Hip Joint Venture

I know this is indelicate, I will be as tactful as I can, but this thorn in the side of orthopedics patients must be mentioned.

On the left is a normal bedpan, the yellow one on the right is the orthopedic model. Note how it looks like a dustpan. It feels like one too.

Basic fact, just because your leg is not working, the rest of the body functions continue.  Luckily, just after surgery, we have been fasting so it takes a while for nature to call.

The bed pan was almost my least favorite part of my hospital stay, pain still wins, but this is a close second.  Men have it easier, anatomically speaking, at least I assume so.  Normally, the bed pan for women for most conditions is designed to be somewhat comfortable.  The orthopedic bedpan looks like an overgrown dustpan, with abrupt, sharp feeling edges.

To get the thing under the patient, the nurses rolled me over toward my sutures. The first day, this woke up every nerve affected by the surgery, putting them on full alert.

Once in place, the nurse pulls up the covers, and left me for the business at hand.  “Just press the call button and I’ll come back.”  Famous last words.  It takes 15-30 minutes sometimes for the nurse to return as the patient is left precariously a top of somewhat full device.

I’m sure this is no picnic for the nursing staff, but at least they never acted like it was a problem and kept urging me to drink lots of water.  More water = more bedpans, not much incentive there.

I tried a few techniques.  Maybe I could just hold it longer.  The downside is the longer you wait, the more likely the nurse will spill the dang thing as she removes it.   They keep a mat under us to contain such spills. Changing the “piqué” as they called the mat in the Quebec hospital, requires the rolling maneuver I first encountered in the recovery room.  The first two days, this is very difficult and painful process.

Once, I learned that you have to pull the dang hospital gown clear of the procedure, or it will be damp, with you know what.  I learned that as I stood for the first time with the physiotherapist in the room.  I was so pleased to be standing, hanging on for dear life to the walker. Then I noticed my back side was soaked.   At least I was standing as I got a fresh gown and the fixed the bed.

Now to make matters worse, the nursing staff is more diverse than in the old days.  When you ask for help with a bedpan, anyone may show up, male, female, old or young.  No one seems to care, but it was weird, especially at first.  A part of their job, is also to wipe things down after the fact, like you do with a baby.  Can you say “uncomfortable?” Later, when I was able, they let me do that part myself.

In all, there is no greater incentive to get up and start moving after surgery than the desire to avoid one more stint with the dreadpan.   My surgery was just before a three day weekend. This meant I was not able to get clearance to walk until I’d spent four nights in the hospital.  I immediately changed my request with nature’s call – to come help me with my walker!  What a relief.

As much as I complain,  even after I could walk to the bathroom, I was too tired to make the difficult trek across the room to the bathroom.  I felt lazy asking for the bedpan at night.  They seemed to understand and offered the bedpan as the easiest alternative for me at night. It is all part of the service included in the hospital stay.