Magnesium Citrate. Ick; Those are a couple of words you hope to never hear that you have to take. I have to clean out my system pre-op, so only clear liquids the day before and take magnesium citrate, which will have you close to the toilet for the rest of the day. Note to self: Next time, buy the cushiest toilet paper you can find to use in conjunction with the magnesium citrate. The eco-friendly toilet paper I buy (100% recycled!) is great for the environment, but not so good for massive amounts of usage.
Brian and I wake up early and head in for our 6:00 AM surgery check-in time. Brian is more worried than me. I'm still in shock. It's making me nervous that he's so concerned and that he's crying and trying to hide it from me. I am worried for him and don't want him to be alone for the whole day, but we manage to arrange a few family members to check in on him throughout the day.
Check-in happens and everything goes fairly smoothly. I meet with the lead anesthesiologist, who is extremely knowledgeable and has decided an epidural is the way to go for this surgery. She has me sit on the table...and that's all I remember until I wake up from surgery. Brian tells me he was brought in to the room around this point (I do vaguely remember him being there and saying some goodbyes) and that I was very enthusiastic about the skills of the anesthesiologist. Well, I guess that's good.
Coming out of surgery is such a weird experience. It's that weird place, kind of like I imagine pergatory to possibly be. You're coming out of a dream-state but never really sure which part is still the dream. There's glimpses of some real seeming things: heart machines, people in scrubs; But then there's the constant cloud of dreamy half-memories washing over you too. I look at the clock and am shocked to see it's 6:30 PM. Holy crap - that can't be good. Too tired to try and make sense of it all though.
Finally, around 8:00 PM, I get wheeled up to my room. Brian is there, Don, Barbara and Angie. They all clear out quickly, except Brian, who tells me what has happened. They tried to do the laproscopic surgery (which was a stab at hope), but found the mass to be cancerous. Dr. Steiner called in her colleague, Dr. Cappuccini, to assist with the surgery and they opened up the full belly. They took out the cancerous mass which was attached to the ovary and ended up taking both ovaries, the uterus, some fibroids, the omentum (fatty tissue that hangs over the organs), and some suspicious looking lymph nodes. Unfortunately, they nicked the vena cava in the process and a lot of blood was lost and had to be transfused - about 3 liters total. They brought in a couple of specialists, who happened to be next door, to also assist. Aiyiyi. Is that all? Now that lost time I'd been wondering about is starting to make sense. I am happy to be out of surgery, that I woke up on the other side of surgery, and am ready for sleep. Apparently no one else got that memo. I am woken up every hour to be tested for blood sugar, but then there's thousands of other nurses in and out of the room waking me up for various blood tests, changing of fluids, poking, prodding, and so on. So tired.
I describe my pain that next day as a 5 - mid-level. They want me to try and sit up, maybe walk to another chair for a little while. My body rebels with other thoughts of sitting nice and comfy right where it is. We force it into submission and sit on the edge of the bed, but that's as far as I can make it. I'm out of breath. My pulse is unnaturally high, I have a fever, and there's lots of other issues going on that can't seem to brought under control. I think to myself that I've just had a hell of a huge surgery - why shouldn't my body be rebelling against it all?
At this point that day seems like a dream, but I remember a lot of concern from my doctor and the nurses about how I'm doing. Finally, my doctor comes into the room, trembling and stumbling over her words. She's been concerned about how I've been doing and was talking to another doctor about it when he mentions that it sounds like something might have been left inside of me - a sponge, maybe. She is very concerned and orders an x-ray. Guess what? X-ray shows that there is a sponge still in my belly. Time to go back in to surgery. Less than two hours later, around 4:00 PM on 5/19/10, I'm back under the knife. They find some gauze that had been left inside and take it out. It's a quick surgery and I'm waking up by 6:00. I wake up with a smile. I feel 100% better. I am trying to figure out which part is real and which part is dream again, but I know that the whole air around me feels happier, better, more positive. I can rest.
The nurses have other ideas though. Poking, prodding, etc. My doctor, out of concern, has told the other on-call doctors to check in on me. They each have their own idea of what is wrong with me. The internal medicine doctor thinks that I need more fluids and vitamin K. OK, hook her up. The cariologist thinks I might need some potassium and something else - ok, hook her up. Several other doctors have their say so and I'm hooked up to more IVs. I've lost count at this point. Their over-concern for their screw up is turning me into a pumphouse of fluids. I have 4 IVs, and each of those have several things hooked up to them - I estimate that I have 18 lines of various fluids being pumped at one time, but that seems like it has to be an over-exaggeration. They can't possibly have had me hooked up to that many things; Could they?
That night they wheel me down for a CT scan. I'm incredulous. I just got out of surgery and you want to do what? Well, hell. The scan shows there might be a clot in one of my lungs. One more thing to be poked and prodded over.
I should take a second and talk about the nurses. There were a huge variety of nurses that dealt with my care, but overall I had some of the most incredible care I could imagine. Brandi, the super star of all nurses, discussed Buffy the Vampire Slayer with me - she brought in a movie for me to watch. She called from home to see how my health was because she was concerned about all the tests I'd been going through. That was/is amazing. I have a breathing device to help with my lung capacity that we call my plastic peace pipe. She makes me laugh and she is attentive to the nth degree. I feel relief under her care.
I quickly realize that my modesty has gone out the door. The doctors are great about making sure my chest is covered during examination, but there seems to be no regard for the fact that they keep hitching my gown above my waist to look at my belly suture. I don't really care at this point, but I find it humorous.
Nausea is a common experience while I'm in the hospital. Unfortunately the pain medicine makes the nausea even worse for about 5 - 10 minutes before getting better. I get so use to the feeling without the actual act of vomit that I think it's never going to happen...and of course, that's when it finally strikes. Same feeling but I ignore it, and then it happens. And the last little shred of modesty I had goes out the window. I have now done all the most embarrassing things I can think of (I've saved you a few gory details) and have had to be waited upon and cleaned up by other people. They treat me with the utmost respect and humility possible and I am grateful to them for making a humiliating experience more bearable.
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