They wheeled me in to the OR. I was pretty scared, I have to admit, and couldn't keep from crying. There was a flurry of activity, with the anesthesiologist, nurses, etc. I looked up from the gurney and remember that the ceiling of the room was painted black. I saw all the lights and people wearing masks standing over me -- it was just like a scene from a movie. Holy crap, I think they were readying themselves to lift me onto the operating table! What if I am awake through all of this?! What if I wake up during it?!
.... And that's all I remember.
I woke myself up moaning. I came to in a huge room filled with beds and other moaners. A bored looking young woman -- was she a teenager? -- was sitting in a chair watching me. I pass back out. I remember being very determined to come back to, because one of the admission staff or nurses or someone had told me that recovery often took several hours, and that if it takes too long, for some reason you don't get a room immediately and have to wait several hours in the recovery room . Or something. I can't really remember. But I know I wanted to wake the hell up and get into a room as fast as possible.
At some point I felt someone pull a curved pipe out of my mouth and throat. What the HELL!? It didn't feel great. They wheeled me into my room -- luckily all the rooms on the orthopedic wing at this hospital are private -- yahoo! It's kind of hazy, but I do remember most of it -- they had an oxygen tube in my nose and some sort of weird things wrapped around my lower legs -- like leg warmers that inflated and deflated continuously. Apparently this was to prevent blood clots. I was hooked up to an IV and it was much more complicated than the one during the epidural. This one had some funky plastic casing and wasn't coming out on it's own, buddy. I have to say, this surgery was much, much more involved and heavy-duty than I expected. I was a little shocked. They make it sound so simple. (I truly can't understand volunteering for surgery now after going through this -- lap bands? New boobs? No thanks!) I also was hooked up to a morphine machine and had a little button that I could click to give myself more morphine.The nurse told me to not worry about how many times I pushed the button. It was set up so that I couldn't take too much. So push away. And I did. Whenever I started to feel pain, I'd push the button. But I think in my confused state I really didn't know what I was doing too much (although I thought I did -- would love to hear a recording of some those early phone calls I made to my family!) and had plenty of morphine. Too much for me, anyway.
My boyfriend leaves for the night and I fall asleep. I wake up in the middle of the night to silhouettes of nurses coming in and out of my room, checking on me. At one point someone asks me when the last time I peed was. It had been, I don't know, about 17 or so hours? Uh oh. Apparently that was not good. They tried to get me up to go and when I went to sit up is when I really realized that I had had surgery. I felt as if I had fallen off a roof and landed on my back (or, what I imagine that would feel like.) I was stiff and sore and in pain from my shoulders down past my butt. They pushed a walker with a toilet seat on it over to the bed, but I just couldn't go. Something about two strangers sitting there watching was just a little too much for me. I've always had public bathroom performance anxiety, so they left. But I still couldn't go. The nurse said that in some people, morphine can cause urinary retention. Um, great. Why didn't someone tell me this before? I woulda laid off the morphine. I was so used to being in pain anyway by that point, what's a little more? So they had to give me a catheter. Trust me, it sucked!Now it was daybreak. Now the sickness was setting in. Apparently, I do not respond well to morphine. It felt like I had the worst flu imaginable -- headache, hot, chills, dizzy, nausea. It was horrible. I was so sick. I was supposed to go home that day, but ended up staying another night and another full day -- three days total. Lord. They gave me codeine in morphine's place. Guess what? They made me start throwing up. It was so awful. By the second night they let me have some chicken broth but I was too sick to eat it.
Around this time, the second night, is where there was a small-to-mediumish earthquake, a 4.5. This was particularly freaky because I had been half-joking saying that it sure would suck for there to be an earthquake while my surgeon was doing his thing. Yikes!
I awoke feeling much better. They let me have jello! Eventually I was able to leave the hospital. The drive home was brutal. Every bump the car went over sent a jolt of pain up my spine. It was very upsetting, but I made it home.
I would not leave my apartment or shower for a week. After which I would not leave my apartment (except for my daily walking regime around the block) for about a month. Luckily, I had a little siamese-mix cat as my nurse. She kept a constant bedside vigil during those weeks. I could not sit and couldn't use a pillow to sleep on.I took some of the Darvocet they gave me, and either it or the steroid pack made me break out in hives on my face. I came home from the hospital Friday night. By Sunday I had quit taking all painkillers -- "F this!" were my exact words. It just wasn't worth the sickness. I pulled out my drug of choice, advil, and just took a shitload. It worked. I haven't taken any painkillers since.
Gosh, I've come a long way!
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