Sunday, February 3, 2013

I'm Just Walking to the Bathroom, Give me 20 Minutes.

Just an update now that I'm feeling up to sitting up straight long enough to type out a blog-this surgery was a doozy.  I knew it would be rough, but I had no idea how rough.

It started out with the bowel prep-I won't get too detailed about that but I lost eight pounds in five hours, and I do NOT recommend it as a course of weight loss, unless you like feeling like a giant toothpaste tube that's being rolled up to get that very last little bit out.  My brother Casey showed up at 5am to take care of Henry, and to drop him off at day care, since they didn't open until seven and we had to be at the hospital at 5:45am.  I was pretty apprehensive through my prepping, Ben made me laugh by showing me the honey badger video (seriously, how had I missed that?)

I got rolled back to the OR, and before I knew it, it was all over.  And I was in the worst pain I've ever been in.  I mean, worse than C-section.  I woke up digging rivets into the metal hand rails on the bad.  The nurses were nice enough to stuff me with enough morphine to "knock out a small horse", as one of them put it, and I stayed overnight so they could monitor me.  This was a hospital in the Bon Secours system, so lots of crucifixes and such around.  Even though I'm a lapsed Catholic I find that comforting.  The hospital chaplain came up to visit me, and she pointed out that I had a very good looking man holding my hand. I managed a smile and said "And he can cook!"  She said, "All RIGHT, girl!"

After he watched me drop in and out of consciousness, I made Ben leave, and spent the rest of the evening getting drugged and watching standup comedy on the iPad.  Once I was sufficiently sober, my doctor told me that they'd removed several adhesions, three cysts, some scarring on my bladder, and an accessory fallopian tube.  Yes, apparently that is a thing, and can be really bad if a fertilized egg gets in there and causes an ectopic pregnancy which can, you know, kill you.  One of my fallopian tubes was completely blocked, so they fixed that, too.

So basically it's a very good thing that I got all of this taken care of when I did.  They will run biopsies on the things they removed, and we should find the results out tomorrow or thereabouts.  The next day I was released, and I've never been so happy to see my two beautiful guys walk into my room to take me home.  It was a little bit of a rough trip-my inner mantra was "Don't throw up in the car.  Don't throw up in the car."

I told Ben this today and he said "Hey, that was MY inner mantra, too!"  I know he loves me, but he has a really nice car.....

I'll be recuperating at home for the next two weeks.  Didn't really think I'd need that long, but given the level of pain (I haven't been able to walk upright yet, more like an elderly gorilla) I think I'll be glad I have the time.  The nurses at the hospital talked nonstop about how great my doctor is, how thorough she is, and how she gets patients from all over the U.S.  who have had problems with fertility and endometriosis.  She's thorough, and I feel confident she's gotten me far along on the road to feeling better.

Thank you for all your well wishes and thoughts for myself and my family.  And I was right it my previous blog-I did indeed shit my pants.  Now Henry and i can bond on a whole new level....