My surgery. . . (A long version)

was scheduled for Wednesday, March 16 at 1pm. Because of the distance between Valdosta and Atlanta, my uncle and I had to leave my apartment at about 6 to get to Atlanta in time for all the pre-op stuff. I did my day before fasting and was quite ready for the surgery to get on so I could eat when I woke up. (Hey, this is gonna be just like last time, right? I know how this goes!)

We got to the hospital at 10. All the check-in stuff was done and I was ready to go by 11 or so. One comes and goes. And two. I fell asleep and woke up. Now it's like 5 or so. They moved me up to the pre-op area (which was actually the POST-op room) and I got to wait some more. Finally, around 7 or so, my doctor comes in and informs me that the surgery was going to be moved to the next morning at 7:30. His son had broken his arm and he had to go handle that. At first, I was kinda annoyed, but then I realized I totally would have blown my job off for Le Beastie, so I calmed down.

I got put up in a room in "the Penthouse" and they were able to scrounge up some lovely clear liquids to feed me (I got a popsicle, yay!). The next morning, they wake me up and get me back down to the pre-op room (still the post-op room) at about 7. The doctor comes in about 8ish. (I could make jokes about CP time, but he's white!! What's up with that?!?!?) I don't remember if I saw the operating room where the surgery was done, but I do know I didn't see much of anything for a little while.

The first thing I remember was opening my eyes and instantly realizing I was in the wrong room. The room I had left had the bed facing brown walls (I'm almost positive), this one had the bed facing white. I kinda jumped, or moved my hand and I heard a voice say "She's trying to take out the tubes! We have to restrain her." There was a guy yelling at me. Something about a breathing tube and "You've had major surgery." I went back to sleep.

The next thing I remember is a woman coming in. I was sleep when she came in, but I quickly semi-woke up when she started messing with my breathing tube. Apparently, it wasn't far enough down my throat. She's adjusting, I'm choking. A good time was had by. . .well, I hope she had a good time, because I didn't. Back to sleep.

Being awake with a breathing tube in is a horrendous experience. I hope I never have to go through it again. I gag on some of the larger pills I take, so we KNOW I was not happy with that tube. What if I threw up? Would they know I was choking?

Well, since I was awake, might as well get this damn tube taken out. I somehow caught someone's attention and got them to realize I wanted to talk (ha!) -- err. ..communicate. So they got me the picture page where I could point out what I wanted to say. But my eyes wouldn't focus (a combination of not wearing my glasses and being sedated), so I couldn't see them tiny ass pictures. Ok, gimme a pen then.

I don't remember all that I said, but I'm pretty sure the first thing was something about why I had a tube shoved down my throat and when it was coming out. All I could get in reply was general "soothe the crazy tied up lady" talk, no "we're taking it out now!" I bugged them so much, one nurse got mad and said "You need to stop worrying about writing and start worrying about breathing," as if I was not breathing right on purpose so I could have a tube in my throat.

Around this time, I remembered that I hadn't contacted family and friends to let them know I was awake and (relatively) ok. I motioned for the pen to write this and was told no more writing. So I had to mouth the words until the nurse got what I was saying and told me my family had been notified that I was fine (by whose definition?!). Shortly after that, the tube came out. If I coulda jumped out that bed and celebrated, I would have! But I couldn't, so I stuck with sleeping.

I woke up one time and asked why I was in the ICU (I had discovered that was where I was). I was told that I'd "had major surgery" and I was there to recover. I'm sitting there confused, because all the doctor was supposed to be doing was going in and scooping out what cancer he saw. What's so "major" about that? Oh well, he'll be by to see me soon. He always comes shortly after I wake up.

I get the nurse to give me my phone, get it plugged up so it can charge and start sending out my texts. I noticed that I had like 8 texts. Dang, people! Give the anesthetic some time to wear off! And then I noticed something. When I woke up, it was daylight outside and it was around mid-day, so I figured it was still Thursday. Nope. It was Friday. I'd been pretty much out of it for almost a full day. Now I understood the texts. Now I started to worry a little. Last time, I was awake by 10pm from my surgery. What the hell was going on?

When I blew up at an intern on Saturday, because nobody would tell me anything about this "major surgery" that I'd had, except that I'd had it, word got passed back to my doctor, who finally made an appearance. I was VERY mad at him, because he hadn't come to see me since the surgery (he'd called one morning at 1am to check on how I was doing, but he didn't talk to ME).

He told me that during the surgery, I started bleeding heavily. I started bleeding so heavily, that they needed 11 units of blood before they could get the bleeding under control. It was also decided that my bladder and rectum could not be salvaged, so they were removed. lol He actually thought I was mad about loving them (I had been warned that this was a possibility).

I told him, no I wasn't mad about that. I told him I WAS mad about the fact that no one thought to call my family and let them know what had happened, so for a day and a half, they thought I'd died (my uncle tried calling the hospital to find out my condition. The first time he called, he was told there wasn't a patient by my name at the hospital. The second time, they told him I was "stable." My dad didn't sleep for like 2 days, he was so worried.). I told him I was mad that I had to cuss and act a fool to find out what had happened to me. THAT was stuff I was mad about. Having to go to the bathroom in Ziploc bags was not a big deal (at the time).

After he left, a nurse I was cool with told me that there was some kind of control thing going on between the ICU doctors and the "doctor" doctors. While I understand that if I'm in the ICU, the ICU doctors should be able to do their stuff without interference from my doctor, it would have been nice if one of those ICU doctors would have seen fit to inform me, the patient, what was going on BEFORE I turned into a basket case.

But whatevs. I got to spend the weekend in the ICU getting used to my brand new ostomies (the bags used to collect bodily waste) and stomas (where the waste exits the body). I went upstairs to continue my healing. While I was up there, they discovered I had an irregular heartbeat and couldn't keep anything down. Oh, and there was a problem with my blood pressure, too.

I had two IV lines in my neck, one in my LifePort and a couple in my arm. I was taking pills for depression, anti-nausea and I forget what else. I started having hallucinations (which were fun). I did it their way for a couple of days and then started refusing some of the non-essential drugs (I hate taking drugs). I was finally able to keep my liquid meals down, but they were slow in moving me up the food chain (I wanted solids and baked chicken, dammit!!).

About a week before I came home, I started getting these fevers. They'd get the fever down, it'd shoot right back up. At this point, the fevers and that I hadn't had solid food were the only things stopping me from going home! The solid food thing was easily resolved (mmmmmm. . . baked chicken. . .), the fever thing, not so easily. After taking back what felt like at least 2 of the 11 units of blood I received, it was discovered that my LifePort was infected. It had to come out.

LifePort got taken out on Thursday. Now to go 48 hours without a fever. There was talk of me getting out on Monday! Finally!

And then on Saturday, it was discovered that I had a MRSA infection. I wanted to scream.

On Sunday, it was decided that I could probably go home on Monday with oral antibiotics. I was trying to get something a bit more definite, so I could tell my mother to go ahead and rent the car she'd need to come get me, but they wouldn't commit to letting me go until Monday, when the doctor actually said the words.

Of course, no rental agency in town had cars.

So now I'm stuck begging to spend another night in a place I would have sprinted out of earlier. I spent the whole night thinking "Watch, I'm gonna spike a fever and have to spend another two days in here. . ." Well, I didn't. My mom had a car on Tuesday, and I was finally getting out! Well, after we figured out where my mom got lost in Atlanta and got her directions to the hospital. . .