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August 28, 2004

Surgery has been completed

I'm sore as hell.

My Gall Bladder surery on Wednesday was a complete success. I was in and out before I even knew what hit me. Here's what I remember about the day's events:

My mom and Aunt Carolyn came up on Wednesday morning, and were here about 7AM. They hung around a bit and had some coffee to wake themselves up while I was busy getting the last of my things together for my stay at mom's We headed for the hospital around 7:30 and arrived about 5 minutes till 8AM.

Since I had preregistered the day before, I was sent upstairs and told to fill out a form. I don't quite recall what the form was for, as mom actually filled the thing out for me. The hardest thing I had to do while waiting was to give a clerk my insurance card so it could be copied. I was called back roughly 10 minutes afterwards.

When I got into the prep area, they had me undress and get into a gown. They had two sizes, small and king size bedsheet. Guess which size I got? A nurse came in and took some blood, while another (who was very very nice) came in and got my vitals. She was impressed with my blood pressure ... but I can't quite recall what it was at this time. All I know is that it was perfect. :)

After the good nurse got my IV taken care of, she brough my mom and aunt back into the room with me. I was given a shot to take off the edge, and the last real thing I recall was the doctor coming in and saying hello. Mom was shocked by how young the doctor was, and I told her I thought she was in her thirties. Mom seemed to think that she was in her early twenties.

Anyhow, I was taken away and brought into a room. Mom said it must have been the surgery room, but it had "Anatestesia Room" or something like that on the door. The nurses put something into my IV and had me breathing pure oxygen. The last thing I recall was the nurse saying "you should be feeling the effects any second now" ... and I suddenly saw doubles of everything. I said "Yup, it sure is" and I heard a nurse say "crap, you're not supposed to say anything. take 5 deep breaths" ... I remember taking 4.

I woke up in the recovery room with someone yelling at me to wake up. I could hardly breath, and I told the nurse who was with me. She said it would come back to me, but since I had the tube in my mouth, my body had to re-adjust itself to breathing again on its own. After a few minutes, I was able to breath normally again. During this time, the nurse asked me what my pain level was between 1 and 10. I told her it was at about an 8. She gave me a shot of something to take away the pain. She asked again a minute later, and I told her it was a 7. Again, I received some more medicine. This went on and on until I was down to a 2 or 3.

By this point, all I knew was that I was EXTREMELY thirsty, my throat hurt, and my stomach was beginning to rumble. The nurse brought me a glass of ice water and asked me if I wanted some crackers. I told her no... too salty. Instead, she offered me gram crackers, which I joyfully accepted. That was the best water and gram crackers I've ever had in my life.

The nurse proceeded to take me out of 1st stage recovery into 2nd stage, where I would meet up with mom and Aunt Carolyn once again. After checking my vitals and making sure I was OK, the nurse brought them back. I really don't remember much of this as I was so thirsty, I was concentrating on the ice water and only the ice water. I recall getting dressed, which was an amazing thing in itself that I was able to get myself dressed, and made my way to the wheelchair. Before I knew it, a kind elderly gentleman was pushing me out of the hospital to my aunt's car. I somehow managed to get up and into the car under my own power.

I don't really remember the trip back to Frankfort.

I recall pulling up to mom's house, and getting out of the car. I made my way inside and eventually made my way back to the bedroom that mom had prepared for me. She said something about all of the color going out of my face and me looking very pale. Next thing I knew, I was out like a light. I don't remember what mom called it, but apparently my blood pressure dropped like a rock from laying back in the car for so long and getting up so fast and moving around all over the place like I did. My body just wasn't ready for what I was wanting it to do.

I woke up from time to time, not really remembering anything about the times that I was awake. The one thing that I can really recall was seeing Amanda at the foot of my bed, feeling a bit more comfortable that I had seen her, and feel back to sleep. Once I was up, however, I was hurting. I've never felt this kind of sore before in my life. I put down the pain pills that the doctor had given me, which only served to make me sleepy ... but I didn't mind as long as I was hurting.

I tell you one thing tho, I didn't sleep well that night. I had continued to put down water all day long, even while I was sleeping. I kept getting choked and waking up in a panic. I would take a couple long sips of water and go back to sleep. That night, the water came rushing back to me with a vengence. It seemed like every hour or so I was up and taking a piss. I would come back to bed, drink more water to get my throat feeling a bit better, and go back to sleep. Boom, and hour later I was up again. Wet, rinse, and repeat.

The pain really hit me yesterday, as I hit the 48 hour peek pain point. It hurt to move, piss, lay down, breath, think, and any other thing one could think of to do. I was in total misery. I tried everything I knew to do to make myself more comfortable, but nothing was working for me. I just eventually gave up and sat with the pain while we watched TV.

Today, I'm feeling much better. I'm home again, back to my comfortable bed and my cats. Amanda is at work this evening, but that's OK. I'm planning on going into the kitchen shortly to make some sort of sense of the mess that it is. I'm gone for three days and there are BUGS all over our kitchen.

Bleh.

Posted by ed at August 28, 2004 07:00 PM

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