Surgery Adventures

Wow, John did a great job guest blogging yesterday - I honestly only expected him to write that I was alive and recovering... but you guys got a typical rundown sort of like I'd write. He's such a cutie!

All I can say is that yesterday was looney bin day at the hospital... I am so not kidding! There was a young lady there that must have been terrified (obviously not a frequent flyer - like me), we went into the pre-op area together. I ended up learning about how she was having a full hysterectomy and that she'd already had a partial. She asked me several times if I was scared, but I didn't want to tell her that I'm pretty much a surgery professional at this point... or at least I feel like it... I managed to go 28 years and only have my tonsils out in college... but then 2007 started a good run... where I had surgery in January, surgery in November, and now 7 months later... there I went again.

Anyway... things kept on progressing, and I'm not sure what they were giving me to get the anesthetic started - but it took a good two or three doses before he stopped asking me if I was feeling anything yet. This time I felt like I got a good look at the OR, and all the crazy stuff that they have in there... and can I just say... it looks nothing like what they show on ER or Grey's Anatomy!! I feel very cheated in that right, but I guess I'll get over it. I remember them asking me to move onto the table, and strapping my arms down... then putting the oxygen mask on me... asking me again if the meds were working... then nothing until I woke up in recovery.

That's when the real fun started... seriously - It is no wonder that the nurses were calling me the gold star patient... so here's what I saw/heard. I say it like that only because I was dosing on and off... but first there was an older man across from me that was moaning about his pain, and that he needed to use the restroom - but he had a catheter... he just didn't understand what that meant. Next to him was the girl from the pre-op area, and she was trying to rip out all of her IV's and things... while asking a million times for her husband, and they don't let family in the recovery area... she finally got them to call him on the phone for her though. The last weirdo was a man that had just had either a knee or hip replaced - I don't know which, but he kept trying to roll over in the bed - and the nurses would take off running to him telling him that he was going to tear his incision open and have to go back to surgery. (I'm pretty sure he never understood them either!)

My surgery was over around 11:15 0r so and for some reason I didn't get out of recovery until around 2:30... I have really bad nausea when it comes to anesthetic, so they always pump me full of medicine to combat that - which means that it takes me a while to wake up from the surgery. After they let John come in to the phase 2 area though - things started moving. The nurse got me up for a walk to the restroom, and then gave me my clothes to put on when I was ready. I think within the hour we were on our way home.

I spent the rest of the day snoozing, and enjoying Renee's WONDERFUL dinner. She made us the most amazing whole wheat pasta dish with yellow squash, orange bell peppers, and tomatoes in a sun-dried tomato and basil pesto sauce. Simply amazing - I'm not kidding! She also made us these really terrific oatmeal raisin cookies that are to die for... they're not overly sweet - and we totally dug them! I've asked for both recipes from her, and I'll share when I can.

Today has been a little more difficult for me as far as the pain goes... my doctor called earlier in the day and asked if I felt like someone beat me up... when I said yes, he informed me that he was the one that beat me up. HA!

I've been staying pretty close to my bottle of pain medicine today, and doing as little as I can get away with because every time I move - I have pain... so I'm hopeful that as each day progresses that will go away. The 5 surgery sites look really good though - he did a much better job than the surgeon that did my bypass. (that's what John tells me anyway) I don't remember having this much pain with the bypass, but I'm sure that I did - I think the mind and body have a funny way of letting us forget those things... but it's nothing that I can't live with.

Tonight we had dinner delivered from another lady in our church, and it was wonderful too. She brought us a really lovely salad, ravioli, and some chocolate chip cookies. We just finished eating the main part of the meal, and I'm stuffed. It was great! I'll have to ask her for her recipes too. John will check out the cookies a little later this evening, and if I'm not still stuffed - I'll probably have a couple of bites of one too.

I think that about gets us caught up for today... I am feeling like I need another nap - which is funny because it's 7 PM, but I'll be up a couple of times tonight to take that pain medicine... so I'm pretty much existing on naps right now... but honestly - I'm probably sleeping more than I'm awake right now... so we'll see how that goes over the next day or so as well.