A Tale of Two Surgeries - Tale One

First a word of advice, don't have two surgeries within a week of each other.  Unless of course you have met your annual out of pocket max and the second surgery will be completely paid for and you just don't have a lot of extra money laying around with which to pay for surgery!  Then maybe you should do what I did! 

Christmas Break was somewhat of a blur to me.  I went in early on the 22nd for my complete hysterectomy. My friend Kara picked me up and was there with me before and after surgery.  We had a little time to wait before surgery and she helped make it fun!  I had great nurses.  I stayed the night in a beautiful room with a wall full of windows.  I had a great view of Main Street Rexburg and their gorgeous Christmas Lights.  It also snowed a lot while I was in the hospital and I loved watching it from my room. I got a wonderful drug called dilaudid. I wish I could have kept my IV and been given a bunch of that to take home. Good stuff.  At about 10 that night I got up to walk around for the first time.  It went ok, not as painful as I had expected it to be.  Just a half hour later I had to push the nurse call button because my chest hurt so bad I could hardly breath.  More dilaudid and I was feeling much better.  Turns out all that gas used in laparoscopic surgery does not leave your body once surgery is done.  Some of it hangs around to cause issues.  Getting up and walking had sent it up to my chest where it really, really hurt.  An hour later that pain was back, but the nurses were great about helping me get it under control.  Later a nurse brought in a beautiful vase of yellow roses with gold painted fern leaves.  It looked great next to the beautiful roses Kara had brought me.  So lovely. The nurse told me there had been a wedding reception that night and they had brought their extra flowers to the hospital for the nurses to give to patients.  How sweet and what a wonderful idea!  She also said my room was pretty sunny, because of me, but she thought I would like them.  What a nice thing to hear!  I try to be nice to everyone.  I try to be extra nice to those who are working so hard to help me be ok.  It turned out my nurses and I were a great match personality wise.

Funny story, I always ask my surgeon, "have you ever lost a patient during a "insert surgery here"?  And they always say no, but my hysterectomy doc said no, but he had heard of patients dying from falling off the OR table and hitting their heads.  So, they gave me the loopy meds and wheeled me to the OR.  It was me and one nurse and she asked if I could scoot myself over to the operating table.  I said, SURE!!  And as I scooted, the gurney I was on began to move away from the OR table and the nurse panicked and grabbed me.  I thought, in a totally calm tone of thought, "So this is how I go!".  But we managed to save me from falling.  That is the last thing I remember. I bet they are hoping I don't!  heehee

The next morning my surgeon came to see me.  I was pretty out of it.  He suggested I have a blood transfusion, because not only was anemic to start, but I lost some blood during surgery.  I remember thinking how bad transfusions could be and no way was I going to get one.  Now I must say, I don't have a problem with transfusions, nor do I understand why it was an issue for me at the time, but I said no.  I remember the surgeon saying if he had my blood levels, he could not function.  I remember vaguely thinking, that's because you are a man.  I know, I am so bad!!  So why was I given the option?  Without my advocate/friend there?  Who knows.

I went home the following day and once again my dear friend Kara came and got me. She is such a blessing to me!  It was so good to be with my kiddos.  They had come to visit in the hospital but only stayed about 8 minutes total.  I think it was a little worrisome for them to be there.  My kids don't talk about their fears much, but they certainly have them. And who could blame them?  They have been through so much!

I came home from the hospital on the 23rd and struggled to keep my pain levels under control.  It was exhausting and my kids didn't see a whole lot of me that week.  I was in contact with the on call nurse through Christmas Day.  She was good at suggesting things that might help.  Christmas morning the kids woke me up and we opened gifts. It was fun, most of them were from outside our home, so it was a nice surprise for me to see what everyone got too!  And then I went back to bed.  What is funny to me is that a few days later as I was cleaning up from Christmas, I went through my gifts, and it was like seeing them for the first time!  Turns out I didn't remember much from Christmas morning. I will write more about our Christmas later, because we had so much to be grateful for this Holiday Season. We were certainly in the prayers and thoughts of so many.  We were also the center of many acts of kindness and we know that we are truly blessed.

Surgery two, up next!