Sunday, November 3, 2013

Day 4 post op, Holy Hell!

Ok so I am going to try to summarize the last 4 days. I am going to write as if I wrote it at the same time
October 31st, day 1 surgery
- so M and I are up at 4 am, and I am heading to the hospital. I am a tiny bit nervous, but I am so excited. As I arrive, it is startin to get real, I am changing into my gown, booties, seriously unfashionable socks and my lovely bouffant. Ok this gown is freaking huge, it is a tent. The under gown fits great. Shows some wonderful curves and hugs me in the right places. Who would have thought I could look so cute in a gown. Woop woop! Now I am putting on the over gown/robe, one it is freaking huge! It is so big I am tripping on it! But anyhow, I am adjusting. 
I am now taken I to the pre-op area, where I am laying in a bed waiting for the ample amounts of people to talk to me, verify my procedure and take me into the OR. thank goodness my anesthesiologist is a different one then I had previously spine with. I like him much better. Oh my god I am getting scared now. Right there is the door I walk in and will not walk out of. What am I doing??? Everyone has spoken with me and Dr. S is the final person to speak with me. He gives me an out, I don't have to do this, but I am going to do amazing and am going to do this! ROCK ON!  Uh oh, it is time to go in... Lub-dub, my heart beats, faster, faster! It is so cold in this room, it looks kinda scary and there is a big table with places for my arms to spread out. It's almost time! I climb onto the table, and am given oxygen to breathe in, breathe deep, in and out 10 times. The anesthesiologist tells me I am going to get sleepy, and I drift off, I know I am in good hands! I dream about a circus- like cirque du soleil, an enjoy the show. 
When I wake up, I have my nurse asking me about my pain, and I am currently in no pain, but am nauseated. She gives me morphine and an anti-emetic, and tells me to go to sleep. About 15 minutes later, she asks me again, I repairs with the same answer "no pain, just a little nauseous", this repeats for the next while, and I am taken to the ward. 
When I get to the ward, I am still so sleepy, can barely move, am weak and have no energy. I am asked by te nurse and porter to move from one bed to another by sliding across. I am trying with all my might, and i cannot move. I am stuck to the bed, and cannot move. After what seems like forever I am able to eventually get over to the next bed. I am so weak... I know where I am, but where am I? It is weird but I am disoriented. I fall asleep again. I am given pain meds periodically and lots of anti-emetics. I am so loopy. I wake up raise my head look around and fall asleep. I keep asking for M, I need him here. He must be so worried. They cannot get a hold of him, because it is considered long distant calling. Please bring me my husband. 
Eventually M shows up, and it is like I have not seen him in years. I am so elated and never want him to ever leave. I missed him so much. He looks so tired, my poor love, he needs to get some sleep. 
I fall asleep for a few more hours, when I am awoken again by my nurse. I ask her to help me to the bathroom, but she is going on break soon, and we decide to get some pain meds in me first before I attempt to walk. I agree, allow her to go on break and in a bit I will call her partner to help me to the bathroom. I fall asleep again, and wake up to my nurse asking me if I went to the bathroom, uhhhhh no! Haha, apparently morphine makes me super drowsy!! So I make it to the bathroom, I am hurting but it is tolerable. I can do this. Easy peasy. I get up twice more in the night to go to the bathroom. My night nurse has given me the most amazing meds, I am able to sleep with zero pain. This is a promising start. Little did I know, this was the end to my easy recovery. 

Day 2- HELL!!
So I am in pain this morning! I start off with a 6 on the scale for pain. I am given a little morphine push in my Iv and when the next nurse come on duty my pain has dropped to a 4. I am still in pain, she acknowledges my pain, and says "good it has come down", what the hell is she thinking I need more meds. So I am laying here in pain, and my doctor comes in. Up to this point I am still in pretty good shape, and he is pleased with my recovery. About 2 hours later, it gets worse. My pain is back up to a 6, it has been 4 hours since my last med, and I am tired of waiting, I have to go to the bathroom now! The nurse comes in and gives me a little morphine. I start to get drowsy, after about 30 minutes and I figure the morphine is kicking in. I sit up, and my entire left side is burning so bad!!! I feel like someone has poured acid on my skin and it is burning off. I cannot stop crying! What is happening to me, M calls the nurse in, and she scolds me for tryin to get up too soon. I really have to go to the bathroom. So here I am laying down again, my insides are burning off my bone, and I cannot stop crying. It hurts so much. What is wrong?!?!? My nurse calls in a more experienced nurse, they take off my bandages and try to figure out what could be causing y but if sensation. I sled M if I was pulling out y drain? Could that be my cause of pain? The  nurse leans up my drain area, and it feels really nice to have it cleaned, but as she is cleaning it, I am feeling that the area she is cleaning, is not the area I am burning from. The doctor comes in, and states that this pain is normal and will go away. 
Eventually my bladder is about to explode and I have to get up. I ask M to ne to the bathroom. With agony, I am eventually able to get to the bathroom, but i feel like I am going to die. The pain is Intolerable.  I get back to bed, and after about 10 minutes later my pain lessens. 
The entire time I am speaking with my nurse and tell her that I am unable to walk through the pain. It is too excruciating, she tells me to keep walking  despite the pain, and my pain is caused by gas, and it will get better. I get some more pain meds, by this time I have been poked so many times, taken oral meds and I feel like I am a drug seeking patient. I am beginning to wonder if I am a wimp and cannot tolerate pain. I always considered myself a person that could take a lot of pain, how can this be so bad!
I am going to get up. My surgeon wants me up walking lots and lots today, and I want to make him proud of me. I am getting up. As I sit up, I am having pain 9 out of ten, but I pushing through this. I start walking to the nurses station and I am crying hysterically an am in so much pain I feel like I am going to faint. I cannot do this, a nurse comes up to me an walks me back to the bed. I feel like such a failure, I also feeling like I have just been tortured. The pain is so unbearable! Why is no one noticing my pain, why is no one concerned about my pain..... What Is wrong with me. After what seems like forever, a doctor comes to see me before he goes home. He asks about my day, and I tell him everything, and I tell him I am in excruciating pain. He palates my abdomen, and nothing, no pain whatsoever, then he palpates my left side. It feels like he has just stuck a knife in my side!!! I rip his hands off my abdomen and shriek in pain. He says he has not seen this before, and asks himself aloud "why is she hurting there? There should be no pain there". Everyone assumed it was my drain that was causing the pain, but my pain is nowhere near my drain! He orders me regular Tylenol and Advil every 2 hours to help with te pain, and morphine totop it off. He also orders a really strong med, I which I cannot remember what my nurse says it is, but this stuff is good! My pain disappears almost instantly, and I am pain free for the first time today. I can tolerate a 2 pain, I could cry from happiness, I can finally breather without my insides tearing up!  The dr brings in my surgeons partner, who was also in my surgery, and he says my pain is normal and will get better tomorrow. He promises. And I fall asleep. Around 7 my nurse comes in and gives me the Advil and Tylenol. There is so much here, I am not sure if I can tolerate that much fluid in my new tummy. Up to this point I have had maybe 1 cup of water, and one T jello. Nothing more. My stomach cannot tolerate anything. But it goes down, and I feel a little ill, but it is ok. 
After about an hour, my night nurse come in and starts asking me questions. Immediately behind her another person walks in. It is another doctor. Shestarts asking  me questions, taking my vitals. As the doctor is doin this, the nurse leaves. The doctor asks me more questions about my day, palpates my abdomen and leaves with my chart. What is going on?!?!? No one is talking to me. I am so scared right now!! About 2 hours later my nurse comes in and tells me that no one told them about my condition and  only the doctor knew about my day. Apparently nothing was told to the nurses! When my nurse came on she assumed everything was going well, as it had gone the previous night. She had no idea why I had gone through, and nothing was updated on my kardex report. So the doctors bombarded her with questions she was not prepared for not was she aware of any of it.  Te doctor never came to speak with me again, and the nurse was telling me that they thought I had developed a leak in my new stomach, and were going to monitor me hour by hour. 
Over the course of the evening my pain was managed by the meds they gave me, and I had some pain around 4-6. 4 at rest, 6 while walking. Normally I would have asked for more pain meds, but after experiencing a 9 or 10, the 6 and 4 was heavenly to have. 
Day 3 - post op

By the morning I was finally able to make a full loop around the halls. I was able to go around twice, but by the end I was pretty beat. I have To go back to bed. Over the next few hours, I was able to get up once more, when I came back from my walk, I an netted by the morning doctors and they tell me I am going home!! What?!?!? I just started eating, and just started walking!! Wtf!?!??

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