baby.  But we caught a picture of one of the families!

Family of four on a bike

I saw a dad with his two boys behind him, the smaller one seeming to be sleeping right behind dad, with big brother behind the small one, keeping him on the bike.  It’s great fun to watch, but I think I would not ever like to have a go driving here.

Getting to India

And finally we were on our way! Er...

We were supposed to fly down to San Francisco from Eugene, then on to Frankfurt and Chennai.  Well, fog shut down one of the runways and we were delayed for almost three hours getting out of Oregon. We missed two flights to Frankfurt, and the next one wouldn't have gotten us there in time for the flight to Chennai.  For some reason there was not a flight from Frankfurt to Chennai the next day, so we spent the night at a Holiday Inn Express near the airport and flew out the next afternoon through Hong Kong to Chennai...! (I've said this before: when I get my flight itinerary, you can assume that the flights listed are the flights I WON'T be on that day.)

Of course that got us into Chennai after midnight Wednesday night, and I was supposed to be admitted for all the pre-op stuff on Wednesday and have surgery on Thursday the 14th.  So I called my contact Janet at WorldMedAssist (the medical/travel agency that many people work with for international surgery) and got the following email through her from Dr. Bose:    

Obviously the surgery cannot be done on the 14th as she is arriving early morning on the 14th.
We will postpone the date of surgery by a day.

We will take care and not to worry.

Are you kidding me?!  "Take care and not to worry?"  I was amazed that he was willing and able to reschedule my surgery.  What a relief!  I wasn't sure yet if we would have to move the flight home and what all that would entail, but I'd cross that bridge later.  I was glad we bought the travel insurance, since the airline doesn't pay for hotels needed after weather delays.

Here I am in the Hong Kong Airport

Couldn't get there heading east, so we headed west and hoped for the best.


We arrived in Chennai around 3:00 am, showered and slept for a few hours.  The first day I had all my pre-op tests including an x-ray of my hip, a chest x-ray, an echo-cardiogram, and an EKG.  Then we met my surgeon Dr. Bose, (as awesome a guy as I'd been told), and then I was all clear for surgery at 8:30am on Friday.


Dr. Bose also gave us more good news - even though we delayed surgery by a day due to travel issues, he didn't think it was necessary to change our return travel arrangements - we could still fly home on the 25th.

The hospital experience in India was a little different than I expected - on the one hand, I didn't always understand the nurses and attendants, and there are just so many people here, that getting through the hospital for tests was sort of overwhelming.  Maybe it wouldn't have been if I lived in a more metropolitan place and was used to having so many people around.  But on the other hand, the orthopedic ward and my room were total serenity, the food was really good, and the nurses and attendants told me when they were seeing me for the last time that day and if they would be back the next day or later - it was very personal.

The procedure took around two hours to complete and Dr. Bose said the surgery went smoothly with no complications.

I'm officially stressed, but I think it's ok.

Yeah, the last week has been me doing at least two weeks of work at my job (I'm almost done) and this has had the benefit of keeping all my fretting at bay.  This is a classic Angie Move:  if there's something that might be worrisome or troubling ahead, I will just get super-busy with something else so that I can avoid even acknowledging that said thing is coming. 

Now I am less than 48 hours from getting on the plane.  Some of the housework is done, a bit of the packing is done.  And I can no longer ignore the fact that I am a big ball of excitement, anxiety and straight-up fear.

Here's the thing, though: I'm not debilitated or anything.  And it would be really weird if I was not nervous.  I'm traveling half-way around the world.  To have orthopedic surgery.  And my kids are not coming along.  Any of those things would stress me out.  I've tried not to spend too much time with worst-case scenarios (should I write letters to my kids in case I die?) and keep prioritizing the tasks I have in front of me to prepare for the more-likely scenarios. 

I thought it might help to acknowledge the big deal this adventure is by taking some time to write a quick post.  Besides, my hip was hurting from standing a doing housework.  Time well-spent.  Now to vacuum!

For Realz

I will be boarding a plane in one more week!  I am surprisingly not anxious about this.  But that may be because I have a week's worth of work at the front of my brain, distracting me from fretting about surgery.  Work comes in handy like that for me.  I am making decent progress on the work I committed to finishing before I leave on my hip adventure - and I am looking forward to leaving work and putting thoughts of it aside once this week is done.

It was the two-week-window that made this seem real.  I have a list of household things I'd like to finish as well before we go, since we'll have guests staying in our house the entire time we're gone - I don't think I have unrealistic expectations about how clean the house will be (read: not spotless) but I'd like them to feel welcome and comfortable while they're there.  So a bit of dusting, some thorough vacuuming, bathroom cleaning, and general putting-stuff-away.  I made small progress a little each day over the weekend.  And I've got a few tasks I'm delegating to Ted and the boys.

In a couple of days I am instructed to go off of NSAIDS (ibuprofen: advil, etc.) and aspirin, - anything that thins the blood.  I have started worrying about that!  I don't know when the last day was that I didn't take ibuprofen.  I can still take acetaminophen (Tylenol) which will help with the pain but not with inflammation. 

I emailed my work's short-term-disability leave form to my surgeon's office.  I hope they'll be willing and able to fill it out and email or fax it back sometime this week.  I would sure like to tie up that loose end ahead of time.

This week is just going to be slogging through the details.