March 22, 2011

Tuesday morning arrived like any other. After all the time I'd spent worrying, planning, and preparing, it came so fast I had hardly anytime to panic. Some... but not much.

My appt was at 10:30, got there right on time, signed in at the front desk and settled in to wait. The waiting was excruciating, I thought I would faint as I sat there twirling my surgical bracelet. One cool thing that happened while I was waiting, I ran into a girl I met at the nurse's class. She is getting sleeved next week and was there for her pre-admission testing. She was super bubbly and positive and distracted me from my near-suffocating panic for a few minutes. lol.

Finally someone came and got me, told me to leave my bag and family and come to the back. I went to a little room where a nurse was waiting. She asked me all the consent questions again, had me put on a hospital gown and tucked me into the bed. Over the next ten minutes two more nurses, the Anesthesiologist and eventually my Surgeon came in to check on me. He was short with me but full of confidence as always,and somewhat more sensitive than usual telling me to 'stop crying' when I teared up at leaving my mom. The good news was the IV had been started and and pretty soon I wasn't worried about a thing. They wheeled me down some halls and looking up at the lights passing I told the nurse I feared I was chickening out but she just laughed and slid me into the operating room. I remember one look at the surgical table, all the camera equipment, people milling around (does it really take a team of 10?) and then... nothing. Whether it was fear induced or just a strong dose of sedatives I don't know, but I was out in a flash.

I woke up in the recovery room about 3 hours later. There was a brunette nurse talking to me, telling me to relax. I tried to tell her I had to pee and she kept trying to convince me I had a catheter in and could go anytime I felt like it. Despite trouble speaking I tried valiantly to argue against this scandalous lie because my Surgeon assured me I wouldn't have a catheter. When I calmed down a little, a nurse Anesth. came and checked my breathing. He was very sweet and called me beautiful. After the most harrowing day of my life, no make-up, sticky sweat and a bag of pee trailing around after me, I'm certain this was another scandalous falsehood but I took it with much less resistance.

After some time (10 mins? who knows, its super fuzzy) I was rolled into my hospital room. My mother says I said something angry about the catheter to my two nurses but I don't recall this either lol. The next 24 hours were filled with intravenous pain meds, constant vital checks, and forced walks around the corridor. I remember going down for an x-ray and trying to tell the tech my stomach was only about 3 ounces and I COULD NOT swallow all the dye he wanted me to but he insisted and it came right back up. The one and only time I puked, I'm proud to say. Also, luckily, the x-ray came back clean, no leaks, no bleeding, no nada.

On the 2nd afternoon I was discharged when my Surgeon saw that I had no fever, steady oxygen levels, could tolerate clear liquids and was managing my pain. I did regret going off the IV dialudid to the oral Roxicet (not nearly the same punch) but I was excited to get home. We waited about an hour and then a volunteer came and wheeled me out the front door. The ride home was brutal and I shambled/ran to bed. The most difficult day ever drew to a close and I gratefully succumbed to sleep.