Momma, I'm coming home.

Aug 07, 2012

 The hospital stay was hard for me. I don't do well staying in strange places for too long. It's just uncomfortable. Plus, I was in so much pain and had to be straight cathed twice! (it got to the point where I was pushing on my own bladder trying to go. It finally came on its own though!) Though I did enjoy my time walking the halls. I met so many great people going thru the same thing and we were all so great together. We'd all walk the halls and just talk and laugh and then laugh harder when we all bent over holding our bellies because laughing is soooo painful. It really made it like I wasn't alone in this. Then came Thursday morning. When I woke up, the nurse came in and started playing with my pain meds. I was quite fond of the morphine at that point, so I quickly asked what on earth she thought she was doing. She said its common practice to take you off the iv pain meds the day of discharge and switch to pills. I almost cried. I still miss my handy little pump. Plus, they sent me home with Dilaudid which, as I told them two days before, does nothing to me whatsoever. Which was why I switched to the morphine. But the nurse on duty was far too busy arguing with every other nurse because she felt she deserved a day off. I guess that gives her the right to screw up my care and pay no attention to her patient at all. Ugh. Either way, a doctor came in and was very nice. Until she put on gloves. And grabbed gauze. And then stated she was pulling out my drain. She said it hurts for about ten seconds and then it's all over. She was very nice and tried to get me to relax, but it really didn't matter. She pulled and WOW!!! Never gonna be doing that again, that's for sure. Lol. So I called mommy and let her know it was finally time to go home. 

The ride home was horrible. The highway was under construction and every single bump was agonizing. But we made it and I hobbled in the door. I was greeted by Joelene, which made me beyond happy. Then I went straight to the recliner in the living room and sat down. Been living here ever since! I had all the prescriptions and mom ran to get them filled for me before my last dose from the hospital wore off. The first night home, I spent a lot of time asleep. But early that next morning, it was time to start reality of this life at home. I got up, which still took far too long, and finally made it to the kitchen where I got a bottle of water and my vitamins. I also was at a higher risk of blood clots, so my surgeon put me on blood thinner shots for the next two weeks. Ugh. Me and needless? No way. I made up my vitamins and gave myself the needle and headed back to the chair. The whole day I kept trying to drink my water, but it just hurt! I could feel it go down my throat and then it felt like a bomb in my new pouch. That pain radiated around to my spine and always made me cry out. I barely got over 10 oz in that first day. The same story went for any puréed foods; yogurt, pudding, tuna. Nothing would go down with making me cry. Saturday was pretty bad. I was completely spent physically and emotionally. At that point, I'd have done anything to take it all back. I was done. 

I don't know what all that was, but Sunday morning I still tried. Got a bottle of hot water again and sat on my chair. I took a sip and braced for the pain. But it didnt come. So I took another. No pain. I don't know what happened, but I drank so much water in the course of that day. I found that foods still had the horrible, painful effect. But I was getting fluids down and that's most important. Thankfully, things just kept getting better (very slowly). I started getting in a protein shake and then came pudding with added protein powder. Then came yogurt.

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