Day after Surgery

07/06/11
Day after surgery…
Well I didn’t sleep much. I watched a lot of TV. chatted with the nurses, and dosed in between pain meds or taking a hit off the pain pump. Nate had told me the night before to just call him if I couldn’t sleep or I really needed anything. So at 6:30am I did just that lol. I called asked him to get up get ready and maybe he could hang out with me for awhile in the am and then if I wasn’t able to go home he could go back home in the afternoon and then at 5pm work on Sally with Somer’s the motor rebuilder. At 7 am my plastic surgeon strolls in. I was hoping Nate would have been there when the Docs showed up but Dr. Jewett showed up kind of early today.
Let me quickly explain the in and out of bed process so you understand ….
I could tell you that I had got up to pee every hour on the half hour to pee and it was just ridiculous. It was a huge process. First of all It hurt to sit up and hurt even worse to stand up. The nurse told me my body gait was way out of whack. She said I sat and stood as if I had just been slugged in the stomach. My shoulders rolled forward and I was so hunched forward. It hurt to breathe when I was sitting up or standing also. SO to get out of bed I’d have to push the nurse call button because I didn’t have the strength to pull the blankets off of me and plus my arms hurt so bad to move from away from my side. They would help me out of bed and in to the bathroom and then back to the bed. The nurse would then flatten the bed so I could get in and start to fold it back into a sitting position as I go into bed. I am not allowed to lay down past 20 degrees. NO one really told me why but I just couldn’t lay down past 20 degrees till after my post opp. appointment. So once in bed, the nurse wedges a pillow in between me and the bed railings, the she will pack my chest and armpits with 4 bags of ice under my gown, I rest a pillow over my chest, pull blanket up, the nurse will pull the bedside table up against the pillow so while I sit in bed the ice will not move off of my chest. It was a process but we had it down pat.

Dr Jewett showed up at 7am. He washes his hands, then walks over to the bed, shoves the bed table away from me, pulls the blanket and pillow off of me and kind of tossed them towards the foot of the bed. He pulls out the ice packs from under my gown and then slightly pulled down my compression wrap (gauze and an ace wrapped multi layers around my whole body sung.) He just poked his finger across my chest and then walks over washes his hands and says “You’re good to go home, so I will start your discharge paperwork”. I was totally floored and started to tear up as I was in no way ready to go home. I didn’t sleep and I could barely move. I quickly asked how my surgery went. His reply was “I told your husband” Once again floor my tears really starting to well up in my eyes. He is heading towards the door. I spat out. “Well, I’m your patient and I’d like to hear about it from my fuckin’ surgeon not my husband!” Nate was exhausted and he is Nate so I know he didn’t get all the details. I have never been treated like this from any of my surgeons. Even during the consult with him he was short and didn’t want to hear my oppion when he would ask me a question. I was at my limit with this DICK HEAD! Dr. Jewett comes back with “Well, you go what you wanted. I went ahead and did the extender implants on you. ” He turns and walks out of the room. Not really understanding what just happened I let the tears slowly fall from my cheeks not knowing what to do about that conversation. There was no way in hell mentally or physically that I could leave that hospital. My nurse walks in with a wet wash cloth and wipes my face for me just to clean me up. She was the best; she so totally knew I was upset. She told me Dr. Jewett told her that my general surgeon’s partner Mr. Albert’s will be by later to discharge me on his side of the surgery. I must have dosed because all of a sudden Nate was there. I explain to him and he was all good we can go home. We bicker back and forth about me going home. I kept standing my ground that there was no way that I could do it at on my own even with his help. I had the stupid heart monitor on my right side with what seemed like 50 cords that went what seemed like 50 patches all over my damn body, then my IV port was on my left arm and the cord to the IV bag not kidding was at least 5 feet. Me and the nurses kept tripping over it as it was way too long. Nate just wanted to get home to get away from all the cords so it would be easier to help me he says. Dr Albert’s comes in just before noon, and explains he is there because Dr. Cowgill was in surgery but she would come by later in the evening to check on me. He sits down has a great lil chat about surgery from what he knew that took place. He asked what I thought about going home. I was very flat about I didn’t think there was any way I could go home as I was way to week and I couldn’t sit up or stand with a ton of pain. He agreed I should stay as long as I needed. We then discussed how there isn’t much they could give me pain wise due to allergies and normally the ladies would be numb from pain but I had to bare threw it . Nate was sitting me side my bed in a recliner mumbling quietly “I don’t understand why you just can’t go home” and a bunch of mumbled cuss words. After Dr. Albert’s left the room we discussed how he was upset but as I explained I’m too weak and maybe I could get some actual sleep if I stayed one more night, and then maybe I could get the heart monitor off. Actually we didn’t know why I had it. Something about sleep apnea is all the nurses had. Nate finally agreed it might be better.
Kris Gray and Rachael Yonko came to visit me. It was so nice to see a new face, and that of my friends made me tear up a tiny bit. We didn’t get long to chat because Steve and Suzi Wetteland, my mom and dad’s friends stopped but and hung out with us gals to visit. It was very nice for them to come to see me also. Rachael also made me a very beautiful card that I got a ton of comments about how cute it was.
Nater hung out with me most of the morning and afternoon watching TV or playing on the laptop until he had to go home to meet Somer’s to work on Sally’s motor. He left me the laptop to play with. But I felt bad because as soon as I would get on it I would doze off to sleep. Lol Later that evening my mom, dad, Kelli and Bailey showed up to visit.
I had totally forgotten about Dr. Cowgill possibly stopping by so when she did it threw me off a bit but I love chatting with her she is so nice and friendly. Doc went over how her part of the surgery went. Even told me things that Nater forgot to mention which kind of upset me he didn’t tell me. I had the heart monitor as over kill she said lol I guess the anesthesiologist had a hard time getting the metal thing into my throat as my jaw popped she nicked the back of my throat somewhere and so they had to add the heart monitor to watch me ?????? and something about sleep apnea I don’t quite understand it still. I was even to go to a special recovery unit but she managed to get me into where I was, and thought it was ok. Dr. Cowgill also mentioned that she didn’t believe the cancer mass was as aggressive as first assumed. I believe I remember her stating that the mass was also hormone fed. But I was a little dopey when she was there. This means if it is hormone fed they will have to give me hormone inhibitors, which will throw me in to menopause. GOOD TIMES HUH?
I basically slept what felt like all night but according to Liz my night nurse she said I slept every two hours until she walked in to give me new meds. But would be asleep until the next time she came in the room. I also didn’t have to pee so much … yes that was important lol it is a huge process to get in and out of bed. Come to find out each surgeon had wrote I needed 1.5 IV bags so I was getting 3 in a certain amount of time. So they were pushin the IV pretty fast plus I was drinking a TON of water. Until someone realized and asked one of the surgeons and they said it should have only been 1.5 IV bags lol. My pee is still blue green from the dye they injected into me. I thought it was just you know that special blue dye they add to toilets. Well duh Jill, I was peeing in a bucket so they could watch my out take levels. The nurses and I laughed about this every time I peed.
The pain levels well they were startin to slowly ween me off the fentanyl pain pump so I couldn’t be pushing it every 8 minutes. I only used it when I got in and out of bed. So now I’m only on 2 percocets every 4 hours for pain. It don’t cut it either.