The hospital

I'm back and ready to blog again. It's going to be a long one...

So, I'll start at the beginning. The night before surgery we were up late. I was working on a paper for school and Geoff was helping me by reading through things, etc. Finally I decided I couldn't see straight anymore and emailed the professor. I decided I just didn't care that much. She emailed me back in the morning and told me to take until the end of the week. I'm going to get back to work on it as soon as I write this.

Tuesday morning I got up a little after Geoff to help him get the kids ready for daycare. I made the mistake of telling E the night before that I was going to go to the hospital and not going to be home for the night. It seems that I frequently underestimate what he is going to understand/remember. He was very upset about going to daycare and even more upset because he knew I wasn't going to be home when he got home. There were lay down on the floor style temper-tantrums. It was a mess!

After Geoff and the kids finally left, it was just me and the pets. I figured I would take a nice hot, leisurely bath since this would be something I wouldn't get to do for awhile. So I started the bath (oh and yes, the bathroom is still a mess, but there are towels and bathmat down and I'm pretty careful...) and then decided to straighten up E's room. Straightening up E's room led to me changing the sheets on his upper bunk. Then I decided I should charge batteries in his Twilight Turtle and other toys just in case. I don't remember what else I did, but suddenly Geoff called to say he was on his way home to get me and still hadn't taken my bath.

So I took a quick, hot bath (I added hot water) and ran around to get ready. I packed enough crap to last me for a week, but I figured it was better to have what I need than to have to keep bugging Geoff to bring me something else. I left most of it at home and had him bring it to me after my surgery. The only things I took with me to the hospital initially were my cell phone and my iPad, but I even sent the iPad back home with him (I know how frequently those bags of belongings get lost...).

On the way to the hospital we dropped the coonhounds off at the kennel. I miss them and I hope they come home tomorrow, but this has been much easier for Geoff. Wilco, our weiner dog, stayed at home because the plan was he would go home with my mom (which he did today).

When I got to the hospital we headed to first day surgery. I only bumped into one person I used to work with. At first day surgery I did the standard urine sample, changed my clothes, had my vitals taken, talked with the anesthesia team, talked with my surgeon, signed my consent, had my port accessed and then was promptly wheeled away. As they were wheeling me away I was given some Midaz (a drug) and they laughed and said I wouldn't remember anything past first day surgery.

I remember the sad and worried look on Geoff's face...I think he would have done his 50 good-byes had he had the chance. I remember leaving him. I remember getting out of first day surgery and going down the hall outside the ORs. I actually remember getting into the OR itself and thinking it was a lot smaller than the Cardiothoracic OR (I think), but that is the end of what I remember. That was before 1pm on Tuesday...

I have no clue what time I arrived in the recovery room, but the first time that I noticed was almost 6pm. By that point I was almost ready to go to my room. I know that I asked for nausea meds in recovery, but that is the only thing I remember. Once I got to my actual room, I was told I had 1 mg Dilaudid in the recovery room for pain, but that was it. I opted for a little more Dilaudid when I got to my room, but it made me pretty nauseous, so that was the last of that. My surgeon came to say hi/check in on me shortly after I got to my room. He was pretty proud that my surgery only required one port (aka I only needed one incision).

This incision was done directly inside my umbilicus, or belly button. Initially, I had a tegaderm (clear dressing) with a folded up gauze pad over my incision. My stomach was very distended because of the gas they put in to do the surgery and overall I was very puffy from the fluids and even more likely from being inverted for hours as they did the surgery.

Geoff showed up at about 7pm. He brought all my bags. The most important was my super cute monogrammed "31" bag filled with magazines, lotions, colgate "wisps" of every flavor, hard candies, facial cleansing wipes, grippy socks, good luck omens of all sorts. Almost every single thing in the bag, including the bag itself, was a cancer gift from friends or family. I felt really pampered and loved just bringing that bag. I also had my computer bag and a bag with a change of clothes and my own quilt/pillow. In addition to all that I packed, Geoff showed up with some beautiful tropical flowers and a wiener dog balloon (something isn't working between my phone and blog or I would include pics)

Geoff set everything up in my room so that it was convenient for me and then hung out for the rest of the evening. He also helped me changed into my own clothes. A few friends/previous co-worker came to see me before 8pm and after that everything for me is kinda fuzzy. I slept most of the evening. Before Geoff left I decided to attempt my first walk and walked from my room to the nurses station and back (my room was the 2nd to last in a hallway).  I slept most of the night. Of course I was woken every 1-2 hours, either by my need to go to the bathroom or for vitals or for my weight or something else. At some point around 4 or 5 am I woke up to go the bathroom, went for another walk and crawled back into bed. As soon as I had tucked myself back in bed, positioned myself, tucked in heat packs, the NA (nursing assistant) came in to get my weight. I asked her to wait until next time I had to get up. She said fine, but she and the nurse woke me up less than an hour later for the weight and a heparin shot.

I was mortified to see that my pre-op weight and my post-op weight differed by the addition of over 5 lbs. At the same time this was not surprising if you saw what I looked like. After the weight, I went to the bathroom again (I did this a lot with the IV fluids). Once I got myself back in bed I realized I was feeling really nauseated again. By this time I had been trying to take Oxycodone for pain. I called for nausea meds, but before anyone could have even got to me I was sick a good 5+ times. Luckily Geoff had positioned the appropriate bucket close to my bed so I could reach it. After I had the nausea meds I went back to sleep again. There was a resident that came by to see me and I decided I should get up and get moving before everyone rounded on me.

I got up and brushed my teeth, washed up and went for another walk. Then I had another friend/former co-worker that stopped by to visit for a bit. I never actually had the whole team round on me, typical UW style, but I'm not surprised...I um, sort of asked for as few residents as possible and my wonderful NP knows my whole resident post-Ella's birth story so she was kind enough to oblige.

At about 8am my wonderful NP rounded on me herself. I talked to her about the nausea and feeling like I couldn't take any pain meds. We decided to try 800 Ibuprofen with Tylenol in between doses. She told me I could try whatever I wanted and she would work with me. She also said she had somewhere else she had to be but she would check back in a few hours and see how I was doing. So I tried the Ibuprofen with oral Zofran for nausea. Within an hour I felt like a different person. My wonderful NP also said I could ditch the stinking IV fluids, so I was a pretty happy person by the time she left.

My nurse and my NP both joked about hiding out in my room bc it was peaceful and "not crazy." They were right. I was debating asking to stay just because I knew going home would be nuts! Geoff and Ella showed up around 10 am and I figured I would get a taste of going home by having Ella in my room. She proved me wrong. She was extremely somber and wouldn't talk to me. Then my breakfast tray arrived and she ate 1 of my 2 pancakes. After that she would talk, but that was mostly to share my yogurt with Geoff (I had no appetite yet). Shortly after eating she fell asleep and stayed asleep until we left. She was amazing...Ok, my room was amazing. Did I mention that I had a great view of the lake from my room? It was really nice...

Anyway, since the Ibuprofen/Tylenol combo worked with the oral nausea meds, I decided I was ready to go home. My NP came back and wrote my discharge orders. We decided on a script for Norco (another narcotic) for sleep and such. I've been using it occasionally and it is working much better than the Oxy did for me.

It took longer than it needed to get out of the hospital bc once again pharmacy didn't send up the appropriate heparin flush for my port for hours. Like 3 hours. I'm not kidding. I met with everyone I needed to in the meantime and signed all necessary paperwork. Eventually we left. Oh btw, my port worked beautifully the whole time I was there...Anyway, so we left. I reluctantly agreed to a wheelchair ride out. I convinced the NA to drop me off at one of the benches outside the hospital as Geoff took our ticket to the valet. My favorite valet saw us immediately, took the ticket from Geoff and RAN, literally, to get my car. He is amazing!

Once I got home, I loved on E a bunch. Talked with my mom a little. Loved the flowers she got for me, took a shower, and went to bed. From that point on, I mostly slept through to today.

Today I got up to help Geoff get the kids ready, but it's interesting how to help right now...both kids tend to get easily distracted and require being picked up at some point and I can't life them at this point. I'm technically not supposed to life either of them or anything 15+ lbs for 6 weeks, but my wonderful NP said we would reevaluate at my appointment in 2 weeks. I also can't swim with them, bathe, etc. I am REALLY REALLY glad that next week is Thanksgiving and a short work week because I have no idea how I am going to do this otherwise.

Ella does not understand me not picking her up. E does better with it, but...my mom left after noon today. She got E home from preschool, made lunch and tucked him in for a nap. He wanted to sleep with me and I though it seemed fine. We slept most of the afternoon and then he threw up all over me. Many times. I'm pretty sure I never actually lifted him up as I was getting us cleaned up, stripping the bed, helping him in the bath, but it was hard to resist picking him up.

Geoff and Ella came home while E was still in the bath. Geoff put clean sheets on the bed and took care of everything else so the house is back the way it should be. E and I are in our pjs and cuddled up watching tv and relaxing. Ok, a few more minutes and I need to get back to reality...school work.

Overall though, I'm doing better than I thought I would. I still need help with the kids and I need to take it easy, but otherwise I almost forget that I had surgery.

One more thing...so I'm allergic to adhesives. When I took the dressing off last night before my shower I had large unpopped blisters all around my belly button. Of course, I know better, but I couldn't resist and popped them all. Just thought I would share this...

Oh, and one more thing...I'M DONE!