All Roads Lead to Surgery

By the time my second surgical drain placement was over and I was home from those few days in the hospital, my world had shattered. 

I was trying VERY hard to be grateful. I was trying VERY hard to look towards the future. What was happening, though, is that I had been sick for a month already. I had missed two weeks of time spent with my children. My lovely Christmas and Happy New Year had faded into this nightmare of trauma and physical pain. I can handle physical pain, mind you. I'm not that great with trauma anymore. 

My sisters tried to be peppy for me. My parents and friends were encouraging. I just felt broken. Tired and broken. This time, it took eleven full days after I returned home from the hospital for me to stop feeling like my body was being ripped to shreds. The pain, other than the still-frequent gallbladder attacks, was finally tolerable. 

I was highly protective of my tube and drain (thankfully with a smaller bag this time), to the point of paranoia. I carried my boppy (a baby pillow shaped like a C) with me. I sat with it cradled around my wound, making a barrier between myself and my children. I stopped holding them in my lap in January but kept my physical interactions brief and at a distance if I could. I breastfed from the side - left side only - and kept those sessions as short as possible. I stopped holding my loving little lap dogs, leaving my most closely bonded foxy little pomeranian feeling confused and abandoned. I could not lay with my husband, or feel cherished in his arms. 

Human contact is what I craved 

- and feared - most. 

All of these things were weighing heavily on me. Get through this six weeks. Just get through this six weeks." I repeated this on a loop in my head. 

Five weeks in, I got to see Dr. M. He agreed that we were ready, and sent me across the hall to schedule. My date was set for two weeks later: March 1st, a Tuesday, this horrible nightmare would be over and I would *truly* begin to recover. 

I was so relieved! Facing this surgery - for which I would be completely under - was not at all like facing the horror of drain placement. My pre-op visits showed that my heart won't stop racing and my BP was rising. They put me on beta blockers and declared me good-to-go. 

I hugged, kissed, and cried on my babies Sunday afternoon, February 28th, and then sent them off to spend a third week away from me. They did not want to go and I did not want them to go. Sure, they wanted to see grandparents, but we were all hurting by this point. We are a family that does not spend long periods of time away and here we were about to spend the third week out of eight apart.

I followed all of my pre-op instructions to the 't' and by Tuesday morning, I was ready to go. I got to my pre-op room in a good frame of mind, telling myself how calm I was. My body wouldn't agree with that, though. My blood pressure was over 200 on top and 100 on the bottom. Valium, they said. That'll take it right down. Plus, Dr. M had been told about (and witnessed) the intensity with which I reacted to my second drain procedure. They weren't going to mess with having a high-strung woman. lol 

Valium Smile Pre-Surgery

So, that was my first (and only) Valium. Hubs and his parents seem to think that I have quite the personality on that stuff. ;) lol

I woke in the recovery room in pain, but not as high a level I was in after both drains had been placed. For some reason, though, they wouldn't let hubs come be with me. I kept asking for him. Apparently they told him that he could not see me until my pain was better under control. I'm not sure why they don't understand that him being around me would put my pain under better control. 

Hot mess, swelling more and more

Instead of sending me home, they recognized that I was a hot mess and kept me over again. We got up to my room and I asked to pee. The nurse that night said that I could do that. I told her I was thirsty, and she said that I could have a drink if I'd walk up and down the hall for her. 

I was still in sleepy half-lala land, and did not appreciate being treated like a child. I no sooner thought that, than she laughed about treating me like a toddler. *sigh* I peed, they wiped me clean (what a treat), and I obediently took their lead out into the hallway for a walk. 

When I got back into the room I drank and burped as much as I possibly could, familiar all too well now with the shoulder pain one gets with trapped wind. Someone brought me a lemonade Crystal Light, which was cold and refreshing. Unfortunately, I gave it right back to them - all over myself, my bed, and the unremarkable gray barf bucket. I was still on oxygen, so puking out my nose and mouth with tubes in was a whole new experience. 

I and my bedding were cleaned up and changed. The night was long and nightmarish because I could not feel awake or asleep, or anything but dizzy and trapped inside my body, really. The drain that Dr. M had inserted after surgery - my third, if you are counting - was the most painful I have ever had. It was inserted directly into the soft ligaments in my right side. By this point I both look and feel like a human hole-punch.

They kept me another day and sent me home the following night. I was sore, but so relieved to FINALLY have my own body back, sans gallbladder. I kept looking at my stomach; a foreign mound of ripples, bumps, scars, and fresh holes (nobody stitched the drain sites, so I had two bloody red straw-sized holes). 

Waking up in my own home to recover in private with just my husband was bliss. I felt bad but good that whole 24 hours. The following day, I could not get up energy to save my life. In fact, I felt more tired and weak as the day progressed. I got to enjoy being side-by-side on the bed with my husband for the first time in a long time but I could not sleep. We came back out to the living room and I began to shiver uncontrollably. That was followed by a fever that I blamed on myself for over-covering while I was cold. More shivers, followed by a low fever that was inching up. We called the hospital and were told to come in, just in case. 

(Continued on the next blog post)