Random Recovery Stuff & Where We Are Now

I got back to my room after the fourth drain was placed, in more pain than from all prior surgeries. 

To be fair, I got the second drain just three weeks after the first. It hurt worse, being close together without a lot of time to heal.

I had the gallbladder surgery/third drain placed four weeks after the second. I never had a chance to recover from that to see how long it would take, because:

I was only one week out of gb surgery/third drain when the fourth was placed. 

Fourth Drain

I could not wrap my mind around how this stomach (mostly the right side) full of teeny-tiny holes and incisions could hurt so, so badly. It seemed wrong to complain about such small marks on my skin. And yet, here they were, making me cry out with every move. I felt like such a wimp. 

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I learned something disgusting in the longer hospital visits. Post-gallbladder bodily functions are... well, soft. Freshly inserted drains do not allow twisting and good muscle-movement right off the bat.

I also learned a fundemental of hospital living: it is always the prettiest nurse who has to wipe you clean after a visit to the bathroom. :/ :/ :/ 

*cue Debbie Downer wah-wah-wahs*

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SO, here we are on the Eve of Easter. March is winding to a close, and I am living life as I have lived it all year long: with a disgusting drain sticking out of my stomach, paranoid that it will have to stay in longer or be replaced yet again. 

Becoming septic and having my body completely crash like that added another layer to my emotional roller coaster. I am fatigued all day long in a way that reminds me too much of laying in that hospital sicker than I have ever been. Thus, being so tired that I cannot attain an 'awake' feeling makes me feel that I must be terribly sick. That makes me feel that I will not get to have this drain removed. THAT makes me feel that I will continue to live in an endless cycle of drains being moved and failing to fix my problems. 

I have also been on heavy oral antibiotics the entire month. They are ravaging my body on a whole new level. I finally hit the last day of their cycle yesterday. I was so excited, taking my final six pills through the day and night! In fact, I even felt awake and present in my body and my life! I felt like a person for the first time since the new year!

Feeling like that gave me something I have not had - hope. I was excited and hopeful that this process really is almost done. This drain has been in for almost three weeks. I will have another ct scan on Wednesday to assess the situation. If it is good, they will remove the drain! If it is bad... who knows what is ahead. 

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That brings us to today (now yesterday, since it is after three in the morning). I was so weak and tired that I fought all day to keep my eyes open. Instead of feeling awake and present in my body, I felt locked inside my head and had to force every word and action out of some hidden depths. This was very discouraging. It is easy to slip back into that traumatized place of anxiety and fear. 

I can't let that happen, though. I can't. This has been the hardest year of my life, health-wise. Even mentally, it has been a challenge. I've tried to keep smiling, keep laughing, keep being open and vulnerable - asking for help when I'd rather hide away and curl up and cry in my bed. 

This whole thing has made me feel weak. It has made me feel exposed to everyone. It makes me feel like a bad Christian to watch people with real problems like cancer have (at least outwardly) a much better attitude than I. After surviving Giraffe's horrific birth and the years of depression and trauma that followed, I finally felt like a strong person. This trial has stolen that strength. 

The thing is, the people who love me are being so gracious. They are giving me permission that I will not give myself to be weak, to take the time I need to eventually get better. They are upholding me in prayer and supporting me and my little family in many other ways. 

My girls, too, are showing so much charm and grace. They keep telling me how glad they are that I am home. The baby asks me if my belly is trying to get better, and is pleased when I tell her it is. :) 

My husband has been my rock. He is still working long weeks, but will hold me when I need held, or help me out in a thousand little ways. My church family, who have not seen my face in months, continue to pray for me instead of writing me off. My pastor calls to check in. My Lord sustains me by His grace. He brings friends to lift me up and pray for me when the fear chokes me and I cannot pray for myself. 

Yes, there has to be an end in sight. It is beyond time. I am ready. We are all ready. By God's grace, this journey - perhaps the longest gallbladder saga ever  - has to be winding down. Please, Lord, could it be this coming week? lol

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)

Catching Up To 2016 & The Start of Everything Bad

I have been away from my blog a lot, I know. I keep feeling the need to write. I am just at a loss for words. I haven't been consistent in updates, but it would seem wrong to pack everything in all at once. I am not great at giving the nutshell version. This is probably going to be long... 

I realize that I never finished posting updates about how last year's garden did. We enjoyed the fruits of our labor very much, harvesting from every plant we planted. 


The home-grown watermelon were an absolute favorite. They were small (we got excited and greedy), but they were delicious. We even got to share our very largest watermelon with our favorite neighbors; a little family that lives two houses down from us. We do not talk a lot, but we do occasionally. They seem to be really nice people. :)

We had a beautiful summer and fall, dotted with trips to the zoo and the apple orchard. Smiles, love, laughter, an early start to the school year, surprising several-week stretches of the flu, but overall a very good year.

In August we got to bring home a new dog, Coco Chanel. :) She is four now, but was three at the time. 

She's a huge bundle of fur that we ended up trimming down to a much smaller bundle. Isn't she pretty, though? She is such a well-behaved girl. Giraffe is especially fond of her. Koala is too, but that passion is not exactly returned in spades. lol I'm sure she'll be more affectionate as Koala grows up a little. 


Winter came but did not really come. A sneeze of snow here, a dusting another time or two. Christmas came, with much preparation. It was an 'us' year. (We rotate on a three-year schedule of my family, his family, just us.) I knew we would not be able to afford a huge amount of gifts so I put every extra penny that did not go into the reduced number of gifts into food. (We were not able to make very much the last several years.) 

Why food? Food means time invested. It means that the girls and hubs and I laugh and sing and get messy together in preparation. We made way too many goodies. Giraffe and I threw ourselves into crochet, too. I made a ton of snowflake and peppermint dish/washcloth/potholders. Giraffe made and sold over fifty dollars worth of Christmas ornaments. It was so fun and so fulfilling! Come the actual day, we smiled as the girls opened their gifts and spent the day stuffing ourselves like pigs. It was lazy, messy, and lovely. It was perfect. :)



A day or two later, we got a cat! This is not a big deal to many people, probably, but considering that my husband and I are "not cat people", it is a big deal to us.

Her name is Katniss (yes, yes... HG). 

She's almost five and needed a new home with a loving family, so we gave her one. She was a slow warm-up (cats do not like change), but she is a lovely addition to our little nest. :) The girls are excited and Hubs and I have been won over, too. 

New Year showed up with plenty of fixings still in the fridge, freezer, counters, and containers of every size and shape. My parents came down to spend the day with the girls and me since hubs had to work. It is the last time I remember feeling like a person, actually.

The Start of Everything Bad...

I went into pains that came and went like a brewing storm in my body. This had been happening for three years. I always brushed it away as trapped wind even though the surgery that gave me that side effect was long past. 

By January 7th, I went into an attack that would not end. Ten hours later (the next morning) I was in the emergency room, utterly embarrassed that 'gas' had brought me here. The doctor came in and declared my gallbladder was full of stones and sludge and was inflamed. He said that I needed to have it removed, but figured the surgeon would rather schedule it. He sent me home with an appointment for five days later. Those five days were pain-wracked days of misery. Grandparents took the Koala and Giraffe, and I laid around wanting the pain to end. I couldn't read, couldn't relax, couldn't play games to pass the time. I felt every minute like I was just waiting... waiting... waiting to get this poison out of my body.

Dr. S, the surgeon, walked into the room at his office the following Tuesday - literally took one look at me - and sent me in to have the offending organ removed. Hallelujah! We drove around the side of their building to the hospital entrance and rolled in, relieved that this long wait (Ha! Five days! Long!) was almost over. 

I was quickly admitted and placed into a 'jump' room so my new surgeon - Dr. M  - could get right to me after the patient he was already working on. The nurses tending me said the same thing we'd heard at Dr. S's office earlier that morning. Nobody could figure out why I'd been left to sit on a sick gallbladder for five days when my bloodwork spelled out clearly that it needed to be removed. 

Dr. M came whooshing in, touting his 26 years a surgeon and his 5,000 surgeries. He said, simply put, that by leaving me the extra five days, my gallbladder had become toxic and would more than likely leak and quite possibly kill me, were he to remove it that day. 

The First Drain Placed

To my dismay, he recommended a billiary drain be inserted into my badly infected organ... aaaand left there for six weeks. He wanted to drain as much infection as he could. We were really shocked by this news but he assured us (stating again his experience) that this was the only safe way to do things. 

My Disgusting Biliary Bag

In truth, we did not have too much time to process it as I was sent down to interventional radiology right after he left. I was supposed to be loopy and mildly sedated enough that I wouldn't feel/be aware of anything during the surgical procedure. 

Instead, I was wide awake and ended feeling the three pops of the needle followed by the indescribable pain of it searing into my sickly, inflamed organ. I panicked and began to sob, the surgeon panicked, the staff panicked... it was hell. I gripped the sides of the table and tried not to flail around or run for the hills. They yelled at each other to add x amount of drugs to my drip. I still feel like crying just at the thought. I wrote a longer version of that in a trauma group but I don't feel capable of reliving it again in greater detail right now. 

Flowers From Hubs and Sis

I was kept for two or three days and then sent home. It took me an additional six days for things like moving around and using the toilet to stop making me want to scream and cry. I finally got into the groove and tried to patiently wait out the six weeks. I also tried so hard to forget about the trauma of the drain insertion itself. I've had too much trauma in my life. This was not going to get me. I said to anyone who would listen, "I am okay as long as I never have to go through that again."

(Continued in another post, since this is already too long.)