How was your Valentine's Day? Mine was nothing special. Worked during the day and had a meeting at night.

Tim had hip surgery on Valentine's Day. His mom wrote about the experience.

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2008 02:11 PM, CST

Tim is finally home!. Me too! I stayed with Tim his whole stay in the hospital. Surgery went well. The left hip had more damage than the right hip. They had to scrape more bone and chisel away more dead bone. They did the nerve block again but this time the medicine worked like an epidural and numbed him from chest down. So he ended up staying in recovery for three hours until his right leg woke up. It appeared that the nerve block was working pretty good in the recovery room. He got to his room and ate two bagels with cream cheese and then he fell asleep. When he woke up, he was in a lot of pain. Then all hell (excuse my language) broke loose. They couldn't get him a PCA machine because all of the machine's at Froedtert were being used. Unbelievable! A hospital runs out of necessary equipment. So they gave him his normal pain medication that he is on everyday of his life. This did nothing considering he just had major surgery. Tim was crying in his pillow for hours. His body began to shake. He hyperventilated so bad that his legs got tingly and his upper lip felt tingly. They finally gave him torridal(?) and later a sleeping pill. His back was hurting terribly and Tim asked for a heating pad. The nurse came back and said that they were all being used in the hospital. None were available. I think Froedtert had better look at supply and demand and order more equipment. If I have my way, no one in my family will ever have surgery at Froedtert again. Miss communication and lack of equipment just doesn't cut it. I had been so proactive about his pain this time. I spoke to everyone, specifically requested a PCA machine a month prior, again the day before, and when I saw Dr. King after surgery. I know some of you have experience watching loved ones go through horrendous amounts of pain and discomfort. I can tell you it takes years off of your life. You try to get the best for your children and then when it falls through you feel like you failed them. I was the brunt of his irritability and the poor nurse was the brunt of my frustration. I did apologize to her and acknowledged that it wasn't her fault but something had to be done. The solution to his pain was ridiculous. With today's modern medicine, no one should have to be in that much pain ever. On a pain scale from 1 to 10, Tim was 25.