They decided it would be okay to put the fistula in the right arm. I went to the hospital at about 10:30 in the morning. This time they used the left arm to put in the I. V. and take the blood pressure. They had to put the IV close to the hand so they could use the forearm to take the blood pressure. The bicep in the left arm is where the graft was that they had to remove. They were able to get me on the operating table before noon. I was out of the operating room by a little after five. I left the hospital at around 7:30 at night. I was the last one to leave recovery. As a matter of fact the nurse that was watching me was called back in after going home and eating dinner. When I got out of the car at home my right arm was throbbing so much my wife called the Doctor. He said it was probably just the nerves in the arm and to just double the pain pills for the night.
The left arm had about eight stitches in it and really didn’t hurt at all. My neck had to three stitches in it and made it hard to shave but it didn’t hurt. Now my right arm as far as I could see had no stitches. It was just glue closed. There was a large lump in my forearm before the elbow. There was another lump of smaller size left of my bicep. This is where he cut the veins and took off the side branches and then connected them up together. I took a week off bowling because it hurt a little to straighten my arm. My wife kept saying that it look like a little alien would come crawling out of my arm with a large lump was. It took about 3 1/2 to 4 weeks for that large lump to shrink down to a small lump. I use my arms to stand up, so during the first week after the operation it was very hard for me to stand up. My wife went back to putting a gate belt on me to make it easier to lift me onto my feet. The Sunday two days after the operation we went out for breakfast. I was able to get into the booth okay but when it was time to get out my wife grabbed my gait belt and pulled me out of the booth. I did not quite get my knees straight on this attempt so I then collapsed on top my wife and pinned her to the table next to us. Thankfully the waitress saw the gait belt and knew what to do and lifted me to my feet. Another waitress tried to help and started reaching for my arm. Both me and my wife said the same thing… don’t grabbed the arms.
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