Surgery

So, I had surgery a week ago today.  I should have posted about it before now, but I've been lazy.  And healing from surgery and all that jazz.

So I'll go back to the beginning.  Last Thursday is when this adventure began.  Friday was the day of surgery, but I had to do an all liquid diet the day before, plus a bowel prep.  I took the day off from work.  I was starving all day long, only made worse by the fact that I knew I couldn't eat.  I had two Coke Zeros for breakfast, some jello, two bowls of beef bouillon, some more jello and lots of water.

At 3:00 it was time to start the bowel prep.  You might want to skip this part if you don't like poo talk.  I took 2 Dulcolax at 3:00.  I began the nervous wait for things to start happening.  I think around 4:00 I had to go to the bathroom, but it was just like normal.  Then at 5:00, I started the dreaded Miralax.  I was to take a whole bottle (14 servings), mix it with 64 oz of Gatorade and drink 8 oz every 15 minutes.  The first hour everything was still about the same.  We were sitting in the den watching tv.  Then it began.  Bathroom trips about every 10 to 15 minutes.  I remember we were trying to watch Modern Family and we had to keep pausing it because I had to run to the bathroom.  I kept running to the back bathroom (even though we've known each other for 11 years, I still don't want my husband to hear THAT).  Finally, it got to where I needed to be RIGHT NEXT to the bathroom or I wouldn't make it, so I told Eric to watch what he wanted, I was going to be in the bathroom for the rest of the night.

It was pretty awful.  I finally finished all of the blasted Gatorade and then I had to take 2 more Dulcolax at 8:00.  I thought that was kind of overkill, because at that point the Gatorade was going straight through me.  It's quite disturbing to feel like you're peeing out of your ass.  Red stuff no less.  I wondered when this business was going to slow down because I just wanted to go to sleep, but had images of me being fast asleep and ruining the sheets with red gatorade.  Lucky for me, it did slow down.  I took a phenergan because I was feeling pretty sickly at that point.  Blessed sleep soon came.

Ok, all the people who don't want to hear poo talk, it's over!


We had to be at the hospital at 7:30 am.  Once they finally got me back, they told me I had to pee in a cup.  The bowel prep dehydrated me and I managed to squeeze out a little, but it was a challenge.  I got changed into a gown and then the anesthesiologist came and spoke with me.  He was very young and cute I have to add.  They gave me some happy drugs in my IV and then it was just waiting until it was time to go back.  They gave me some more happy drugs in my IV and then wheeled me back.  I remember them putting a mask on my chest in front of my face and them telling me to take deep breaths.  I go to three of them and that's the last thing I remember.

Then I woke up in recovery.  I love anesthesia.  The nurse asked if I was hurting and I shook my head no.  My eyes were fluttering open and shut, I couldn't keep them open.  Of course, as soon as the nurse left, I started feeling pain, but I wasn't able to say anything about it.  She came back and asked again and then gave me some morphine.  At this point, another girl was wheeled into recovery and I remember that she would not shut up.  I wanted to throw something at her, but I still really couldn't move.  Finally the nurses told her she needed to be quiet and rest.  They gave me another thing of morphine.  After an hour (althought it felt like 15 minutes to me) they wheeled me to a room where Eric was waiting.

He told me that they found Stage 2 Endometriosis when they got in there.  I knew it!  We have pictures,  but honestly, I can't tell what is what when looking at them.  There was scarring on my right fallopian tube AND my descending colon and intestine were fused together with scarring so they cut those apart.  Good times.

I'll skip the rest of the recovery stuff, but finally it was time to go home.  We picked up my pain meds and I immediately got horizontal in the bed, took a pain pill and passed out.  I slept off and on for the rest of the day.

Fast forward to today, one week after the surgery.  I'm still not completely healed, but I'm back at work today.  The area around my belly button is still tender and I've found if I do too much I start running a low-grade fever.  I called the nurse about that and it's not high enough to think there's an infection so maybe I got a virus or something too.

My follow-up appt is next Thursday and I'll have more details from the doctor about exactly what there was.  I'm still taking it easy at home since I can still feel some pain.

So that's my novel of a post.  If you made it this far....good for you.