January 7, 2020 was the day of my scheduled left leg total hip replacement. I arrived at San Francisco Kaiser Medical center at 10:15 am to be admitted to the surgery bay. The plan was to wait there until the scheduled surgery at 1:15 pm. I was staring at a weird poster on the wall depicting a doctor showing great bedside manner but in reality it looked like the doctor was actually laying in bed with the patient. I swear, I had not taken any drugs yet. The scheduled time came and went and at about 3:30 my doctor came in explained that I would get an epidural and then surgery would be around 4 pm.
I received a super fun procedure called an epidural that took two anesthesiologist, a sonogram and 13 different tries before it actually numbed me from the waist down. Heading into surgery I was transferred to the operating table, clamped in and given Propofol and once I was out the surgery began. I woke up during the surgery THREE times. The second time I woke up, I yelled to the anesthesiologist that I was awake as I heard the surgeon hammering something into me. Horrifying to say the least. After surgery I was told that the replacement was a success and the hip was solidly placed but that some of my pelvis was chipped during the removal of the old ball from the socket and that my femur and pelvis had hairline cracks from the installation of the new parts. Instead of leaving the hospital that day on a walker as planned, I was told I would stay two nights in the hospital, followed by two weeks in a convalescent/rehab and finally six weeks post-op of only 40lbs of pressure on my new hip. I felt disappointment coupled with pain, resulting in a grumpy and sad patient.
Ms. Glass 