On the Upswing....

Phew. I'm finally feeling a little better. Yesterday was NOT good - it was actually worse than the first day home and I thought I was going to land myself back in the hospital due to dehydration, but last night things got better and I'm finally feeling like myself again.
Here's my recollection of the last 2 days - if you care to read about it:

Tuesday a.m. - STeve and I are up at 5:45 and getting dressed to be at the hospital at 6:30. The nurse told me the day before that I could only shower, brush my teeth and get dressed - don't wear any jewelry, any makeup, any perfume, any deodorant - for sterility purposes in the OR. Well, no makeup, no jewelry, no perfume - fine with me. But no deodorant? Screw that. That's just gross. I applied my deodorant with defiant gusto - take that! you Nurse Nazi!
We arrived and I get checked in and they call me back to get prepped for surgery. Clothes off - they made me take out my nose ring - the nurse implied that I could get "2nd or 3rd degree burns - I've seen pictures" -- those were her exact words. I think she exaggerated to intimidate me into taking it out. It worked.
Oh...and did I mention that the nurse prepping me for surgery was training another nurse? She was telling Trainee how to work the blood pressure machine, and how they do this, and where to sign after she did this and that, and where they put the IV in. So she's going to let the Trainee put my IV in --no big deal, right? Any moron nurse can put a needle/IV in my hand right?? Well, apparently, Trainee was very nervous, which was evidenced by her hands actually TREMBLING as she took my hand and bent it down to put the needle in. I normally watch as I get blood drawn or get an IV put it - needles don't really bother me -- but as I watched her hand shaking with that big needle in it, coming slowly toward my hand -- I had to turn away. She did fine though - got it on the first try and the real nurse even said, "good job". Although on second thought, maybe she was telling ME good job, for not freaking out that the nurse fresh out of med school just stuck a 2 inch needle into my hand without making a mess.

Steve came in, said goodbye - he was taken to another waiting room. I was wheeled into the pre-OR waiting area where there were about 10 other people sandwiched between curtains hanging from the ceiling waiting to go to the OR for various surgeries. I was 10th in line. I watched the nurses coming in and out, flirting with doctors - I felt like I was on Grey's Anatomy as I watched their interactions and listened to their gossip. The anesthesia guy came in and asked me a few questions and gave me "something to relax you" - which made me feel light-headed and the room spin a little.
"Am I supposed to feel slightly drunk?" I asked him.
"Yup" he said.

The clock ticks to 8:00 a.m. and a procession of nurses come in and take patients #1-9 into the operating rooms. I watched them all wheeled by me, a parade of sick people wheeled to the knife and scalpel-wielding doctors awaiting them behind closed O.R. doors. 8:15 comes and it's my turn - they wheel me back.
Anethesia guy is there again - flirting with the nurse. I was still feeling "relaxed" from whatever cocktail he gave me the first time, so I was pretty quiet and just did what they told me. Scoot onto this table..lift up your leg...put your arm on this board, blah, blah, blah. Anesthesia guy pokes a needle in my IV and says "you're going to feel a burning in your arm"...sure enough....burning sensation comes, "ow.ow. ow. ow" I said
"It'll go away in a second" he says.
And then I was out.

Next thing I know, I'm hearing people around me saying my name and asking me how I'm feeling. I mumbled something completely incoherent, but in my head I was saying, "just peachy, thank you kindly for asking".
It's a weird feeling - coming out of anesthesia. You know when you're starting to fall asleep and you're trying really hard not to? It's sort of like that, but not. You're trying really hard to wake up and you want to, and everything feels weird, but you just can't. They kept me back in the recovery area for awhile and then wheeled me back to a room where STeve met me. They gave me about 45 minutes to wake up - I was feeling like crap at this point. I can't remember, but I think they gave me something for pain and then this no-nonsense nurse (her name was Lisa) and her sidekick came in and grabbed my clothes and went about getting me dressed. They made STeve leave, which I thought was funny - you realize he sees me naked all the time? - and they got down to business. There's something about being female...as you go along in life, having children, having to see a gynecologist on a regular basis, that over time you just lose all inhibitions and have little sense of modesty around medical personnel. Some people might find it embarassing to be buck-naked in front of two strangers who are putting your clothes on for you, but I didn't care - I just wanted them to hurry up so I could go home.

After they got my clothes on, they wheeled my bed out of the room -- I looked after it longingly - I wasn't finished with it yet - I wanted to lay back down, but they sat me in a chair instead. And then I felt it. My mouth was really watery, my stomach was churning. No-nonense Lisa and her sidekick had left and Steve grabbed me the trashcan which I promptly emptied the contents of my stomach into.
I hear the sidekick calling, "Lisa! Uh...Lisa!" and then Lisa comes in and says, "OH!" And then they bring me....a small pink pan in the shape of a kidney about 1 inch deep. I assume they want me to continue to throw up in THIS. If I hadn't felt so crappy I'd have laughed. Seriously...you want me to puke in THIS. This small, condiment-dipping size container is what you expect me to forcefully hurl the insides of my stomach into? Oh, I don't think so. I tossed it on the ground, and pulled the trashcan closer. "You just want to use the trash can?" Lisa said.
You got it sista.

I threw up again right when I got home, but that night I did ok....I even got up a few times, wrote a couple lines on the blog, ate a little food. But when I went to lay down again about 9pm I got this searing pain in my right shoulder. It hurt so bad I couldn't catch my breath. We called the nurses hotline and they said that shoulder pain was really common with lathroscopic surgery - something about the carbon dioxide that they use to blow up the abdomen can excape into little pockets in other areas of the body and cause pain. It was awful. I felt like someone was twisting a knife into my shoulder - and I consider myself someone with a pretty high tolerance for pain. I was up a lot --couldn't sleep, couldn't eat - the pain meds weren't working and were making me feel more nauseous. I tried taking a walk to the end of the street and back at 4 am with Stee and that didn't help much either. I finally fell asleep around 5:00 and slept for a few hours, but then when I woke up I was feeling nauseous again and threw up. I slept more - ate 2 saltine crackers and threw those up too, and then I didn't want to eat or drink anything else the rest of the day. The SMELL of food made me feel ill. Steve called the dr. and they called in a prescription to help with the nausea, but as soon as I took the pill and took a sip of water to wash it down I knew it would come back up. I held it in about an hour and then threw that up too. STeve called the dr. and they wanted to see me. They said that my heart rate was accelerated "enough" yet, and that I could keep trying to keep food/water down at home, but they'd admit me if I wasn't eating and drinking by morning. Oh..and they put in yet ANOTHER prescription for nausea. But THAT one worked, and about an hour after taking it, I was feeling better that night. I slept all night - the shoulder pain is gone this morning, thank God and I actually ate some breakfast (oatmeal bake -yum).
I'm feeling today like I think I SHOULD have felt yesterday. Tender, sore, moving slowly - but not completely incapacitated. I think I'm on the up-swing. And if you actually stuck with me and read this whole blog, then you deserve an award because it's WAY too long, and probably EXTREMELY boring.
Feeling better over here, and glad it's over. :)~tammi