Wow. . .Almost two weeks since I've said anything. . . It's a record. . .

Well, in case you missed it, I had my surgery. Didn't wake up screaming or anything like I'd feared (actually just kinda zoned in to wakefulness). Haven't even really had a moment of thought about what happened (besides running down for my SIL the list of things I'm now without).

The doctor said he got "all the cancer he could see." I'm not gonna look too deeply into that, just gonna take it for what it is and move on.

The nurses at the hospital were all wonderful (even at 2am when they had to come in and take my vital stats). I found out one of them is going to be going through a hysterectomy soon, so I gave her my contact info so she has someone to talk to who has been where she is going to be (well, her hysterectomy is for a different reason, but a hysterectomy is a hysterectomy, right?).

Ok. . .enough with the word hysterectomy. . .

So here's how it went (cuz I can never do things the easy way). . .

On Monday (my birthday), I got a call from the doctor's office that was doing the surgery. They told me that they were able to get the operating room for an hour earlier than expected, so they wanted me to come in an hour earlier. Great. So now, instead of getting up and leaving at 5 am (when we'd planned) we now get to get up and on the road at 4am. Whee.

So we get up, and get on the road, and get to Atlanta at about 8 am. (My uncle doesn't drive bat outta hell fast like I do, but he can move when he wants to.) The doctor's office doesn't open until 8:30, so we sit outside for the office for a bit, me getting more and more nervous, because this building just doesn't LOOK like a doctor's office. So, at 8:30 the door opens and the nurse asks me in. She goes over the paperwork stuff and gives me my admission papers to the hospital. Ok, so far so good.

Get to the hospital, get to checking in and stuff. At one point, I was called to the back and went to grab my bag (thinking that they were gonna get me checked into my room and then I'd be taken from there to the surgery stuff). The nurse said no, I could leave my bags out there. I'd be back out. I get into the back and the nurse is like. . . Take everything off and put this gown on. Huh? Didn't you just tell me I'd be back out to the waiting area? Am I going out there in this spiffy gown?

Whatever.

I get into the gown and then it's needle time. I told the nurse (because I know what's coming) that I am not an easy person to find veins on. She said ok and went to looking for veins. Couldn't really find any good ones, so she started an IV line and went to look for one to use for drawing blood for labs. After two sticks she gave up. Another nurse came in and gave a couple more sticks. Eventually, they decided to wait until I was under and my veins had opened up, because they had a better chance to get blood then.

Then came Mike. Mike was the guy who came to talk to me and mark me up on the off chance that I would have to have an ostomy bag. Mike explained to me how the bag was used and all the tips and tricks. He even was nice enough to give me my own bag to play around with (he said that people who had to have the bag did a bit better if they had time to acclimatize themselves to the bag beforehand).

So there I am, playing with my little bladder bag thingie when another nurse comes in. I let this nurse know that my uncle is not really a hospital person, and since I'm obviously not going back out there, hows about we cut my uncle a break and let him go?

So, they go get him, and he comes in the back (it's now getting crowded in this little "room" we're in) and drops off my bag and the security guy was there to check all my stuff in and I showed my uncle my little ostomy bag and told him that if I had to use it, I could pee standing up! The security guard said, "Well, you could charge admission for that, I bet ya."

Ok, everything's checked in, my uncle is off to get some rest before hitting the road back to Valdosta, and I'm bored. (They took my phone away from me to check it in.

Ok. . .I'm going to have to break this into two parts, because I've been sitting still for like two hours and my back is screaming. More of the story later. . . (Sorry. I don't normally break off when telling a story like this. . .)