Surgery

Apr 16, 2010

Sooo...here I am, 4 days post-op and feeling pretty good.  I can't say I feel great, but I feel a lot better than I thought I would.  I will try and keep this brief because I know it's a little bit boring, but I want to get it all down before I forget it all.

April 13th (Surgery Day)!!!  - I got the phone call the day before that I needed to check into Palms of Pasadena at 10:30am.  I guess it was my thinking that I would be in surgery no later than noon, seeing as how I had to take my Emend 2 hours before I left for the hospital.  Anyhow...we left the house almost an hour early, which only normally takes 30 minutes to get there.   Of course, we turn onto the interstate and there is traffic backed up as far as the eye can see.  :-(  At this point I am in a major panic.  I am in my car with Patrick and my Mom and Nana are behind us.  I guess the cause of the back up was that a truck with oxygen tanks had turned over and they had to get hazmat to get out there and clean up.  Anyhow...I decided to pull into the left lane and work my way up as far as I could.  If I had not down that, we would not have gotten there on time at all.   We pull up with less than a minute to spare, and I see my Dad standing outside.  He proceeds to tell me that my surgery is not scheduled until 3:00!!!  So, I figure there must be some kind of mistake, I go inside and check in and ask and they tell me that 3:00 is what they have, but there is a lot to be done in that time.  So...about 10 minutes later I get ushered back to same day surgery, where I met the first of all of my amazing nurses!!!  Anne was her name and her smile would light up any room.  To make a long story short, I had to get an IV started, pee in a cup to make sure I wasn't pregnant (even though I was having my period at the time), pay my co-pay and then wait! I waited from about 11:00 to 2:00 in same say surgery when they made me say goodbye to my family and then took me to pre-op.  Of course there were some tears saying goodbye to Mom, Nana and Patrick.  My Dad had to go back to work, but did come back and wait while I was in surgery.  In pre-op my nurse was April...again, fantastic nurse.  I asked her a few questions and she let me get up and go to the bathroom.  Dr. Rehnke came by to see me and told me it was almost time.  Then my anesthesiologist, Darryl came to see me.  He was really nice, and of course, super cute.  He gave me my pre-surgery cocktail which relaxed me a little bit.  Next thing I know, I am on the way to the operating room.  I had to shuffle my fat butt off of my bed and onto the table.  This is when I got a little nervous.  They had me position myself where my head when hanging back off of this large bump in the middle of my shoulders on the table.  Then Darryl put something in my IV and I remember asking him if it was fire water because it burned like hell and then...I was out!!!  I guess during the surgery they had some problems putting my central line in and called out to let my family know.  Patrick answered the phone and just kept saying uh huh, uh huh, uh huh...of course my Mom was freaking out and must have yelled at him never to do that to her again!  They told them they got it in, but because of that the surgery would take a little bit longer.  I don't remember much, but I woke up in recovery with my nurse Rita or Regina, who kept saying she would take good care of me because her sisters name was Rachel.  I must have gone to sleep again, because I woke up in ICU.  I don't remember my first nurse in there, but my Mom didn't really care for her, but shift change happened shortly after and I got Amy for the evening.  She was another really nice nurse.  I think in the course of the evening I drove her crazy...questions, questions and more questions.  I kept watching my  blood pressure and my stats all night.  I maybe slept an hour that night total.  I wasn't in pain because of the morphine pump.  I just know I wanted to get up and walk that night...it was KILLING me to lie there and not move.  Well, that's it for day one.  I will write more about the rest of the stay later on...I am soooo sleepy right now. :-)

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