Surgery story - back from MI (long)

[Guest guest]

Hello all fellow DSers. I've missed you all and missed reading posts

daily on everyone's progress. This is my first post since returning

from MI where I had my surgery December 11th.

Thank you to my angel who kept me informed on Joe and t

and everyone else as I felt disconnected. She did a great job of

keeping tabs on me as well and I appreciate it!

The following is my surgery experience as I remember it. I apologize

in advance for it's length.

I am working on my MBA and had final exams on Friday and Saturday,

December 8 & 9th and after the last final on Saturday and I went home

to bed. As you can imagine, I had a hard time focusing on my studies

and was grateful for everything to be over with school. I woke up on

Sunday and drove from IL to a hotel in MI not far from my hospital

where I prepared to do my bowel prep. I drank the icky stuff and

waited and waited and nothing happened. I started to drink more,

thinking I didn't have enough in my system and proceeded to throw it

up. I then had to drink more to make sure I cleaned my system out

enough to have surgery the next morning. This by far was the roughest

part of my surgery. It worked very slowly on me and was a very nasty

experience once it did work....enough said.

I woke up early on Monday morning to drive to the hospital because I

needed to be there by 6:00 AM for my 8:30 AM surgery. We had planned

ahead of time that I would meet my Dad at the hospital so I could

give him my stuff and I would know he was there, but there was a

terrible winter storm in MI that night and the streets were covered

in black ice on my way to the hospital. When I got to the hospital,

my father wasn't anywhere to be found and I was worried sick that he

had troubles on the road. At 6:00 AM they called me into a surgery

prep room where they had me strip and put on my gown and hospital

socks. Then, I layed in bed for a bit and my Dad showed up!! Needless

to say, I was glad to see him and know he was OK. Turns out he had

been there for hours and was waiting at the wrong door for me.

While in this waiting room, the started an IV in my arm, took my

vitals and I waited for my anesthesiologist. When she showed up (her

name is Jill) she first put in my epidural, which was uncomfortable,

but didn't hurt and then she started a central line in my neck. This

felt a little more uncomfortable and hurt when I swolled.

Fortunately, neither took very long and I was ready for surgery.

While this was happening, Doctor Hares came in and said hello to me

and assured me everything was going to be great. I love this man and

had no concerns at all going into this. I knew he would take good

care of me!

They wheeled me into the surgery room and asked me to scoot over onto

the operating table which was very narrow and I remember thinking I

would never be able to stay on it. Before I knew it, I was being

strapped onto the table and my anesthesiologist was introducing me to

all the nurses in the operating room who all coincidentally had names

that started with J. They strapped my arms out and put a mask over my

face and told me it was oxygen. That is the last thing I remember of

surgery.

I woke up in the recovery room briefly and remember thinking that my

arms hurt. Somehow, I must have conveyed this to a nurse because

almost instantly, they put my arms on pillows and they felt better. A

nurse later came to tell me that my father would be in to see me

later and that his phone number at the hotel was on the front of my

chart and that's about all I remember of the recovery room. I must

have been in recovery for a few hours because I didn't get moved into

a room until 6:30 PM Monday night.

When I woke up the next morning in my room (666, if you can believe

that), I felt pretty comfortable and was very relieved that

everything went well. I had a foley catheter, central line, epidural,

NG tube in my nose, JP drain in my stomach and another IV in my arm.

Dr. Hares was in to see me and said that my surgery couldn't have

gone any better. My liver, spleen, reproductive organs, etc all

looked very healthy. He said the procedure itself went very well and

that he was sure I would recover quickly.

While Dr. Hares was there, he insisted that I use the breathing

machine and get it to 2500 before he would leave. Well, it took Dr.

Hares and my father to help pull me up to sit on the edge of my bed

and I thought for sure that my guts would come spilling out when I

did, but nothing happened except some pain and discomfort. After

about three attempts, I finally got the machine to 2500 and I started

coughing like crazy and then I thought I was going to die. Coughing

hurt like crazy and I would have paid any amount of money to have

someone else do it for me at that point. Dr. Hares explained why my

coughing was a good thing, to clear out my lungs and asked me to

continue to use the machine, which I did.

Tuesday went pretty smoothly until later in the day when I started to

experience some pain. I complained to the nurses and they began to

give me shots of morphine through my central line. Surprisingly

enough to me, the morphine wasn't even touching the pain I was

feeling and I continued to complain. I didn't complain a lot because

I assumed that the pain I was experiencing was normal over and above

what the epidural does for you and I didn't want anyone to think that

I was a whimp. So mostly, I just delt with the pain quietly. Later

that night it got unbearable and I asked for some more pain medicine

and I think the nurses might have thought that I was some kind of

junky or something. Turns out, on the third night after surgery, my

IV machine started beeping and the nurse came in and said that the

machine was saying that my epidural medicine was empty, but the bag

was still full. When she opened the machine, she discovered that

there was a kink in the line and that I hadn't been getting the

epidural pain relief at all. I was sooo relieved to know that I

wasn't a whimp afterall and when they got the epidural to work I felt

so great, felt like I could leep over tall buildings in a single

bound. It was WONDERFUL to have an entire day without pain!!!

While I was still feeling well, I asked to take a shower and a

student nurse helped me to take a shower and wash my hair.

Afterwards, she gave me a massage with loiton and I thought I died

and went to heaven. I was surprised though that some of the smell I

was experiencing didn't go away after my shower and I realized that

it was the drugs seeping through my skin. I was very glad when that

went away and I smelled normally again.

The physical therapist first came to see me when I was in a lot of

pain and I told her to come back later after I had some morphine or

something to take the edge off my pain. She came back later and had

to help me get out of bed. We took a short walk and then I went right

back to bed because I hurt so much. The second time the physical

therapist came, my epidural was working and as soon as I saw her, I

lept out of bed and started walking around the halls. I told her what

happened with my epidural and that I wasn't the person she met the

first time and she laughed and discharged me from therapy since I was

getting around so well. I took bunches of walks after that and was a

very happy camper the rest of the day. Everytime someone would call

to check on me, they would all comment on how good I sounded. I don't

know what people expected, but I apparently, I sounded great from day

one.

On the third day, they removed my NG tube from my nose. It didn't

hurt at all, but felt very strange as it came out. I graduated from

ice chips to liguids but didn't have much of an appetite. My father

would force feed me a few spoonfulls of things every now and again,

but all I was interested in was ice while I was in the hospital. I

finally drank some apple juice and a little chicken broth, but that

was the extent of my food intake in the hospital.

On the fourth day, my bowels began to work and I got to have the

foley catheter removed. This made getting around much easier because

I only had the IV stand to take with me everytime I got up. They

decided my take out my epidural too and I was a bit concerned about

this because I had only had one good day without pain and was worried

that I would feel as bad as I did before. So, my anesthesiologist

agreed to just shut off my epidural medicine and try pain shots for

four hours and if I was in too much pain, they could turn the

epidural back on. I agree to this (trust me, I was negotiating like

crazy) and found that the shots worked just fine (when mixed with

Tordol) and that I could handle life without my epidural. Whomever

talked about Tordol on the list before was right, it's a miracle drug

and helped my pain better than anything else after surgery!!!

On Friday, day five, I got to be released from the hospital and they

took out my central line, IV in my hand and JP tube in my stomach.

None of it hurt, just felt strange. My father drove me to the

Residence Inn not far from the hospital and ater having taken two

Vicodin at the hospital before I left, I went right to sleep and

napped a couple hours once we got there. When I awoke, the recliner I

rented was there and I was able to use it to get in and out of the

chair because it had a built in lift. At the push of a button I could

recline or stand up. This came in very handy! Also, my father had

upgraded my room to a handicap assesible room. My shower was a walk

in shower with a shower chair which allowed me to sit in the shower

for hours on end and get clean and it was wonderful!

My mother arrived Friday night to take over for my father and she and

I stayed at the Residence Inn until Christmas Eve when we drove back

to Chicago. My check up with Dr. Hares was fantastic, he was very

happy with my progress and was OK with our leaving after Saturday.

While at the Residence Inn, I ate cottage cheese, mashed potatoes,

oatmeal, pudding, yogurt, and popsicles with no problems. I even

started drinking milk and had no problems. I was really happy about

this because I loved milk before surgery and was very afraid I

wouldn't be able to tolerate it afterwards.

I haven't had any nausea at all. I haven't had any problems with any

foods I've eatten thus far. I am still on soft foods for another week

and a half before I can introduce chicken and eggs and other foods. I

eat saltine crackers when I get the urge to chew something and so far

that's working OK.

My incision opened up a little bit (the size of a pencil eraser) near

my belly button and I think its because of the fat rolls rubbing

against each other. My doctor didn't think I needed to do anything

about it but keep a dressing in there to prevent any further damage

and keep it clean. My incision will be uglier in that area, but if

that's the only thing I have to worry about after all this, I think I

am very fortunate.

I am amazed at how little I eat and feel satisfied. Aside from eating

only soft foods, I don't feel deprived at all. I like that a lot!

So, here I am, at home with my Mom, taking it easy, walking and

sleeping and waiting to heal more every day. I am so grateful for how

smoothly everything went and for how prepared I was ahead of time.

Doing research and learning from others on the list really helped me

to recover quicker, I am certain of it.

Thank you to Nina for help finding the toilet aid, it has been a

godsend, I haven't had to ask anyone for help wiping (which was one

of my biggest fears).

Thank you to Dr. Hares, the greatest doctor I have ever met. He is

the sweetest, most kind doctor I have ever met and my parents fell in

love with him as well. He spent an hour with my father after my

surgery was over explaining everything to him and telling him what to

expect when he saw me. My mother became teary eyed when she met him

after talking to him about my procedure and answering all my

questions. His chief residents were awesome and treated me as great

as he did. I felt loved and cared for throughout the entire

experience, even when I was in pain. I am so grateful that I found

Dr. Hares. He is wonderful!

Well, this is about all I can muster right now. I have a feeling that

this may be hard to read and full of mistakes, but I'm sure no one

will care. If you have any questions for me, fire away. I will check

in every couple days. I am especially following Joe's progress

eagerly and hope all is well with him.

I'm also happy to hear that t did so well, I was worried about

her all alone in Spain. What a trooper she is.

Have a great day, I need to go take a nap!

Jillian

Dr. Hares

Surgery 12/11

Post-op loss so far 20 lbs.