Surgery and first day of recovery
Thank you all for all of your prayers and texts. They all mean a lot to me. Here is a blow by blow detailed summary of yesterday's surgery.
I started my total fast at 11:45 pm Monday night. At 6:45am I did some nasty and unpleasant prep. We checked in at 9:30 am. I had to wait in the family waiting room until 2:30pm. That got to be brutal for me. The worse position for me is sitting up right. Even with the doughnut, it is painful.
At about 2:30pm I got called in to get ready for the surgery. Part of the fun is getting an IV. This nurse was very nice and compassionate and she assured me of her high success rate in getting a good stick the first time. Well...... take a wild guess as to what happened. Yep, got into the vein ok, but it collapsed on her and she had to keep poking until having to give up on that one and pull out. She then went to my left arm by my elbow, inside of the arm (rub that spot and see how sensitive that is) and poked. This time the vein twitched around a bit so she had to go fishing until she finally got a good stick. So much fun.
To keep me warm, they had a nice thin blanket that a hot air blower inflates. That is so heavenly. I dozed on and off until they brought in Jim at around 3:30pm.
Then started another round of waiting.
One of my dear friends sends a text with a picture of nachos on it. So naturally we starting talking about all the foods I was fantasizing about... hamburger from Birds with a dozen raw oysters as an appetizer, a strawberry milkshake with some caramel drizzled over the top. Bacon wrapped scallops, etc. This was killing Jim too since he had not eaten since early in the morning. He finally had enough and told me to change the topic.
For the next couple of hours nurses and doctors trickled in. When the anesthesiologist came in, I told him I have a small mouth and needed a small tube. He took a note of that and said no problem. I finally got wheeled into the OR. They gave me a shot in the IV just before they took me away, I think it was a sedative. As always in the OR I looked around, trying to observe as much as I can before going under. This time, they held an oxygen mask to my face and kept pumping it. I felt myself getting drowsy and fought off the sleep until I realized this was getting pretty boring so I just let go and the lights went out.
I woke up an hour later in the recovery. I remember they gave me a shot of Morphine to help with the pain as I woke up. The good news is that the area of surgery wasn't all that sore. But unfortunately, my throat was in EXTREME PAIN. Two surgeries ago my throat was messed up by the breathing tube. This time was exponentially worse. I never experienced that kind of pain before in my throat. What made it even worse was that I had to swallow fluids to get hydrated again and to take some Tylenol. The pain was so bad I couldn't keep anything down and I could barely force myself to swallow. It was a nightmare.
Dr. Wexner was the main surgeon this time. He told Jim that the abscess was the size of a golf ball and that there wasn't any fistula with this one. So no fistula is good news. But jeepers, an abscess the size of a golf ball?! There isn't room down there for something that big. No wonder I was having a hard time sitting and walking.
So back to the recovery room. I had an amazing nurse who was trying her best to move things along, but was also patient and understanding. They won't let you out of the hospital until you can urinate. Unfortunately, being so dehydrated, made this a big issue. After a failed attempt in the bathroom, the nurse did a bladder scan... think ultrasound. That showed I was bone dry. Fantastic! That meant I had a much longer time to spend in recovery trying to force fluids down a very raw and painful throat. Little by little I was able to keep more fluid down. Finally, around 10:45pm I was able to trickle out a little bit of fluid so thus I could finally be discharged.
I slept the whole way back to the rectory and when we arrived, I was starving! It had been about 24 hours since my last meal. So we pulled out a frozen 4 cheese pizza, added, rather covered it, with goat cheese and enjoyed. I ate half the pizza and topped it off with strawberry ice cream for desert.
Time to finally crash..... except my bleeping sore throat made sleep nearly impossible. I dozed off and on, counting down the minutes till the next oxy, woke up repeatedly choking and coughing up stuff. Not fun at all.
This morning, I felt well enough to have more pizza, a mango, and tea.... except I couldn't keep any of it down. It made for a brutal day hugging the porcelain and being wiped out.
Later in the day, the house keeper made this heavenly chicken soup. and a bunch of other goodies. This time Jim took charge and allowed me to only eat a little and to sip tiny amounts at a time. It worked. I kept it all down and am feeling a little stronger.
WHEW!!!!! What a bleeping week. I could easily be angry at it all, but in all honesty, what good would that do? I am surrounded in prayer by you all and countless others. I am under the care of the best doctors in the world. I have an amazing place to stay down here with a great friend and housekeeper. And I have a wonderful friend in Jim taking care of me, nursing me back to health.
I am miserable now and honestly very scared of what lies ahead, but I am going to enjoy this crazy journey and find the amusement in all of the craziness and brutally painful times. This attitude helps so much and diminishes the misery and fear.
Thank you all for your prayers, love, support and encouragement. I couldn't make it through all of this without you.
Please know that I am offering all this fun up for you and your intentions.
I started my total fast at 11:45 pm Monday night. At 6:45am I did some nasty and unpleasant prep. We checked in at 9:30 am. I had to wait in the family waiting room until 2:30pm. That got to be brutal for me. The worse position for me is sitting up right. Even with the doughnut, it is painful.
At about 2:30pm I got called in to get ready for the surgery. Part of the fun is getting an IV. This nurse was very nice and compassionate and she assured me of her high success rate in getting a good stick the first time. Well...... take a wild guess as to what happened. Yep, got into the vein ok, but it collapsed on her and she had to keep poking until having to give up on that one and pull out. She then went to my left arm by my elbow, inside of the arm (rub that spot and see how sensitive that is) and poked. This time the vein twitched around a bit so she had to go fishing until she finally got a good stick. So much fun.
To keep me warm, they had a nice thin blanket that a hot air blower inflates. That is so heavenly. I dozed on and off until they brought in Jim at around 3:30pm.
Then started another round of waiting.
One of my dear friends sends a text with a picture of nachos on it. So naturally we starting talking about all the foods I was fantasizing about... hamburger from Birds with a dozen raw oysters as an appetizer, a strawberry milkshake with some caramel drizzled over the top. Bacon wrapped scallops, etc. This was killing Jim too since he had not eaten since early in the morning. He finally had enough and told me to change the topic.
For the next couple of hours nurses and doctors trickled in. When the anesthesiologist came in, I told him I have a small mouth and needed a small tube. He took a note of that and said no problem. I finally got wheeled into the OR. They gave me a shot in the IV just before they took me away, I think it was a sedative. As always in the OR I looked around, trying to observe as much as I can before going under. This time, they held an oxygen mask to my face and kept pumping it. I felt myself getting drowsy and fought off the sleep until I realized this was getting pretty boring so I just let go and the lights went out.
I woke up an hour later in the recovery. I remember they gave me a shot of Morphine to help with the pain as I woke up. The good news is that the area of surgery wasn't all that sore. But unfortunately, my throat was in EXTREME PAIN. Two surgeries ago my throat was messed up by the breathing tube. This time was exponentially worse. I never experienced that kind of pain before in my throat. What made it even worse was that I had to swallow fluids to get hydrated again and to take some Tylenol. The pain was so bad I couldn't keep anything down and I could barely force myself to swallow. It was a nightmare.
Dr. Wexner was the main surgeon this time. He told Jim that the abscess was the size of a golf ball and that there wasn't any fistula with this one. So no fistula is good news. But jeepers, an abscess the size of a golf ball?! There isn't room down there for something that big. No wonder I was having a hard time sitting and walking.
So back to the recovery room. I had an amazing nurse who was trying her best to move things along, but was also patient and understanding. They won't let you out of the hospital until you can urinate. Unfortunately, being so dehydrated, made this a big issue. After a failed attempt in the bathroom, the nurse did a bladder scan... think ultrasound. That showed I was bone dry. Fantastic! That meant I had a much longer time to spend in recovery trying to force fluids down a very raw and painful throat. Little by little I was able to keep more fluid down. Finally, around 10:45pm I was able to trickle out a little bit of fluid so thus I could finally be discharged.
I slept the whole way back to the rectory and when we arrived, I was starving! It had been about 24 hours since my last meal. So we pulled out a frozen 4 cheese pizza, added, rather covered it, with goat cheese and enjoyed. I ate half the pizza and topped it off with strawberry ice cream for desert.
Time to finally crash..... except my bleeping sore throat made sleep nearly impossible. I dozed off and on, counting down the minutes till the next oxy, woke up repeatedly choking and coughing up stuff. Not fun at all.
This morning, I felt well enough to have more pizza, a mango, and tea.... except I couldn't keep any of it down. It made for a brutal day hugging the porcelain and being wiped out.
Later in the day, the house keeper made this heavenly chicken soup. and a bunch of other goodies. This time Jim took charge and allowed me to only eat a little and to sip tiny amounts at a time. It worked. I kept it all down and am feeling a little stronger.
WHEW!!!!! What a bleeping week. I could easily be angry at it all, but in all honesty, what good would that do? I am surrounded in prayer by you all and countless others. I am under the care of the best doctors in the world. I have an amazing place to stay down here with a great friend and housekeeper. And I have a wonderful friend in Jim taking care of me, nursing me back to health.
I am miserable now and honestly very scared of what lies ahead, but I am going to enjoy this crazy journey and find the amusement in all of the craziness and brutally painful times. This attitude helps so much and diminishes the misery and fear.
Thank you all for your prayers, love, support and encouragement. I couldn't make it through all of this without you.
Please know that I am offering all this fun up for you and your intentions.
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