Surgery Update

I did have my surgery on Wednesday and everything is going ok. Today is the first day though that I feel like sitting up and trying to type out the events of the day....

Nothing can ever be normal or simple for us. Oh no, when we try to do something it turns into something bigger than what it should've been. Wednesday morning was a perfect example of that. We were supposed to be at the hospital by 6:30 am which meant we had to leave the house at 5:30 am. We decided to go through town and hit the interstate - bad decision on our part. At 5:30 am we were pulled over by a city policeman going 48 in a 35. Then we had to wait forever for her to even come up to the truck. I could feel my blood pressure rising. As she was getting Jay's information I told her we had to be at the hospital by 6:30. She assured us she wouldn't keep us long. We waited and waited and waited and finally she brought everything back along with a nice little ticket. Then she said "good luck with your surgery". Yeah, I was hoping that our luck improved a whole lot before we got to the hospital.

Since she kept us so long writing out our ticket I was afraid we were going to be late. I was a nervous wreck the rest of the trip. Once we got to the hospital and got checked in a few minutes before 6:30 I started settling down. As we were waiting to be taken back to my room I asked Jay if I could blog about the speeding ticket. He said I could only if I wrote about the peer pressure I subjected him to on the rest of the drive. So I'll backup here to right after we got the ticket. I was pretty ticked, not only did we just get a ticket that we had to deal with we also had to be at the hospital in 40 minutes. I keep leaning over looking at the speedometer telling Jay he needed to drive faster. Just a few moments earlier he had received a ticket for speeding, which I griped about but now I was telling him he needed to speed. I'm sure that wasn't at all annoying to him.

But we made it in time, no one at the hospital yelled at us because we were late and everything from then on moved pretty quickly...until after the surgery. I was so out of it and dizzy and nauseated from the anaesthesia and I felt terrible. The normal procedure is to make sure the patient has gone to the bathroom before they can leave the hospital. That shouldn't have been an issue for me, but it was. I couldn't go. I was trying to drink as much as I could, but if I drank too much too quickly I'd get sick. I'd feel like I could go, but by the time I'd hobble into the bathroom I couldn't. I tried everything I could think of but it wouldn't work. Here's the part I think is funny - I told the nurse it was the toilet. It was too high, my feet were dangling and I couldn't concentrate. Under normal circumstances I would never had said that, but since I was out of my head I did. Then I heard my nurse asking other nurses if there were any lower toilets around the place. Thinking about it now, it is embarrassing. At the time it made total sense. Finally it got to the point of either being catheterized or go on my own. I had Jay put my shoes on me, because it gave me a little more height and we tried again. The nurse even commented on me wearing my shoes. That must've been the magic thing because I was finally able to go which meant we were finally able to leave the hospital....about 1:30 that afternoon.

Since then things have been going pretty well. I am sore, actually quite sore. A lady from our church, who is a nurse, was explaining to Jay that people think it's not as painful as the old fashioned way, but it still isn't a walk in the park. They use gas to blow up your stomach so it stretches everything out, which causes the pain. I think my problem is that it was an outpatient surgery so I think I should be up and about all ready. I got some comments from co-workers that I should be back at work tomorrow, which isn't happening. So between their comments and my own mental issues, I feel like I'm being lazy and a baby - even though I know I'm not ready to go back to work. I keep having these mental back and forth discussions with myself. The truth is I can't even put on pants yet. I've been living in workout pants and I have no interest in buttoning or zipping a pair of jeans over my stomach yet. But all in all I'm doing great and I can already tell my stomach feels better. I can't wait to get rid of the surgery pain so I can really tell how much better everything feels.

Jay has been great through all of this. He stayed home with me on Thursday just to be sure everything was going ok. He's done laundry and kept the house clean. We've also had a lot of help with Sharon and Jania brining us meals and mom coming over on Saturday to help. With this kind of treatmeant I may want to stretch this out as long as possible......