| Surgery |
[Jul. 31st, 2006|06:02 pm] |
| [ | Feeling: |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | Music is: |
| | verve pipe | ] |
Update on life for me. Surgery is over! I’ve been taking lots of pictures almost every other day to chart progress, and I have a rather embarrassing folder of said pictures tucked away behind my other files I hope no one will ever find.
So. Wednesday morning, I was still apprehensive but not terrified. Drove to hospital in Dad’s DEP car. Always like that scenic New York City drive. Went to the hospital. Only waited a few minutes. We went to pay the hospital bill, I got that nice ID bracelet, and they took me to a bunch of lockers and gave me those terribly attractive hospital cloths to change into, including those fantastic “grippy” socks (which I kept by the way). Then they took me up to another room. Dad left but they let mom stay with me. A student nurse asked me a few irrelevant questions, brought up her boyfriend a few times and left. Another nurse came and asked me if I was nervous, and I said yes, though truthfully, I was only a little. She asked if I wanted Valium. I said yes of course. I was a bit scared, of the IV and such later, but mostly I took it for fun. We waited for a few hours until they brought me to a different floor, and mom had to leave. By then unfortunately, the Valium had mostly worn off and I was scared again of the IV. I watched some Italian guy from Brooklyn get his IV and freak out a little, which made me uneasy. My anesthesiologist came to put mine in, and he was very nice, thank god. He joked around with me, told me to grab his thumb, and he put the IV in my hand. I got worked up for nothing. It wasn’t so bad. Lol. My Surgeon came a few minutes later to mark all over my chest. I expected it to be a little more extensive, but I decided then just to trust her. She’s done this before. I expected them to give me the anesthesia before I saw the operating room, but instead they walked me into it, told me to lay down on this…thing and it took about five minutes before I was out. That was a scary five minutes. I didn’t think I’d actually have to see the operating room. I thought it would be like in those ER shows on TV, where they tell you to count backwards and then wheel you in. Oh well, I missed out on that cliché. I did have a sense of the passing time and woke up later in a recovery room. I remember having the ability to talk, but being so completely exhausted that I didn’t try, and for the time being settled with arm and neck movements to get someone’s attention. That didn’t work so I did talk, and a few minutes later a nurse came over, and to be honest I don’t remember what she said to me. I asked for water eventually, not really because I was thirsty but because I had a sore throat, and she said that when I go downstairs to the other recovery room, that I would get some. About twenty minutes later they moved me to a…not quite wheelchair, not quite stretcher thing, and just that small movement made me so nauseous that they couldn’t take me downstairs. I felt like I had a fever and it was terrible. My body was freezing and my head was burning, and one nurse would put a hot blanket over me one minute and the next I’d kick it away I was so hot. It was strange, but I was told I’d probably react that way to the aesthesia. They asked me how much pain I was in on a scale of one to ten, and I said four, and they gave me morphine. They finally took my downstairs, and brought my parents over. I told them how horribly nauseous I was and they gave me something for it which made me feel like by brain was being shaken. That made me cry, I’m embarrassed to admit. That weird shaky feeling, the pain, fear, nausea, etc. Well, I’m a baby sometimes, I just had to keep telling myself I asked for it and that I shouldn’t complain. Well, I lie there for a while, and got up to go to the bathroom. Because of the motion, the nausea started up again. I threw up, but then felt a lot better. The nurse there was pretty nice to me. I think about an hour later we left. Mom had to dress me, because I wasn’t supposed to move my arms. I almost felt degraded on her behalf. My eyes weren’t open for most of the ride home, I was still very drugged and very sick feeling. I was excited just to get into bed, which I did first thing. I had to put pillows under my arms so I didn’t roll over and pop any stitches. And that was it. That was my first surgery. The next few days were ok. Still drugged feeling and painful. I remember my dad getting aggravated with me for no reason, and crying and screaming endlessly for no reason afterwards. Reaction from the medication. I went to the surgeon the day after to get the drains removed. Very unpleasant. I asked her for Valium. Five days later (today!) I went to get the stitches removed. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought. She didn’t remove all of them, and I’m going back this Friday to get the rest removed because we’re going to Cape May on Saturday. We decided to stay until Tuesday night I think because Mom wants to be back in work on Wednesday and I think I have another follow-up appointment on Saturday. Whew.
Will talk about Cape May and more boring Post-op details soon. Still have to write Egypt thing. |
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