Tips given to Patrick on hip replacement
by Howie Carr
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Monday, Aug. 9, 2009
Would you like to borrow my cane, Governor?
Finally, Deval Patrick and I share some common ground, to coin a phrase - a hip replacement at Mass. General. I had mine July 10, and he’s having his Sept. 1.
Cynics are already snickering about the governor’s announcement. They’re saying Deval must really be tanking in the polls. First he buys a puppy, now he’s checking into the hospital. One thing I can tell you, Deval, don’t count on the operation giving you any bump in the polls.
This is a tough crowd we’re both working here. They’re going to say the same thing about your bum hip as they said about mine - I don’t know how he wrecked it, but it wasn’t from any heavy lifting.
Seriously, Mass. General is a great hospital, and they were wonderful to me. I couldn’t have asked for any better treatment. But let me give you a few tips before you check in.Of course they’re going to put you under for the operation, but you’ll probably have a choice - general anesthesia or spinal. I recommend spinal. In the recovery room, I got to watch my fellow patients who’d gone with the general. They were slack-jawed, glassy-eyed, like a Massachusetts judge leaving the 99 in Woburn after a “couple of glasses of wine,” if you know what I mean.
If you go with the spinal, though, you snap back fast. An hour after they wheel you out of the OR, you’ll be ready to issue another blistering fact-free denunciation of the Cambridge Police Department as “every black man’s nightmare.”
After the operation, you will be in pain, so they’ll put you on the morphine drip for a while. You get what looks like a remote control, and every five minutes or so, a red light goes on and you can give yourself another dose. After a while it gets to be automatic, like the Legislature raising taxes.
The food at Mass. General is decent enough, but during your four days there, you’re going to have a problem I didn’t face. Lt. Gov. Tim Murray is going to stop by for a visit - probably right around lunchtime, if I know the Pillsbury Doughboy. Be sure to order two puddings - make that three.
My co-workers at DNN sent me a ham. If Tiny Tim brings you some eats, I have two words for you: Food taster.
Post-operative physical therapy: very, very important, as I’m sure you’ve already been told. You’ll be given a regimen, and you should do it two or three times a day. Remember, though, the physical therapists want you to work on raising your leg, not the tolls and the fees at the RMV.
Every few hours, a nurse will ask you about your pain level, on a scale of one to 10. Always exaggerate - and I shouldn’t have to explain why. But considering your statement Wednesday night about the “chronic pain,” you’ve already figured out the play.
Which brings me to one final point. When you check out, they’re going to give you a prescription for some painkillers, probably Percocets. But you can do better, Deval, yes you can.
You’re the governor, dammit. Make ’em give you the Oxys.
Howie Carr, shown with a cane, says
he couldn't wait to get out of his hospital
bed to begin writing about those hacks
again. (DNN Staff photo)
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